Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Double-Homicide on Campus The Murder of Dr. Beth Potter and her Husband Robin Ca

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Double-Homicide on Campus The Murder of Dr. Beth Potter and her Husband Robin Ca · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Morgan. You look back on it,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: and after you've been to college, you realize that probably
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: wasn't really the most stressful thing that happened in your life.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: But for many kids that come into college, they realize
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: their life is full of stress. At that moment, it
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: might be the most they've ever experienced. And how do
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: you relieve yourself from that stress? I don't know there's
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: any number of ways that college kids go about that.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: But at the University of Wisconsin, they've kind of got
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: a unique area there and it's a place of beauty.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: It's actually a nature walk. It's called an arboretum, and
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: you can walk through and see all the native species
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: of plants. The walkway kind of curves through this forested area.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Of course, all the plants are labeled and that sort
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: of thing, and it's beautiful, as they say, no matter
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: what time of year you're there. But one morning, jogger
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: was going through this beautiful nature area at about six
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: thirty in the morning, and if you can imagine this,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: this individual looked over along the side of this beautiful
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: nature trail he saw two individuals, both with gunshot ones
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: to their heads. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybags.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Joining me today is Jackie Howard, executive producer of Crime
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Stories with Nancy Grace. Jackie Eggett, I gotta tell you,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know that I've ever been on a walk
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: and have discovered something of this nature. And you know,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I've been on a lot of walks as a death investigator,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: going through the woods and this sort of thing, but
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: just as a random person, can you imagine the shock
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: and the horror. You're out there to start your day
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: off with a jog and you know, just at the
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: crack of dawn and you look down and you see
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: two fellow human beings laying alongside the road, apparently slaughtered.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: It certainly would be a surprise at any time, let
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: alone first thing in the morning, where you think you're
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: setting yourself up for the day. A lot of people
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: use that time as they walked, to meditate and plan
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: their day. But around six thirty in the morning, doctor
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Beth Potter and her husband, Robin Carry, were discovered laying
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: on the pathway to the Arboretum. Doctor Beth worked at
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the University Health Family Center. She was working on COVID.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Her husband Robin was involved in a lot of physical fitness.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: They had three children, and the morning that they were found,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Robin was dead on the scene. Doctor Potter was transported
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: to a local hospital and she died there. Doctor Potter
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: was in her pajamas, her husband was only in his underwear.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: So given that nature, it would seem they were forced
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: to leave their home. You bet. I don't know if
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I mentioned this, but the date was March thirtieth, Jackie.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question. You ever been to
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin in March. I've never been to Wisconsin. Oh, well,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: you're missing a tree, because I got to tell you,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin is one of my favorite states. It's absolutely gorgeous.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: But let me tell you something else about March in Wisconsin.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: It can be brutal. And the particular morning when they
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: were found, the overnight temps had been in the thirties,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: which I guess by Wisconsin standards at that time of year.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Even though you're you know, you're in the first part
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: of spring. That's still that's that's kind of warmer than normal.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: But it's not a location. You know, you wouldn't be
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: out in the elements like this of your own volition.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Robin he was. He was only dressed in underwear. Can
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: you imagine that that? And that's a good investigative pickup
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: on your part, Jackie, because when you, you know, you
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: think about contextually, when you look at a body at
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: a scene, particularly an outdoors scene, you think, well, are
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: they closed appropriately, you know, to the circumstances, and of
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: course in this case, they weren't. He's in his underwear.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine any circumstance under which I would leave
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: my home dressed like that or absent other clothing at
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: that time of year and those kind of temperatures. And
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: then you think about his wife. She was found there
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: in just for Pj's, alongside that pathway, and the way
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: they've kind of described the area where they were found
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: its kind of a ditch. It doesn't sound like a
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: real deep ditch. It just sounds like a little kind
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: of a wash, if you will, where water just kind
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: of gently drains away through this area. And you begin
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: to think, as an investigator, what would bring two people
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to this location almost two miles away from their home,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: which is you know, driven by car, it's not that far,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: but you know that they probably didn't walk and their
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: car is nowhere to be seen. How did in fact
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: they wind up there? And that probably initially, you know,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: when you're coming into cold as an investiator, that's going
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: to be the biggest question, I think, and you have
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: to ask that question and really seek that answer out
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: because I think therein is you know, it's going to
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: rest at genesis for the rest of this case. Robin
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Carry was dead on the scene, but again Beth Potter
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: was taken to a local hospital. Do we know if
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Carry died because of the gunshot wound or was it
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: exacerbated from the cold temperatures and hypothermia. Again, he was
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: only dressed in underwear. Yeah, well, cold temperatures didn't help.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: But let me tell you this injury that Robin Carry
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: sustained is absolutely lethal. There were a lot of clues
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: at the scene relative to that that the police really,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: you know, gave a lot of thought to. In addition
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: to the absence of warm clothing. He was essentially shot
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: in the back of the head, but just off to
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the left, right behind his left ear, if you will,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: And when that projectile tracked across the interior of his skull,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: it would leave a path that would essentially go from
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: back to front and from left to right, and so
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: you're essentially cutting across diagonally across the brain, and you
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: have to think that it would track across both hemispheres,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: both left and the right hemispheres of the brain. And
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: so this is an unsurvivable injury that he sustained. However,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: you know his wife that that's a completely separate set
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: to her injuries, because amazingly, and I mean amazingly, she
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: was discovered when they were both discovered, but particularly her,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: when she was discovered, she still had agonal respirations. That
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: means that she still had a heartbeat, she was taking
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: up oxygen now limited. I can only imagine there were
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: probably very shallow respirations, but they did transport her from
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: the scene and take her into the hospital, and probably
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: what was mentioned earlier about the temp sometimes sometimes there's
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: a level of preservation that goes on the colder it is,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and maybe for that moment time she lived simply because
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: it was a bit cooler outside than normal. I have
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: two questions. Job, you said doctor Potter still had agonal respirations,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: So was that truly given that she was shot in
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: the head. Wasn't she still breathing? Or is that more
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: of an autonomic response where the body is continuing its
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: normal functions. That's an excellent question, and you know, you
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: can really only get into that once you get actually
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: into the autopsy to determine the extent of the damage.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: My suspicion is that in Robin's case, the trauma was
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: so extensive and he was just in an unrecoverable flat
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: span at that point, you know, and it was probably
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: relatively instantaneous, I would imagine, for him, but for her. Interestingly,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: he was shot on the left side, and if I
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: remember correctly, her gunshot wound was more on the right
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: side of her head. And I don't know that the
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: trajectory was the same. And you know, people would say, well,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: what do you mean by that, Well, depended upon the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: direction of the travel of the bullet itself. You have
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: to begin at autopsy, and particularly you have to begin
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: to try to appreciate what vital areas of the brain.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Now that there are certain traumas that your brain you know,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: can sustain and they are completely survivable. And there's any
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: number of stories you know that are out there in literature.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I think, probably famously is this kind of anecdotal story
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: about how the idea of a lobotomy came about. And
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: you know, this fellow back in the eighteen mid eighteen
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: hundreds was standing in adjacent to a mining area and
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: a big metal bar was sent skyward as a result
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: of an explosion, and when it came down, it actually
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: pierced the frontal area of his brain and they had
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: to extract this thing, but it only involved his frontal
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: lobes and after that he became very docile. Well that's
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: a traumatic brain injury back then, and he survived that.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: You can survive a brain injury, but a lot of
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: it is going to be depended upon what areas of
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: the brain are penetrated. Bega, That's just exactly what I
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: was going to ask you. It's like, once again like
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: you're reading my mind, because I was going to ask
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: does it make a difference because you said he was
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: shot behind his ear, So does it make a difference
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: where you're shot? Oh yeah, depending upon your survivability? Oh yeah,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: most definitely. I'd love to, you know, give this kind
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: of tactile demonstration to folks in class. I tell my
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: students to take their index finger essentially and find the
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: you know, find the big Knight on the back of
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: their skull and run inferior to that big knight, you know,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the anatomus called the occipital protuberance. You go below that
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and you start to get into that area that does
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: control the autonomic nervous system down towards the brain stem.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: And when that area is traumatized, you know, you can
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: almost bet your bottom dollar that you're going to shut
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: down everything or from heart function to lung function and
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: all those sorts of things, getting into that kind of
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: primal brain area that controls those things that we don't
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: normally think about having, you know, you think about having
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: to breathe. You don't think about your heart beating, you know.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And then you have higher functions that are involved in
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: either of the lobes, kind of higher up and forward
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: and that sort of things. And sometimes depended upon what
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: kind of treatment you get, those events are survivable. And
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: it would year that the doctor survived for some time
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: out there now precisely when it's you know, I can't
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: give you an exact time, but she lived long enough
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: that they did what's called running a code, that ran
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: a code on her from the scene where she was
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: extricated from there in the nature area, to the local hospital,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: and of course it was awful, not because she died
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: in the emergency. You begin to think about your you know,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: you want this place a piece that she can go
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: to and probably walked around the entire time you've been
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: living in a location. It's probably a place that you
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: have fond memories of. I can't imagine that either one
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: of these two victims could, in their wildest dreams, ever
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: imagined that their lives were essentially going to end there
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: in that beautiful nature preserve. Well, that sets me up
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: for a great question. You said their lives are going
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: to end there. We suppose that they were forced from
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: their home at gunpoint because they were shot. How do
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: we know that they were killed on the pathway. When
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: the investigators were processing the scene, one of the things
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: that kind of really stood out to them, other than
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: the fact that you've got people that are very poorly
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: clothed for this time of year, one of the things
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: that really stood out to them was what appeared to
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: be the underlying volume of blood that had pooled beneath
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the bodies. First, you know, Robin remained there, and he's
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: kind of the benchmark because his body was not removed
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: from that location. Now with Beth Potter, she was removed,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: so anything that had any blood that had issued forth
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: from her body was just essentially there as a pool
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: that was without her body to be observed in context
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: with it. But when they began to look at Robin's body,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: they began to appreciate the blood spatter patterns that were
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: on him and adjacent to the area around his body,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: in addition to the blood that had pulled. And I
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: don't know that folks really think about this very often,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: but just in your life, just think about it anytime
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: you've sustained some kind of open head injury, and it
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: can not just be your scalp, but even your nose.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: If you if you catch a bloody nose or maybe
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: perhaps have sustained some kind of blunt force trauma to
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: the scalp where you've you know, you've nicked your scalp
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: in some way, you bleed profusely. And one of the
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: reasons is is that your head is arguably one of
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: the most vascular areas of your body. So when trauma
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: is sustained there, you're going to have a huge volume,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: huge volume of blood that will issue forth from any
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: kind of injury, and sometimes when you see those the
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: amount of blood comes out, you automatically think that it's
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: a very nasty injury, and that's not always the case.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: It's just that there's so much blood that's constantly circulating
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: through that area that the slightest little neck can turn
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: into something major as far as an issue of blood.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: But in this case, what they surmised was this they
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: knew because they were not bearing witness to any kind
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: of drag marks, they didn't see any kind of blood
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: staining that had criss crossed over that pathway leading up
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: to where their bodies were found, that everything relative to
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: blood evidence was contained in that specific area. And when
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: you take that and you look at that, you think
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: of that snapshot in your mind, you have to come
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: to conclusion, well, they were traumatized specifically in that location,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: that it wasn't something that perhaps happened in their home,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: that it happened up the path some distance or in
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: the parking lot to get access to the nature area,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: that it had actually happened there. Because it's not just
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: the pooling of blood. We think about these dynamic patterns,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: and when you think about gunshot wounds, we get into
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: this area of velocity, you know, the velocity that that
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: und comes out at the end of that muzzle, and
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: it generates a high velocity pattern when it comes out,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: And that means that the tiniest of droplets that can
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: essentially be created are created because of the high velocity
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: of the realnd that you're struck with, and then concurrently,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: the blood that comes out of that the droplets are tinier. Say,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: for instance, if someone were struck with a blunt of
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: click a baseball bat or a hammer or whatever the
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: case might be, you might think that you're hitting them hard.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: But you cannot strike an individual and generate the same
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: velocity with a bad or a hammer or whatever a
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: lead pipe as you can when that lead core projectile
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: strikes that skull and this explosion occurs, and these tiny,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: tiny little droplets of blood issue forth from there. Given
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: the cooler temperatures, as you pointed out it was early
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: morning March Wisconsin, would the cooler temperatures affect how much
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: blood pulled out of the body, or the texture and
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: the thickness of the blood as it pulled, and the
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: shape and the way that it would flow out of
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the body. Yeah, I suppose that it could now in
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the short term obviously, when you're thinking about the immediate event,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that immediate traumatic event, it's the blood is going to
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: issue for at the same rate as it would in
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: any other circumstances, and you know the first few minutes, okay,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: particularly at the initial impact. But I suppose, I suppose
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: that it's within the realm of possibility that things would
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: begin to slow down. And you have to keep in
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: mind that though it is a liquid, it is a
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: component liquid. It's a liquid that's composed of many parts.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: And you know, everybody's handled their own blood at some
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: point in time, and you know that that there is
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: attackiness to it, that it doesn't feel like water, you know.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: And again, you know, our ancestors had a right, you
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: know when they said blood is thicker than water, and
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: there's there's truth in that, and that thickness is actually
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: something that you refer to as viscosity. You hear this
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: many times in association with motor oil. You know, they
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: talk about the viscosity of oil and that goes to
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the thickness of the substance. And so, yeah, blood has
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: got a viscosity that's certainly different than say, for instance,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: of water, but you know, you begin to think about it,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: does it have a consistency that say, comparatable to maybe
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: a syrup, like a clear corn syrup. Yeah. Perhaps a
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: matter of fact, you know, there's several recipes out there
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: from making fake blood where they're using a corn syrup
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: in order as an initiator, in order to create those patterns.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: You know that we work within the lab and teach
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: students within that sort of thing. Cool weather could slow
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: it down to a certain degree. And it's certainly I
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: think at least a combined with the location of the
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: gunshot relative to Doc Potter's injuries, and maybe a relative
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: to the ambient environmental temperature that contributed to the fact
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: that she survived, certainly survived longer than Robin. Robin probably
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: died pretty much instantaneously. Also at the scene there were
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: shell casings found. What did that tell us? Yeah, I
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: was really surprised when I found out what type of
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: ammunition was used, you know, And this kind of came
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: out in the news following the investigation of the scene
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and the police work in this case. There had been
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: some thought, given some social media history that was out there,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: that perhaps a clock firearm was used in this case.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: And what was what came into focus here was that
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the ammunition that was found out there is not something
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: that's quite typical. You know, you think about things like
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: nine millimeter, a forty caliber, forty five caliber, even maybe
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: for some people ten millimeter. They actually found sig sour
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: three fifty seven rounds spent casings out there. And you
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: may have heard of a three fifty seven before, you know,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: for those that are listening, a three fifty seven traditionally
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: has always been associated with the revolver, very powerful revolver
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: that was popular with police officers, certainly back in the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: seventies and into the eighties when police were still carrying revolvers.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Through fifty seven was very common. But that's a bit
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: of ammo that's used for revolvers. However, in this case,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: they recovered six three fifty seven ammunition that is made
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: for a semi auto. And I'm not saying that it's
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: it's exotic, Okay, This is not something that somebody's cooked
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: up in their basement or something that you know, you
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: had to order and you know, we take forever and
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: ever to get in. You can buy it through retailers.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: It's just that it's it's not your standard fare. You know,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: when you begin to think about what somebody's weapon and
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: am of choice might be. So what does that mean
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: for the investigators? Well, you know, for them, this begins
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: to really narrow down the field because you know, you
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: begin to think about, well, how many nine millimeter pistols
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: you know are out there? How many forty caliber pistols
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: are out there? Well, there's there's a lot. I mean
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: they're everywhere, you know, they're all over the place. Our
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: military has carried nine millimeter side arms forever and ever
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: so of our police officers. So it's it's not an
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: uncommon round for an investigator. When you get a piece
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: of evidence like a three fifty seven sig, well, that
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: narrows the focus now and you can begin to kind
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: of look at things like, well, who may have purchased
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: three fifty seven a weapon that's chambered for three fifty seven,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: and who may have purchased ammunition that would marry up
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: with that particular weapon, And suddenly your choices become very
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: slim at that point. And that's from an investigative standpoint.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: That's a home run. Three or four shell casings were
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: found by police nearby and the individuals the runners who
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: discovered their body talk about there being a large amount
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: of blood covering Potter's pajamas, that her breath was faint
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: and her pulse was fragile, and as the person who
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: found them stepped away to be able to call nine
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: one one to get help, Potter raised her arm. So
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: what's the possibility would she have been in and out
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: of consciousness all night long? Or do we think that
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: she probably late there figuring out how are we going
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: to get help? Wow, what a horrible thought that is.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: You know that you would consider that this poor woman
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: who has been gunned down is immobile, She's incapable of moving.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: I don't even know that she would have had the
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: ability to even understand at that point that her husband
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: was lying there not too far away from her deceased.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: You know, you start to think about higher brain function
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: at a time, what's a level of awareness that sort
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: of thing is. Obviously she had enough brain activity so
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: that she, as I said earlier, you know, she had
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: these kind of agonal respirations, shallow breathing, that sort of thing,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: faint heartbeat and you know her respirations, and that means
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: that there's a lot of effort probably being put in
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: relative to her body in order to uptake oxygen. It's
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: really difficult to say if if she had that kind
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: of awareness at that level, you know, being able to
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: think these things, or one of the things that you
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: look for at a scene relative to the decease. You know,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: we talked about some of the blood evidence, and I
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: think that one of the other things that comes along.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: It's a horrible thing to think about it, but it
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: is something that we consider. Is there evidence of their
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: own volition, perhaps that the victim had moved about in
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: the throes of death if you will, where they're kind
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: of thrashing about. Sometimes you'll see this where their hands
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: will scrape dirt or their arms will scrape back and forth. Famously,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: you know, people will claw at the earth when they're
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: in excruciating pain or they're trying to become mobile again.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: If you will, you'll get dirt beneath the fingernails. And
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: it's not always associated with a struggle. It's like a
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: one on one person to person struggle. Sometimes it's associated
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: with just this will to want to live, and some
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: of those findings can be quite horrific. I've been on
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: scenes before where individuals have kind of clawed at the
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: walls while they're covered in blood after they've been attacked
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: and had nothing to do with the attack itself. In
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: the throes of the attack, when they were say, either
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: knived or shot, it had to do with them just
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: trying to survive, and that would be something that the
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: investigators would have to surmise. Now, obviously, in Robin's case,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: it appears that he died rather suddenly. You know that
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: he died there, But it would be very interesting to
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: go back and look at those areas where the doctor
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: lay and if you have these kind of scrubbed out
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: areas where her arms had moved back and forth, legs
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: maybe thrashing about in this or a lot of disruption
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: of that kind of the earth beneath her, and that
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: that would take time for that to occur. Was there
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: evidence of that? And again, you know, you say, well,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: what does that mean for us as investigators? That does
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: that bear any significance? Yeah, yeah, of course it does,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: because when you take a case like this to trial,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: it shows how brutal this event was and how cold
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: hearted it was that you would not only take this
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: poor woman out there in her pajamas in the middle
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: of a cold, cold night and then desperately injure her
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: like this and leave her there to suffer all night long. Again,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: that goes to a very callousness I think on the
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: part of Perpetra, doctor Beth Potter, and Robin Carey, who
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: would want to end their lives? I don't understand that,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: And I think that was a big question because both
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: of these people you're talking about giving back to a community,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: to this place that he lived in least two were
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: famous locally for helping and having big hearts. And I
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: think that sometimes the people that are the kindest attract
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: some of the must wicked people out there. The search
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: turned to a suspect. Police began to do the recon
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: order as they normally do, checking close to the family first.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: They began to check video in and around the home.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: They began to check cell phone records. So as the
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: search began, Joe, what did we see happening? Most homicides,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: when they occur, they don't occur in some kind of vacuum.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: You know, everybody's afraid of strangers, stranger on stranger crime
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: they talk about and it does happen. Don't get me wrong.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: It happens every day. But the lines heare of these
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: cases where investigators are going to come back to that small,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: tiny circle that you've created, and I think probably for
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: the police, you know, when they began to look into this,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: they want to know who occupies the same space with
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: the two victims. And number one at the top of
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the list was going to be their daughter, who went
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: by the name Miriam, that's her given name, but they
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: called her. Everybody called her Mimi, and she's rather young
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: un she's teen, and she was living in their home
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: along with their boyfriend. And this young man had been
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: taken in kindly by her parents, allowed to stay there.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: And this young man who went by the name Carrie Sandford,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: was classmates with their daughter. But we have to put
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: this in context, all right. When this case Kurt, which
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: was in twenty twenty, we were creeping as a nation
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: up into you know, those we were passing through that
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: very scary time in the country where people were social distancing,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: people were being told to stay apart, where you didn't
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: know anything about this virus, this coronavirus. You had no
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: idea how it was going to impact anybody. And doctor
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Potter herself had health issues. Now, keep in mind, she's
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: a healthcare provider, so she's going to be hypersensitive to this.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: She was seeing people in her clinic that she was treating,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure that many people were coming in that
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: were you presenting with COVID symptomology. And she's on medication
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: that personally put her at risk for not just contracting
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the virus, but if she did contract it the weakened
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: immune system, it could really cause her to go downhill fast.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: And so when you're living in close quarters to somebody,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: you have a perceived danger of what could be going
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: on around you. And so with her and her husband
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: were practicing social distancing within their home. I think they
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: were probably staying away from people as much as it could.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: But her daughter and her boyfriend, who again had been
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: allowed to live in their home, refused to comply. They
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: absolutely refused to comply with the rules of the house.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: And there was a lot of tension in this home.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: There was angry fights over it, refusal to comply. And
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: you know, doctor Potter was no fool. You know, she
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: knew what kind of risk existed out there. If you're
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: going outside the home, you could bring something back in
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, you know, she's looking
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: at being deathly ill, and perhaps her husband as well.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: And I guess the rest of their family could be two,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: but these two would not comply. But going back to
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: this idea of how kind hearted they were, they actually
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: arranged to have their daughter and her boyfriend live in
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: an airbnb for which they were going to pay for.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: They were just kind to a fault in essence that
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: may have been part of the problem. Besides the physical
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: evidence that was found at the scene. One of the
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: things that we talk about a lot is the fact
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: that people who tend to be criminal or take part
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: in criminal behavior cannot keep their mouth shut. Sanford began
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: talking with friends. Sandford is quoted as saying, once he
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: found out that one of the victims was at the
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: hospital and still alive, he reportedly said, I shot them.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: I know I shot them. So how much does here
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: say play and how much weight does it have in
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: a court of law? Well, first off, let's look at
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: it from an investigative standpoint. You know, being now on
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the street as an investigator, that ain't a court all right,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: because you're always looking for leads, and certain leads that
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: you pick up on would you know those beautiful oaken
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: walls that we see. You know, it's played on television
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and courtrooms. You know that idea of hearsay is real
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: and you have to play by those rules. But on
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: the street, you look for leads, and you know, as
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: an investigator, when you're part of that community and you've
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: got two of the most upstanding citizens around that are
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: found both shot in the head and left like animals dead,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: are for dead essentially out in the wiles during this
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: cold early spring, You've got a lot of scared people
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: on your hands, and so there's an urgency to this
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: to try to get this solved because you're thinking about,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: you know, what in the world is going on here?
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Why would somebody just target people? And then so when
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: you begin to hear these conversations that are popping up,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: because you know, you have to keep in mind that
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: it's not just about the investigators going to one individual
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: in questioning them and then they're calling it done that
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: it's not the way it happens. Remember how I talked
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: about that kind of circle, that intimate circle that people have.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Everybody that the police can track down within that intimate
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: circle are going to be asked questions. And if somebody
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: has loose lips, that has direct knowledge that a crime
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: has been committed, I can guarantee you, even if it
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: comes from a second or third party, those individuals are
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: going to be pressed. They're going to be pressed hard
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: by investigators, you know, And of course they can invoke
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: their Fifth Amendment rights if they so choose to. And
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: interestingly enough, now that I've mentioned Fifth Amendment rights, their daughter,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: their own very daughter, their precious Mimi, during the course
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: of this actually invoked her Fifth Amendment rights. And so
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: anytime you hear that when you're conducting an investigation, it's
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: going to make you might not compress that individual any
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: further because they have said, look, I don't want to
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: say anything else without the presence of an attorney. Okay,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: that's fine. You know, you allow them to at their attorney,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: and they can talk to their attorney until they're blew
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: in the face and all that sort of thing. You're
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: not going to talk to them directly any longer. But
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: at that point in time, you now are armed with
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: the information that for some reason, this person feels very
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable talking about these homicides, the death of her parents,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: you start pressing on the periphery, and when you do that,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: other information pops up. That relationship that Cary Sandford had
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: with Mimi. One of the comments that repeatedly has been
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: said by people who knew Cary sandford classmates is that
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: he was excited and talked about bands of money. That
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: reportedly Beth Potter and Robin carry had classmates told investigators
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: that a discussion was overheard between the victim's daughter and
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Sandford in a class that her parents had quote bands
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: of money and that they were rich. The root of
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: all evil here, you know, you begin to think about
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: that and the fact that I think that one of
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: the things that resonated with me was that witnesses had
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: actually witnessed this young men become excited, you know, and
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: some of the descriptions I've read, it almost seems like
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: he was vibrating, you know, with joy over the fact
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: that his girlfriend and of course their daughter, had spoke
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: to him about their wealth, and she described their wealth
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: in terms of bands of cash, and I can only
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: imagine that what she was referring to or stacks of
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: cash maybe that they had on hand and that were
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: wrapped in paper wrappers. You know, much like you get
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: denominational wrappers that you get from from the bank, and
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: they had those on hand. Now, there's certainly no evidence,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: I don't think at least that has really come out
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: that this was taken. And we do know that they
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: went back to the scene after this had occurred, you know,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: when they were removed from their home, and it's chilling
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: when you begin to think about it, that this may
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: have been of motivation. And I think the greater part
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: of this is that you've got a young man who,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: according to everyone around, was involved in all this, you know,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: kind of civic service around, involved in various groups and
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: organizing basketball games for charity. He had his picture made
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: with the city's mayor, and you know, all of this
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: stuff that had kind of come to the surface about him.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: But then you begin to see kind of the evil
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: that dwelled him. There are screenshots from social media accounts
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: with him holding what appears to be a semi automatic
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: handgun and pointing it directly at a camera and him
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: looking over the rear sights of the thing and kind
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: of gazing into the cameras you stare. You know, if
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: you're the viewer of this thing, you're staring right down
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: the muzzle of the weapon. So you get an idea
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: that there's something deeper than what was being presented to
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: the public, and that he had fooled. He had fooled
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: this poor couple that had literally taken him in, had
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: taken him in under their wing, had given him shelter,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: had given him food, place to live, allowed him to
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: live with their daughter in their own area of the home,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: and then when Tom's got tough, actually provided a location
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: that they could go to an airbnb that they were
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: going to set them up with, and then allow them
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: to use their own vehicle to drive about in for
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: a time. Again, it just absolutely breaks the heart. This
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: is such a senseless, senseless killing. Carry Sandford was convicted
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: in the kidnapping and killing of doctor Beth Potter and
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: her husband, Robin Carry. He was sentenced to mandatory life
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: in prison without the possibility of parole. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: and this his body backs