Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Behind the Veil Murder, Mayhem, and the Mystery of Tammy Daybell

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Behind the Veil Murder, Mayhem, and the Mystery of Tammy Daybell · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan, Rexburg, Idaho. It's one
0:22
Speaker 1: of those places I've never actually been to Idaho. I
0:27
Speaker 1: have been on the western bank of the Snake River
0:32
Speaker 1: in Oregon and have looked over into Idaho, and it's beautiful, beautiful,
0:37
Speaker 1: very appealing to the eye. And the environment is incredibly
0:41
Speaker 1: varied there. You know, you got the rockies that run
0:42
Speaker 1: through there, you got these you know, kind of high
0:45
Speaker 1: desert plains and all these sorts of things. But never
0:48
Speaker 1: in my imagination did first off, did I think that
0:51
Speaker 1: I would talk about the state of Idaho as much
0:54
Speaker 1: as I have, I guess over the past four years,
0:58
Speaker 1: five years, however long it's spend. I want to focus
1:01
Speaker 1: on Rexpert today and one of the citizens of Expert,
1:06
Speaker 1: a female citizen. She has been documented in the news
1:10
Speaker 1: now for load of these many years, perhaps one of
1:15
Speaker 1: the biggest mysteries surrounding this bizarre, murderous environment that was
1:22
Speaker 1: inhabited by Chad Daybell and Lorie Valor Dabeill. Today we're
1:26
Speaker 1: going to discuss finally the findings of the autopsy of
1:33
Speaker 1: Tammy Dabell. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body
1:39
Speaker 1: Bags Dave mac been waiting for info. You know that
1:47
Speaker 1: there's that part of me that wants to know, But
1:50
Speaker 1: there's that old investigator within me that knows why I
1:55
Speaker 1: should not know. You know what I'm saying, Because it's
1:59
Speaker 1: not about how much stuff can be flooded out into
2:03
Speaker 1: the media, how much data, how much information. It's about
2:07
Speaker 1: a trial that is going to determine whether or not
2:11
Speaker 1: you're going to have individuals held responsible for murder.
2:15
Speaker 2: There are shocking parts of this case every day, meaning
2:19
Speaker 2: because we've dealt with so many other aspects of the
2:23
Speaker 2: relationship between Lourie Valo and Chad day Bell, and when
2:28
Speaker 2: you look at those two, if you put them at
2:30
Speaker 2: the top of the pyramid chant, you know you're going
2:32
Speaker 2: to find a lot of death and destruction of people
2:35
Speaker 2: and families, all because of Chad day Bell and his
2:41
Speaker 2: first real big follower, Lori Valo. We could deal with
2:44
Speaker 2: that later on. Today we're talking about Tammy Dave Bell.
2:47
Speaker 2: Tammy was forty nine years old. She and Chad day
2:50
Speaker 2: Bell married in March of nineteen ninety. They had twenty
2:56
Speaker 2: eight years together, five children together, just a wonderful little family.
3:01
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're aware of this. But Tammy
3:03
Speaker 2: day Bell was somebody that she was very respected. Co
3:08
Speaker 2: workers said she was a computer whiz. Meanwhile, Chad day
3:13
Speaker 2: Bell was really he didn't have much of a professional career. Really.
3:16
Speaker 2: The only thing Chad had with the books that he
3:18
Speaker 2: wrote that took Mormonism and really went down the wrong
3:21
Speaker 2: rabbit hole and twisted and turned and whatever. But it
3:25
Speaker 2: was Tammy day Bell that actually was the one person
3:30
Speaker 2: that that family could count on.
3:32
Speaker 1: The rock in that family. And I'm glad you mentioned
3:34
Speaker 1: this because she was a rock in the community as well.
3:36
Speaker 1: You remember when you were in well elementary school, middle school,
3:41
Speaker 1: junior high I think when we were kids that still
3:43
Speaker 1: call it junior high and high school. There was some
3:46
Speaker 1: media specialists, the librarian and everyone. It didn't matter what
3:50
Speaker 1: grades you were in, You're going to pass through the
3:52
Speaker 1: library at some point in tom that's that person. That's
3:54
Speaker 1: what Tammy did for a living. So any group of
3:57
Speaker 1: people that passed through the schools there in Rexburg got hod.
4:01
Speaker 1: They knew Tammy. They knew her from church and whatnot
4:04
Speaker 1: and everything else that she was engaged with. And these
4:06
Speaker 1: these children that her and Chad had produced together, these
4:09
Speaker 1: were adult children now and they were in her life
4:12
Speaker 1: and children for a family. They're like little ships that
4:15
Speaker 1: are set of saale left. You bring them to bring
4:17
Speaker 1: them to adulthood. You know, they go forth and you
4:19
Speaker 1: know they're carrying your name with them. Good behavior or
4:22
Speaker 1: bad behavior, they're known, and certainly she was known as well.
4:25
Speaker 2: And it was a good known, you know, regardless of
4:27
Speaker 2: what people thought of Chad, Tammy day Bell was looked
4:31
Speaker 2: upon with a respect and a dignity that really and
4:35
Speaker 2: truly did not fit her demise. To really make this short,
4:39
Speaker 2: because I know we've covered so many things associated with
4:42
Speaker 2: this story. Kind of catching up a little bit. Tammy
4:45
Speaker 2: and Chad have been married for twenty eight years, they
4:47
Speaker 2: had the five children. When it came down to October
4:50
Speaker 2: of twenty nineteen, there was a lot happening with Chad
4:54
Speaker 2: day Bell kind of being the puppet master. And that's
4:58
Speaker 2: why we're dealing with at forty nine years old, a
5:00
Speaker 2: seemingly healthy woman died in her sleep. Suppose that's what
5:05
Speaker 2: we're told. This is the nuts and bolts. Okay, we
5:09
Speaker 2: have Lori Vallo on Lori Valo day Bell on trial
5:12
Speaker 2: right now for the murder of her own children, and
5:16
Speaker 2: then an accessory with Tammy Day Bell's passing. Most of
5:19
Speaker 2: us were totally shocked to find out two weeks after
5:24
Speaker 2: Tammy Day Bell passes away, Chad day Bell marries Lori
5:28
Speaker 2: Vallo on the beach in Hawaii. Two weeks. That's it,
5:33
Speaker 2: twenty eight years.
5:34
Speaker 1: How do you do that?
5:35
Speaker 2: You couldn't wait twenty eight days, no matter of fact, Joe,
5:39
Speaker 2: you know what. It came out in court that he
5:42
Speaker 2: Chad introduced Lori Vallo as his future wife a week
5:47
Speaker 2: after Tammy Day Bell was dead. Okay, at first there
5:51
Speaker 2: was no autopsy. How does a forty nine year old
5:53
Speaker 2: woman just die in her sleep? Chad let it be
5:57
Speaker 2: known that she had been suffering to a number of
6:00
Speaker 2: medical issues. Friends said she wasn't she was trending for
6:05
Speaker 2: a marathon. So we have these two differences of opinion.
6:08
Speaker 2: Chad and Tammy's children claim they were the reason there
6:13
Speaker 2: was no autopsy done on their mother. I find that
6:15
Speaker 2: hard to believe, but that's what they said on CBS News.
6:19
Speaker 2: They said, no, it was not our dad. We were
6:21
Speaker 2: the ones that didn't want an autopsy. I kind of
6:24
Speaker 2: have a feeling that Chad told them we don't want
6:27
Speaker 2: an autopsy.
6:28
Speaker 1: For those that aren't familiar in the medical legal environment,
6:32
Speaker 1: the children do not make that decision. That decision is
6:36
Speaker 1: actually made by the living spouse. That's how this works.
6:42
Speaker 1: He is the one that would have made that final
6:44
Speaker 1: determination as to whether or not her remains would have
6:47
Speaker 1: been examined by a medical examiner a forensic pathologist, and
6:52
Speaker 1: of course they weren't. That decision alone is one thing,
6:55
Speaker 1: But the other piece to this is that we've got
6:58
Speaker 1: essentially a corner that was not in attendance physically at
7:03
Speaker 1: the scene of the death. There's any number of ways
7:05
Speaker 1: we could look at that. You begin to think about, well,
7:08
Speaker 1: what leads you to the conclusion that this is okay
7:12
Speaker 1: to release this body from the scene directly to a
7:14
Speaker 1: funeral home without seeing the body in its context? And
7:17
Speaker 1: I've talked about this in a previous episode about the
7:20
Speaker 1: Dabell family and specifically about Tammy. You get one shot
7:24
Speaker 1: at seeing her in the context of that environment in
7:27
Speaker 1: which she in dwelt and which she passed away. Because
7:31
Speaker 1: the body is going to give you certain information, but
7:33
Speaker 1: the environment always gives you certain information as well. And
7:36
Speaker 1: when you take it, take the body and the scene
7:39
Speaker 1: out of context, you can go down any number of
7:42
Speaker 1: and any number of routes with this, and you're never
7:45
Speaker 1: going to come to a sufficient conclusion. It's certainly not
7:49
Speaker 1: as satisfying as you would if you went physically to
7:52
Speaker 1: the scene an observed Tammy's body in place, maybe even
7:57
Speaker 1: have drawn toxicology. If you're in you can do this.
8:00
Speaker 1: We do this externally, where we draw blood externally, we
8:03
Speaker 1: draw urine externally, and at least have that. But that
8:07
Speaker 1: that wasn't done, David, And of course that's water in
8:10
Speaker 1: the bridge.
8:10
Speaker 2: I got to ask you this, though, a forty nine
8:13
Speaker 2: year old woman dies and she's not under it, She's
8:15
Speaker 2: not being treated by a doctor for any kind of condition.
8:18
Speaker 2: You know, it's not like she had a weekly appointment
8:20
Speaker 2: with a doctor that was managing her care. So it
8:24
Speaker 2: just strains other than somebody saying it's either a religious
8:31
Speaker 2: issue or something along those lines. We can't. We don't
8:33
Speaker 2: need to do an autopsy. She just died, she was
8:34
Speaker 2: already sick. We knew it. Who do you believe that now? Granted,
8:38
Speaker 2: when Tammy dave Bell died, they didn't know. Police did
8:41
Speaker 2: not know that Chad dave Bell was involved with Lori
8:44
Speaker 2: Valo in any way, shape or form. They didn't know
8:46
Speaker 2: at the time that Louri Valo had two children that
8:49
Speaker 2: were missing. They didn't know that Lori Valo's husband died
8:53
Speaker 2: under weird circumstances the previous summer in July. So all
8:56
Speaker 2: of these things that we know now they did not
8:58
Speaker 2: know in rest in Idaho at that time. But I'm
9:01
Speaker 2: really curious, and you mentioned the coroner not being there.
9:03
Speaker 2: We've got a forty nine year old woman dies in Rexburg, Idaho.
9:07
Speaker 2: They bury her across state lines in her home in Utah. Right.
9:13
Speaker 2: I guess my confusion here is how is it not
9:16
Speaker 2: deemed a suspicious death? We got to find out more
9:19
Speaker 2: when a forty nine year old, seeming a healthy woman dies,
9:22
Speaker 2: and who actually makes that call?
9:24
Speaker 1: Joe. By law, it's a corner. Corner is going to
9:27
Speaker 1: trump anything any wishes that the family have. Okay, just
9:32
Speaker 1: let that be known. If the corner says that there
9:36
Speaker 1: shall be an examination, there shall be an examination. By law.
9:38
Speaker 1: Now they'll take the family's thoughts into consideration. But this
9:42
Speaker 1: is precisely why corners are supposed to go to scenes.
9:45
Speaker 1: This is precisely why bodies are supposed to be examined
9:49
Speaker 1: at the scene, hopefully more thoroughly, because once that moment
9:53
Speaker 1: has gone you know the old legal adage about you
9:56
Speaker 1: can't unring the bell. Once that tone has gone forward,
10:00
Speaker 1: you cannot recapture it, and it really handicapped this case
10:04
Speaker 1: because you're searching for answers, you're trying to explain, as
10:07
Speaker 1: you stated, this young woman, and she is a young woman,
10:11
Speaker 1: she's forty nine years old. The picture of health. Apparently
10:15
Speaker 1: you do not rely specifically on what the husband actually relates.
10:18
Speaker 1: Because here, here's the thing. If she doesn't have an
10:21
Speaker 1: attending physician, Okay, she doesn't have an attending physician, she
10:26
Speaker 1: doesn't have a pre existing condition, she doesn't have some
10:30
Speaker 1: kind of underlying disease. Who's going to sign the death certificate? Well,
10:35
Speaker 1: the corner has to sign the death certificate. And if
10:38
Speaker 1: the corner's going to sign the death certificate, what are
10:40
Speaker 1: you going to list as a cause of death if
10:42
Speaker 1: you don't know, or are you just gonna make it up,
10:45
Speaker 1: or are you just gonna make a guess? Because in
10:49
Speaker 1: Tammy Davelle's case, what was concluded at the scene that
10:53
Speaker 1: turned out not to be true, that her death was
10:57
Speaker 1: actually related to a cardiac event, there's a term that
11:21
Speaker 1: you hear a lot in the military that's part of
11:24
Speaker 1: our vernacular now. I think because of all the military
11:27
Speaker 1: movies that are out there, particularly in recent history, and
11:29
Speaker 1: its eyes on. I wonder what that means for most
11:33
Speaker 1: of us. Eyes On is that you have a presence
11:37
Speaker 1: in a location where you can visualize something. Some people
11:42
Speaker 1: refer to this as visualization. I've actually heard this term
11:45
Speaker 1: called actualization, which I've never really understood, but I do
11:51
Speaker 1: know this. When it comes to the death of Tammy Davell,
11:56
Speaker 1: and you've got this relatively young woman who use by
12:01
Speaker 1: most estimates, the picture of health, it's important to have
12:04
Speaker 1: eyes on, and I think that you need a corner
12:06
Speaker 1: that's there that can observe the environment, observe the people
12:11
Speaker 1: in her environment, and most importantly, can observe her. We
12:16
Speaker 1: think about that.
12:16
Speaker 2: Dave following along with criminal cases dealing with death. I
12:22
Speaker 2: have learned so much listening to you, as have many
12:26
Speaker 2: of us. Okay, because there are certain things we just
12:29
Speaker 2: don't know. And I'm going to ask you this because
12:30
Speaker 2: and I hope it's not a stupid question, but you
12:34
Speaker 2: have in this particular case, everybody thought she was in
12:36
Speaker 2: good health seemed to be in good health and she
12:39
Speaker 2: dies in her sleep. Her husband describes her coughing, and
12:43
Speaker 2: he describes her as being a little sick prior to death.
12:46
Speaker 2: But she was under no treatment of any doctor and
12:50
Speaker 2: she dies. Now you have the paramedics. They call nine one.
12:53
Speaker 2: When paramedics come out and they declare her debt. I guess,
12:56
Speaker 2: and I know it's different in every state. Who actually
12:58
Speaker 2: makes that declaration. If you have somebody who dies at home,
13:02
Speaker 2: is the corner called to the scene right away to
13:05
Speaker 2: come and see the entire situation as it's laid out,
13:08
Speaker 2: even if it doesn't look like anything criminal has taken place.
13:12
Speaker 1: First off, in a case like this, everything is up
13:16
Speaker 1: for questioning. I encourage anybody when you're dealing with something
13:20
Speaker 1: that's discomplicated, you have to have answers. They have to
13:24
Speaker 1: be scientifically sound the responses that you receive, and with
13:31
Speaker 1: any kind of scientific pursuit, inquiry into these events, particularly
13:38
Speaker 1: as it applies to death, is key. An inquiry means
13:42
Speaker 1: you're going to have to be present in that moment
13:46
Speaker 1: and to observe you have to have demonstrative evidence the
13:50
Speaker 1: one baseline, where in most cases, not every but in
13:54
Speaker 1: most cases where a death is not necessarily reportable to
13:58
Speaker 1: the corner. It's where you have an individual that is
14:02
Speaker 1: in a terminal phase, where they've been diagnosed, and most
14:07
Speaker 1: of the time that's going to throw them into the
14:09
Speaker 1: category of hospice care. I think many of our listeners
14:12
Speaker 1: are familiar with hospice and unfortunately, some are incredibly familiar
14:17
Speaker 1: with it because they've had to endure a death of
14:20
Speaker 1: a loved one. Many times those deaths are not reportable.
14:24
Speaker 1: The only person that's actually contacted in a case like
14:27
Speaker 1: that is going to be a hospice nurse. Well, I
14:29
Speaker 1: think that you and I, Dave can agree that Tammy
14:32
Speaker 1: day Belt didn't fit into the status.
14:35
Speaker 2: I compare her to at forty nine, and compare that
14:38
Speaker 2: to my father in law who died at seventy three.
14:41
Speaker 2: He was under hospice care for the weeks leading up
14:43
Speaker 2: to his passing, and we all gathered around as he
14:46
Speaker 2: got worse and said our goodbyes. And when he passed,
14:49
Speaker 2: everybody was on HND. We knew it was coming. Tammy
14:51
Speaker 2: Dabell went to bed the night before. She's forty nine
14:54
Speaker 2: years old and she dies. And that's why I'm saying
14:58
Speaker 2: this is not normal. I would expect somebody's going to
15:01
Speaker 2: be called. But here's the quack, And this is what
15:03
Speaker 2: I wanted to pitch Joe is. At the time Tammy
15:06
Speaker 2: day Bell died, nobody in the law enforcement community was
15:11
Speaker 2: aware that there was something going on between the Valo
15:15
Speaker 2: children being missing, because at that time they weren't even
15:17
Speaker 2: listed as missing. Nobody was looking for them at that time.
15:20
Speaker 2: When Tammy died, they didn't tie together that Chad Dabell
15:24
Speaker 2: might be in a relationship with somebody other than his wife.
15:27
Speaker 2: Nobody knew that. They looked at this as a forty
15:31
Speaker 2: nine year old woman died in her bed, her husband
15:34
Speaker 2: by her side kind of thing. So in that moment,
15:37
Speaker 2: even though it seems innocent, I have to challenge somebody
15:41
Speaker 2: being able to walk away from a forty nine year old,
15:44
Speaker 2: seemingly healthy woman and just say, oh, it's natural causes.
15:47
Speaker 2: That's not natural at forty nine these days. Maybe back
15:50
Speaker 2: when people died at fifty it would be, but not now.
15:53
Speaker 1: Not now. We're talking about life expectancy now has kind
15:56
Speaker 1: of gone past the marker of eighty. I think in
16:00
Speaker 1: many circumstances, and I love what you said just a
16:03
Speaker 1: second ago, o Dave about this. You don't know what's
16:06
Speaker 1: going on. I'm from Many people know I'm from New Orleans,
16:09
Speaker 1: and so I've written out multiple hurricanes. One of the
16:13
Speaker 1: things about being in the middle of the hurricane, one
16:15
Speaker 1: of the eeriest things is being in the eye when
16:18
Speaker 1: the eye passes directly over in anybody that's never been
16:21
Speaker 1: in that environment, if you were to be plopped down
16:24
Speaker 1: in the eye of a hurricane on the ground, you
16:26
Speaker 1: wouldn't know that you were in the middle of a storm,
16:29
Speaker 1: a massive storm. It's all out on the periphery and
16:32
Speaker 1: it's swirling, but you can't really see it, and that's
16:35
Speaker 1: kind of that's maybe a poor illustration, but that's kind
16:39
Speaker 1: of what we were faced with. I think that many
16:42
Speaker 1: people that are associated with this case, they didn't know
16:44
Speaker 1: that JJ and Tyley were gone.
16:46
Speaker 2: Actually, I think that's a perfect illustration because think about it.
16:49
Speaker 2: Imagine back in the day when you couldn't see like this. So, yeah,
16:52
Speaker 2: there was a hurricane going all around that nobody knew about.
16:57
Speaker 1: Nobody knew. It's very easy, chief amongst here speaking, to
17:01
Speaker 1: sit in judgment of somebody, you know, looking back retrospectively.
17:05
Speaker 1: But there's just certain things that you're going to look for.
17:07
Speaker 1: You got a forty nine year old dead. I've got questions,
17:11
Speaker 1: and by God, I want answers. So that's why it's
17:14
Speaker 1: important that the corner did in fact show up. We've
17:18
Speaker 1: got nine to one one, we've got a deputy responding,
17:20
Speaker 1: we've got ems responding. You would think that you would
17:23
Speaker 1: want ems for a forty nine year old. This is
17:26
Speaker 1: not a terminally old person. You're thinking, there's a chance
17:29
Speaker 1: that they're going to try to do everything. But when
17:33
Speaker 1: they arrived, they noted that there were no signs of life.
17:37
Speaker 1: And it's at that point, you know you talked about
17:39
Speaker 1: the corner coming out. That's when that switch is flipped.
17:41
Speaker 1: When they're looking there and they're trained, you know, to
17:44
Speaker 1: examine a body. Their patients obviously are alive, they're going
17:48
Speaker 1: to try to transport them in. They knew that all
17:50
Speaker 1: hope was gone at this point in time. God called corner.
17:53
Speaker 1: So the corner shows up, and it came out in
17:56
Speaker 1: trial and testimony not only the corner showed up, but
17:58
Speaker 1: also the deputy corner or deputy corner preceded the actual
18:02
Speaker 1: arrival of the corner. So you had two medical legal
18:05
Speaker 1: authorities that showed up at the scene, they observed this frothy, pink,
18:10
Speaker 1: adeimitous cone that there was a lot of vague information
18:13
Speaker 1: about it. First. You know, one of the kids, i think,
18:16
Speaker 1: in one of the television interviews, had said, yeah, yeah,
18:19
Speaker 1: we saw that this was present on our mother's face.
18:22
Speaker 1: The children, i think had stated that they're the ones
18:24
Speaker 1: that insisted in an autopsy not be performed. Look, the
18:27
Speaker 1: person that makes that decision, first off, is the corner.
18:31
Speaker 1: It's not the family. The family can protest, they can
18:35
Speaker 1: say no, we don't want an autopsy, and they can
18:37
Speaker 1: scream from the rooftops. But if the corner deems it
18:40
Speaker 1: necessary that it serves a greater good for us to
18:44
Speaker 1: have the answers, Yeah, I mean, the corner might listen
18:48
Speaker 1: to the family and say, yeah, we'll go along, we'll
18:50
Speaker 1: abide by your wishes. When you're a medical legal authority
18:53
Speaker 1: and you're standing over the body of a woman that
18:56
Speaker 1: has suddenly died, there's no indication that she's got a
19:00
Speaker 1: heart history or some kind of cardiac event. Now it
19:03
Speaker 1: appears that she's probably in congested failure because she's got
19:06
Speaker 1: this pink, frothy cone coming out of her mouth, which
19:10
Speaker 1: is something that we associated with a congested failure. You'll
19:12
Speaker 1: see it with od's as well. You see it in drownings.
19:15
Speaker 1: But here's the thing, you also see it with a
19:18
Speaker 1: six year old death stave. That's the problem here because
19:22
Speaker 1: you know, as we come to find out later, when
19:25
Speaker 1: her body was eventually removed from the grave down in Utah,
19:29
Speaker 1: they found things that would indicate that this was something
19:33
Speaker 1: other than a natural death. So it's at that moment
19:36
Speaker 1: time that the corner makes a critical determination. They decide
19:41
Speaker 1: to rest solely on the information that's being provided to
19:45
Speaker 1: them by a one Chad day Bell. He's telling the
19:49
Speaker 1: corner that, yeh, she's had I think he termed it
19:52
Speaker 1: as convulsions. I don't know what you mean by convulsions
19:56
Speaker 1: when you say convulsions, because if you tell me that
19:59
Speaker 1: as a death investigator, I'm going to say, well, I
20:01
Speaker 1: need you, I need you to put a finer point
20:03
Speaker 1: on that for me. You're saying, she has had convulsions, Okay,
20:06
Speaker 1: give me the dates and time's. Where were you when
20:09
Speaker 1: this was going on? Had she just ingested anything when
20:12
Speaker 1: this happened? Is there a history of family having quote
20:15
Speaker 1: unquote convulsions to any of the kids have convulsions. Is
20:19
Speaker 1: this something that you've witnessed? And were there any other
20:23
Speaker 1: witnesses to these convulsions? Hey, when she had these convulsions,
20:26
Speaker 1: did she ever fall to the floor and bite her tongue?
20:29
Speaker 1: Did she thrash all about and you know, get hurt
20:32
Speaker 1: as a result of bumping into things. I want to
20:35
Speaker 1: know more about these so called convulsions, because if you
20:37
Speaker 1: got convulsions, that means that there's some kind of root
20:40
Speaker 1: there from a medical perspective, a disease perspective, that's causing that.
20:45
Speaker 1: And I would think that if she's having convulsions, and
20:49
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there and I'm telling the corner this, and
20:51
Speaker 1: I'm looking at my kids, well, how do I know
20:54
Speaker 1: that there's not some kind of genetic predisposition. You've got
20:57
Speaker 1: a forty nine year old wife. I'm staring at my
21:00
Speaker 1: kids that are there in the room, and I'm thinking, well,
21:02
Speaker 1: if this is a problem, these quote unquote convulsions, how
21:06
Speaker 1: do I know that my kids aren't gonna have this?
21:08
Speaker 2: But you know, Joe, on top of that, the convulsions, Okay,
21:11
Speaker 2: if my wife was suffering from something, as he indicates convulsions,
21:16
Speaker 2: something more than an extended cough that was recognizable that
21:20
Speaker 2: I would put a tag to it like that. We
21:22
Speaker 2: would have doctors records because I would have taken her
21:24
Speaker 2: to the doctor. This is not normal. This is beyond
21:28
Speaker 2: I've got a nagging cough. I've got something here that
21:30
Speaker 2: I'm labeling convulsions.
21:32
Speaker 1: Doc.
21:32
Speaker 2: We got to figure this out. But the other part
21:34
Speaker 2: of all this, Joe, is that the children are not
21:37
Speaker 2: children at home. These are adult children now who they
21:40
Speaker 2: basically get their information about their mother's health from their father,
21:45
Speaker 2: Chad day Bell. So Chad day Bell is the person
21:48
Speaker 2: telling the kids, telling the authorities on the scene. Everybody
21:51
Speaker 2: gets their information, and whether it's said by a child
21:54
Speaker 2: or not, all of the information is coming from Chad
21:57
Speaker 2: day Bell about the health of his wife, who now
22:00
Speaker 2: suddenly has been having convulsions.
22:02
Speaker 1: He's the proverbial rudder on the ship. Is it a
22:05
Speaker 1: piece of wellspring, the font if you will, from what
22:08
Speaker 1: the knowledge that comes forth relative to her? And here's
22:11
Speaker 1: the thing, I'm curious as to how thorough the examination
22:16
Speaker 1: of her body was at the scene. There's going to
22:18
Speaker 1: be evidence here on her body that's going to be
22:21
Speaker 1: revealed as a result of this exhumation. What did you
22:26
Speaker 1: see in real time? If you're the corner and look,
22:29
Speaker 1: I'm all fine and good. If you maybe you decided, Okay,
22:32
Speaker 1: I'm going to lean not onto my own understanding here
22:35
Speaker 1: and just go with what the husband says. I guess
22:38
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, relative to Tammy at
22:40
Speaker 1: the scene, I'd want to know how thorough was your
22:45
Speaker 1: examination of her remains at the scene? Did you see anything?
22:50
Speaker 1: Did you notice anything? What is it that made you
22:52
Speaker 1: feel so comfortable that you felt like her body could
22:56
Speaker 1: be released, transported to another state and buried. Never, and
23:21
Speaker 1: I mean never, underestimate what a true professional in the
23:24
Speaker 1: medical legal field can accomplish when given the tools, the time,
23:31
Speaker 1: the facility, and their expertise to assess a human remain.
23:36
Speaker 1: And boy was an assessment done by doctor Eric Christensen.
23:40
Speaker 1: He's a medical examiner for the state of Utah. Dave,
23:43
Speaker 1: we really had a big reveal, didn't we? In court?
23:46
Speaker 2: Yes, And I have one question before we go forward
23:49
Speaker 2: with this. My question relates to she dies in her
23:52
Speaker 2: home in Idaho on October nineteenth, and she has moved
23:57
Speaker 2: across state lines and they exhume her on December eleventh.
24:02
Speaker 2: Who does the autopsy. Would it be the coroner from Rexburg,
24:05
Speaker 2: Idaho going to Utah to do the autopsy or Idaho.
24:09
Speaker 2: Is that now out of the picture and it's all
24:11
Speaker 2: being dealt with in Utah.
24:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got a body that is now buried in Utah.
24:16
Speaker 1: You have to have a burial certificate. You know that
24:19
Speaker 1: they're going to crack up in the ground create a
24:21
Speaker 1: new grave and that person is going to be deposited
24:23
Speaker 1: there in the state of Utah. So that has to
24:26
Speaker 1: be worked through now the corner up in Idaho. They
24:29
Speaker 1: can request or you know, certainly law enforcement could as
24:31
Speaker 1: well request a exhumation. They can request it, that doesn't
24:36
Speaker 1: mean that they can order it. And it's going to
24:38
Speaker 1: come down to the state officials in Utah as to
24:40
Speaker 1: whether or not they're going to grant that request. But somebody,
24:43
Speaker 1: probably probably the state Attorney general up in Idaho, got
24:47
Speaker 1: on the phone and had a conversation with people, said, look,
24:50
Speaker 1: this is what we're staring at, and maybe the FEDS
24:53
Speaker 1: as well, because Dave, as you well know, we've been
24:55
Speaker 1: following this loath these many years. We've got dead bodies
24:59
Speaker 1: everywhere different states, in several different states, and not to mention.
25:03
Speaker 1: You've got a federal park that's involved in all this,
25:06
Speaker 1: where you got two children or one of the children
25:09
Speaker 1: where they were actually last seeing alive. So there's a
25:12
Speaker 1: lot of players involved in this.
25:14
Speaker 2: Well, thankfully, at least in this particular case. Doctor Eric
25:16
Speaker 2: Christiansen is Utah's chief medical examiner, and according to everything
25:22
Speaker 2: I'm seeing, Joe, they got oh boy, this, I don't
25:25
Speaker 2: want to be cold, and I pray people that if
25:28
Speaker 2: you're a family member, you will forgive me. They got
25:31
Speaker 2: Tammy Davell's body out of the grave around six point
25:34
Speaker 2: thirty in the morning, and they had her body back
25:36
Speaker 2: in the ground by two thirty that afternoon. Is it
25:39
Speaker 2: common to do it that fast? Joe?
25:41
Speaker 1: I was actually shocked. I'm glad you picked up on that.
25:44
Speaker 1: But you know what that tells me, Dave. The fact
25:46
Speaker 1: that they were able to get her reinterred in such
25:49
Speaker 1: a short period of time. You know what that tells me, Dave.
25:53
Speaker 1: It tells me that there was prep that took place.
25:58
Speaker 1: They knew what they had to do, they went in
26:01
Speaker 1: and they accomplished the task in short order. And that
26:05
Speaker 1: means that you're standing by you have every technician known
26:08
Speaker 1: demand that is saying, Okay, guys, this is when we're starting.
26:13
Speaker 1: The physician, doctor Christensen, he actually was there overseeing the exhamation,
26:19
Speaker 1: so he physically was standing there as her remains were
26:22
Speaker 1: brought up out of the ground, traveled with them back
26:25
Speaker 1: to the State Emy's office, and it's at that point
26:28
Speaker 1: that this examination took place. And it's almost like, I'm
26:32
Speaker 1: not trying to be morbid here, but it's almost like
26:34
Speaker 1: they would have pregamed this. They would have sat down
26:37
Speaker 1: and there would have been a game plan. You know,
26:39
Speaker 1: with everybody involved. You're going to have representatives from all
26:42
Speaker 1: of the interested parties, from law enforcement, perhaps they're going
26:45
Speaker 1: to be there. You're going to have, like I said,
26:47
Speaker 1: your technicians there. I would imagine that probably Idaho had
26:51
Speaker 1: sent down their crime scene people to document everything photographically.
26:56
Speaker 1: Not to mention doctor Christensen is going to have his
26:58
Speaker 1: own photography. That is that's a bit different than crime
27:01
Speaker 1: scene photography, where you're going to be looking at specific trauma.
27:04
Speaker 1: And this actually comes into play in court because photographs.
27:08
Speaker 1: One of the ways that's played out is that there
27:10
Speaker 1: were certain photographs that the judge in Tammy Dabell's case
27:15
Speaker 1: would not allow. They were not allowing these big broad photographs.
27:19
Speaker 1: There were only a couple of those what we refer
27:21
Speaker 1: to as macro photographs of the body. They were showing
27:25
Speaker 1: micro photographs, And even one observer said they couldn't actually
27:29
Speaker 1: appreciate the anatomical orientation of the visual because you don't
27:33
Speaker 1: have a point of reference. Say, for instance, if you've
27:37
Speaker 1: got some kind of injury and they've only got like
27:41
Speaker 1: a close up image of that injury, you can't appreciate
27:43
Speaker 1: where the apex of the shoulder is, or the elbow
27:46
Speaker 1: or anything with the scale. It's that, yeah, exactly, Well
27:48
Speaker 1: there might have been a scale, but there's no it's
27:50
Speaker 1: so tight that all you see is is skin.
27:54
Speaker 2: So that's why they actually drew the pictures showing where
27:56
Speaker 2: these were.
27:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, the doctor would. And look when a doctor
28:00
Speaker 1: draws that diagram, and people have seen these diagrams that
28:03
Speaker 1: we generate at autopsy, they're not inflammatory. Would you agree
28:06
Speaker 1: with that, Dave. I mean, they're not like a dissected body.
28:09
Speaker 1: But you can yet, you can identify trauma on the
28:12
Speaker 1: body to say I found it. I found an abiration here,
28:15
Speaker 1: I found a contusion here, there's a gunshot on here.
28:18
Speaker 1: You have this in a very non inflammatory presentation. That's
28:22
Speaker 1: actually what happened, you know. And boy did Christensen have
28:25
Speaker 1: a big reveal. I don't know, you know, because we've
28:28
Speaker 1: waited for this for so long. He came to some
28:31
Speaker 1: very interesting conclusions, didn't he He did.
28:33
Speaker 2: And the thing that we had been told all along,
28:35
Speaker 2: course is that she died in her sleep. Forty nine
28:38
Speaker 2: year old woman dies in her sleep. No need to
28:40
Speaker 2: look into it any further, Wash your hands off, Hubby
28:43
Speaker 2: gets married again. But now we come to this trial.
28:46
Speaker 2: We've got doctor Eric Christiansen on the stand, Utah's chief
28:50
Speaker 2: medical examiner. We've got pictures, we've got drawings, but we
28:55
Speaker 2: still don't know how she died. We know they said
29:00
Speaker 2: fix you, but what in the world do we find out?
29:03
Speaker 2: Joseph Scott Morgan.
29:04
Speaker 1: What the doctor's conclusion was was that Tammy Day Bell's
29:08
Speaker 1: death actually arose first off, and this is quite horrible.
29:13
Speaker 1: There's evidence that she had been restrained, Dave. She's got contusions.
29:18
Speaker 1: If people will put their hand just superior to their
29:21
Speaker 1: left breast, Okay, there's a big focal area of hemorrhage there.
29:26
Speaker 1: You've got a focal area of hemorrhage. On the left bicep,
29:30
Speaker 1: so that area that I was just referring to superior
29:33
Speaker 1: to the left breast, So you've got a contusion there.
29:35
Speaker 1: You've got a contusion the left bicep on the upper side,
29:40
Speaker 1: the upside, so if you're laying face down, then there's
29:43
Speaker 1: a series of four contusions running down the right arm, Dave.
29:47
Speaker 1: I mean they run down the length of the right
29:51
Speaker 1: bicep almost up to the highest one is going to
29:55
Speaker 1: be where the upper arm joins the shoulder, just almost
29:59
Speaker 1: at the point of the armpit, and they run down
30:02
Speaker 1: all the way to the crook of the right arm
30:04
Speaker 1: or what we refer to as the anti cupital fossa,
30:06
Speaker 1: which is where you bend your arm right there. Then
30:11
Speaker 1: you flip Tammy's body over. Another line of contusions Dave,
30:16
Speaker 1: that run down the posterior or the backside of her
30:20
Speaker 1: right arm. There's actually four there, So you've got these
30:23
Speaker 1: multiple contusions all over her body. And what he had
30:27
Speaker 1: opined was that she was restrained, and these restraints appeared
30:34
Speaker 1: to have occurred in the hours just prior to her
30:38
Speaker 1: death or in the midst you know, those perimortem events
30:41
Speaker 1: that we talked about, like in the throes of death,
30:44
Speaker 1: and he was able to verify. You know, we talked
30:48
Speaker 1: about the frothyodemitus cone that had arisen out of her
30:52
Speaker 1: mouth that was witnessed that morning. Actually i've seen I
30:56
Speaker 1: think by one of her kids. He was able to
30:59
Speaker 1: demonstrate that there was edema in her lungs as well,
31:04
Speaker 1: so that gives you an idea for him, at least
31:07
Speaker 1: he said, this is consistent with an asphixial death. Now,
31:10
Speaker 1: how did this actually happen? Because you don't have anything
31:14
Speaker 1: of significance on the neck that would give you an
31:17
Speaker 1: idea of like a choking for perhaps, or a ligature strangulation.
31:23
Speaker 1: But if she is restrained, if she is being held down,
31:27
Speaker 1: if she is being tied up, I can't really see
31:31
Speaker 1: that happening. Given the nature of these bruises, because you've
31:35
Speaker 1: got them on both aspects, You've got them on the
31:38
Speaker 1: front and the back of the arm. It would seem
31:41
Speaker 1: to me that perhaps just perhaps Tammy knew something was wrong,
31:47
Speaker 1: something was happening, and maybe the perpetrator was on top
31:52
Speaker 1: of her day and she was fighting, She was fighting
31:57
Speaker 1: for her life in the middle of the night. Can
31:59
Speaker 1: you imagine what waking up and you've got this big
32:01
Speaker 1: weight upon you, and you know something is happening. You
32:04
Speaker 1: begin to fight back, but the person perhaps has more
32:08
Speaker 1: muscle than you, they're stronger than you, they weigh more
32:12
Speaker 1: than you. And then while you initially have that feeling,
32:16
Speaker 1: suddenly something maybe a hand or maybe even a pillow,
32:22
Speaker 1: compromises your airway and begins to press down on you.
32:25
Speaker 1: And you're fighting. You're in a dead sleep while this happens,
32:28
Speaker 1: and you wake up to this. You're fighting, you're struggling,
32:32
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, they can't breathe anymore,
32:36
Speaker 1: and now you've passed away in the marital bed, which,
32:40
Speaker 1: by virtue of what doctor Christensen said, Dave, this is
32:43
Speaker 1: an indication that this is he ruled this case not
32:46
Speaker 1: as a natural you know, which we were told in
32:48
Speaker 1: the beginning, this is some kind of seizure, it's some
32:50
Speaker 1: kind of heart event or something. No, no, no, He
32:52
Speaker 1: said that her death is classified as a homicide and
32:57
Speaker 1: that this is actually an asphyxial death.
33:00
Speaker 2: And you see bruising that has occurred prior to death,
33:04
Speaker 2: or is it possible for a body to be bruised
33:07
Speaker 2: after death? And I mean, I know this is like
33:09
Speaker 2: asking a lot of questions at one time. But I'm
33:11
Speaker 2: really curious because I know we've seen a discussion, or
33:15
Speaker 2: rather a dialogue about the bruising on her body and
33:18
Speaker 2: where it happened. How can they tell when, where and
33:21
Speaker 2: how it took place when you got a dead body.
33:23
Speaker 1: Dead bodies don't bruise. That's just something that doesn't happen.
33:26
Speaker 1: That can be traumatized. You know, have cuts and scrapes
33:29
Speaker 1: and all those sorts of things, but they look different
33:31
Speaker 1: than they do in life. But here's the thing. This
33:33
Speaker 1: is what this forensic pathologist in Utah did, and this
33:36
Speaker 1: is absolutely brilliant. I've never talked about this on bodybags before,
33:39
Speaker 1: but it's a great opportunity to discuss it. This forensic
33:45
Speaker 1: pathologist actually did a layer what's called a layer dissection
33:48
Speaker 1: day where he didn't just merely cut into the tissue, okay,
33:54
Speaker 1: he painstaking leeon each one of these little contused areas
33:59
Speaker 1: that they're seeing on Tammy Dave Bell's body. He did
34:02
Speaker 1: a layer dissection where he went first down through the dermis,
34:07
Speaker 1: which is that top layer of skin, got the epidermis.
34:10
Speaker 1: In the dermis, he kind of lifts that back and
34:14
Speaker 1: looks for the underside of the skin to see where
34:17
Speaker 1: the bruising is there the contusion. Then he goes into
34:20
Speaker 1: what's referred to as the SubQ fat subcutaneous fat, goes
34:25
Speaker 1: in there, see did the bruising extend down through there?
34:28
Speaker 1: And then he trims back even further. He did this
34:32
Speaker 1: probably on each one of these insults. Then he goes
34:35
Speaker 1: into the muscle, Dave. He goes into the muscle and
34:39
Speaker 1: actually trims through it to see how deep this contusion went.
34:43
Speaker 1: And you know what you can tell by that how
34:45
Speaker 1: much direct pressure was applied, Because the deeper you go,
34:49
Speaker 1: the more pressure is going to be applied, and it
34:51
Speaker 1: gives you perhaps a sense of violence visv how much
34:57
Speaker 1: pressure was applied, and perhaps just perhaps did Tammy fight back?
35:02
Speaker 1: And that's what everybody really wants to know.
35:05
Speaker 2: You said she was restrained. Does that indicate there might
35:09
Speaker 2: have been more than one person restraining her?
35:13
Speaker 1: Wow? Yeah, great question, Dave, great question. How are you
35:17
Speaker 1: going to pull that off? I wonder how exactly can
35:21
Speaker 1: that be proven? I don't know necessarily that it could be.
35:25
Speaker 1: I think that what we begin to think here is
35:28
Speaker 1: that you begin to look at those that are most
35:31
Speaker 1: intimately involved, and if you're married, who are you most
35:34
Speaker 1: intimate with? Well, that individual that you share a bed with.
35:38
Speaker 1: That's quite something to consider for that moment time, particularly
35:42
Speaker 1: given you remember what you said about Chad and marrying
35:46
Speaker 1: Lorie Valo. Give me the time framing in how.
35:50
Speaker 2: Long Tammy died? October nineteenth, Chad day Bell married Lori
35:54
Speaker 2: Valo on the beach in Hawaii November fifth.
35:58
Speaker 1: Holy smokes. And then we've got Tammy's body being exhumed
36:04
Speaker 1: in early December. My, how fast things happen? Huh?
36:08
Speaker 2: With what we're seeing in court and the big reveal
36:11
Speaker 2: of the bruises of restraining, I'm still trying to wrap
36:15
Speaker 2: my head around how did she? How was she asphixiated?
36:17
Speaker 2: Will they ever be able to determine?
36:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know that they necessarily would have been
36:23
Speaker 1: able to specifically identify the mechanism. But in his final conclusion,
36:30
Speaker 1: Christensen actually opined that her death could have come about
36:33
Speaker 1: as a result of smothering or what's referred to as
36:37
Speaker 1: neck or chest compression, which means that you have a
36:40
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of weight pressing down upon the neck. You know,
36:44
Speaker 1: chest can't rise and fall, and your airways compromised because
36:47
Speaker 1: you've got pressing down on the neck you know where
36:49
Speaker 1: the airway is, or externally you're compromising the airway by
36:55
Speaker 1: blockage of the nasal passage in the mouth. Either way,
36:59
Speaker 1: this examiner concluded that her death was brought about as
37:03
Speaker 1: a result of her oxygen uptake being compromised, and it
37:07
Speaker 1: was of course at the hand of another I'm Joseph
37:14
Speaker 1: Scott Morgan and this is bodybacks