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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: The Things Left Behind · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Buddy Backs with Joseph Scott Morgan. I've thought about in
0:20
Speaker 1: the past when I go out onto crime scenes and
0:23
Speaker 1: I see the homes of individuals, and you see them
0:27
Speaker 1: in all various conditions. You walk in and you'll see
0:30
Speaker 1: places that are absolutely impeccable, and not just style but
0:37
Speaker 1: also in how they are kept. But those seem to
0:43
Speaker 1: be the exception and not the norm, at least in
0:46
Speaker 1: my experience. I've had those where I've gone into, you know,
0:53
Speaker 1: homes that I guess I would regard in my status
0:57
Speaker 1: as mansions. But many times you walk into places and
1:02
Speaker 1: there's been a total disregard for those things that have
1:05
Speaker 1: been I don't know, a crue through a life. You've
1:09
Speaker 1: spent money on them, but yet they kind of lie
1:11
Speaker 1: about in trash heaps, things broken, torn, what would to
1:18
Speaker 1: most people seem to be rubbish, just kind of piled
1:21
Speaker 1: off on the sides, and you often wonder what brought
1:26
Speaker 1: this person to this state to in dwell this type
1:31
Speaker 1: of environment. But you know, sometimes you find things hidden
1:38
Speaker 1: beneath those piles and secreted away in locations that you
1:43
Speaker 1: wouldn't normally think you would find things that would draw
1:47
Speaker 1: you to I don't know, discomfort, maybe even horror on
1:54
Speaker 1: body backs. Today we're going to talk a little bit
1:57
Speaker 1: about a rather gruesome discovery, a gruesome discovery that has
2:02
Speaker 1: been made in far western Colorado in Mason County. I'm
2:09
Speaker 1: Joseph Scott Morgan and this his body bags. Dave you
2:16
Speaker 1: ever been much of a yard sale of tender I
2:19
Speaker 1: have been.
2:20
Speaker 2: I'm glad you asked. Actually, you know what, Wait, you
2:25
Speaker 2: haven't won this weekend. Every day's a party, every meal's
2:29
Speaker 2: a feast is just like Marty Grau without the beads
2:31
Speaker 2: when you're at at somebody's yard sail. You've got a
2:34
Speaker 2: home that has been recently sold, and the people that
2:40
Speaker 2: bought the home are flippers. House flippers fairly common practice.
2:44
Speaker 2: Oftentimes they'll come into an area and they'll buy a
2:47
Speaker 2: home that's undervalued for various reasons. It could be damaged,
2:50
Speaker 2: it could need some repairs, or things like that. In
2:53
Speaker 2: this particular case, according to a neighbor, the people who
2:55
Speaker 2: had lived in the home before might have been hoarders.
2:58
Speaker 2: There are varying degrees of hoarders. It's guilty pleasure of
3:02
Speaker 2: mine is watching the TV show Arder.
3:05
Speaker 1: I actually worked a death involving the former spouse who
3:11
Speaker 1: the the lady that died was had been previously married
3:16
Speaker 1: to a well known radio celebrity from the forties and
3:20
Speaker 1: the fifties. And if anyone's ever heard of the show Skyking,
3:25
Speaker 1: which was a show that was on the radio and
3:28
Speaker 1: then it it kind of jumped over to television. And
3:32
Speaker 1: she died in this home. And Dave, I swear you
3:34
Speaker 1: walked through her home and she had stacks and stacks
3:37
Speaker 1: and newspapers, and there were paths that were cut all
3:40
Speaker 1: the way through the newspapers in order to get to
3:43
Speaker 1: her various living areas. It made it kind of made
3:46
Speaker 1: me hyperventilated environment. I couldn't I couldn't function. Yeah, she was.
3:53
Speaker 1: And this is when people kept news. All I could
3:54
Speaker 1: think of is if you smoked, if you if you
3:58
Speaker 1: tip your cigarette anywhere in there, this whole place is
4:01
Speaker 1: going up. And it was an apartment. Oh even worse.
4:05
Speaker 2: Well, in this case, we have a people that they
4:07
Speaker 2: sold the home. And what I've had to do with
4:10
Speaker 2: some research on this because to start right where we are, okay,
4:15
Speaker 2: new owner. The new owners come in and they're cleaning
4:17
Speaker 2: the house up, they're preparing to flip the home, and
4:20
Speaker 2: so they run an ad social media on Facebook, Craigslist,
4:24
Speaker 2: what have you hate? We got stuff in this house.
4:26
Speaker 2: Come by and get what you want. It's all free.
4:27
Speaker 2: They just need it toed it off, and people did.
4:31
Speaker 2: One of the items was a freezer, and you know,
4:34
Speaker 2: as they were getting the freezer out to take it
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Speaker 2: off site, they wanted to unload it because it's too
4:38
Speaker 2: heavy to move. And it was a working freezer. That
4:41
Speaker 2: was the catch. Hey, it's a working freezer, come get it. Well,
4:44
Speaker 2: what do you have inside of working freezer? Frozen stuff?
4:48
Speaker 2: And there are bags of frozen meat. Don't know exactly
4:52
Speaker 2: what kind because it's been in there for a long time,
4:54
Speaker 2: but there's a bag, a black bag. It's wrapped up,
4:56
Speaker 2: and they get it out and it starts to kind
4:59
Speaker 2: of unrapl and fish fillets fall out, and so they
5:04
Speaker 2: kind of assume, well, this's just old food. And they
5:06
Speaker 2: get the bag up to the tail of a pickup
5:09
Speaker 2: truck that they're going to try to put the freezer in,
5:12
Speaker 2: and as they're unwrapping it more because it's coming apart,
5:16
Speaker 2: a head falls out. A human head falls out of
5:19
Speaker 2: the bag. Now you just had you know, Uncle Ben's
5:23
Speaker 2: fishvallets fall out. The next thing. You're not expecting a
5:26
Speaker 2: You're never expecting a human head. They immediately stop everything
5:30
Speaker 2: and call the police. Mark your calendar's friends. If you
5:35
Speaker 2: find a frozen head and a freezer, your life now
5:39
Speaker 2: becomes the time before you found the frozen head and
5:43
Speaker 2: the time after, because you will never forget this moment
5:47
Speaker 2: in time.
5:48
Speaker 1: No, and I can. I can tell you most assuredly
5:53
Speaker 1: that anybody that discovers a human remain, it does it
6:00
Speaker 1: marks you at that moment in time. And I actually
6:03
Speaker 1: had this happen to me. I remember one one case
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Speaker 1: famously for me, where I was the person that discovered
6:11
Speaker 1: a set of human remains. Remember when you work for
6:14
Speaker 1: the medical exam, you're called out as a result of
6:18
Speaker 1: human remains that have been found. Okay, now, it could
6:21
Speaker 1: be a homicide, it could be a natural, it could
6:23
Speaker 1: be skeletal remains, and we would always come in the aftermath.
6:27
Speaker 1: But there had been a multiple death in this residence.
6:32
Speaker 1: And I was searching through some of the remainder of
6:36
Speaker 1: the home and opened a closet and there in the
6:38
Speaker 1: bottom of the closet were pots and pans, but they
6:41
Speaker 1: were stacked on top of a rug, and when I
6:45
Speaker 1: went to pull the rug up, there was blood. And
6:47
Speaker 1: then I pulled it up even more and I saw
6:49
Speaker 1: the backside of a female that was in a fetal position,
6:52
Speaker 1: and she had been killed and stuffed in the closet,
6:55
Speaker 1: and it, hey, brother, it got my attention. I'll have
6:58
Speaker 1: to tell you that I'll never forget that moment. And
7:01
Speaker 1: one thing that always stood out it was I believe
7:03
Speaker 1: it was her son that had killed her. He had
7:09
Speaker 1: had taken a rendering from when he was a small
7:14
Speaker 1: child of a Valentine that he had cut out, you know,
7:17
Speaker 1: kids will do this on construction paper, and it said
7:20
Speaker 1: I love you, mom, And that was resting on top
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Speaker 1: of the pots and pans that were stuffed on top
7:25
Speaker 1: of the carpet which contained her body. So yeah, I mean,
7:28
Speaker 1: even as an old death investigator, I remember finding bodies.
7:31
Speaker 1: I cannot even begin to fathom this idea that you are,
7:37
Speaker 1: John Q. Citizen. Yeah. I mean, everybody's encountered rotten food
7:42
Speaker 1: and a refrigerator and you go digging about and you
7:46
Speaker 1: don't know what you're gonna find, and all of a
7:48
Speaker 1: sudden you take out the black bag and the thing
7:52
Speaker 1: begins to give way. You see fish, then all of
7:55
Speaker 1: a sudden, rolling onto the ground at your feet is
8:00
Speaker 1: a human head. Yeah, my head's still kind of reeling
8:19
Speaker 1: right now, Dave, No pun intended in my head is
8:21
Speaker 1: I cannot imagine the price that is paid by this
8:24
Speaker 1: individual that saw this happen literally right before them, as
8:29
Speaker 1: this bag gives way and this head comes rolling out.
8:33
Speaker 1: If I am correct, I don't think that the head
8:40
Speaker 1: was the only human anatomical element that was found at
8:45
Speaker 1: the scene, which again even makes this more chilling. If
8:48
Speaker 1: it could possibly be more chilling.
8:50
Speaker 2: How worse can it? I mean, this is the old
8:52
Speaker 2: joke of you know, but then you know, and so
8:56
Speaker 2: you've got the head and that makes them stop everything
8:59
Speaker 2: they're doing. Again, You've got to remember when you set
9:01
Speaker 2: this scene, this is a home that has been bought,
9:04
Speaker 2: not by somebody who's moving in to start a new life.
9:06
Speaker 2: This is built, but bought by somebody who they're going
9:08
Speaker 2: to clear it out, fix it up, and resell it,
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Speaker 2: that's all. And so people are there to get whatever
9:12
Speaker 2: free stuff they can. They think they got a great
9:14
Speaker 2: deal free frozen freezer that is working, and here comes
9:18
Speaker 2: the head. Well, you call the police immediately and they
9:23
Speaker 2: come out.
9:23
Speaker 1: Now.
9:24
Speaker 2: My question is this Joe, Because when the police get
9:27
Speaker 2: that call, are they thinking, Okay, they think it's a
9:31
Speaker 2: frozen they think it's a frozen head in the freezer.
9:33
Speaker 2: But it could be and they started thinking fake head.
9:36
Speaker 2: It could be a joke, It could be any number
9:37
Speaker 2: of it could be a Halloween thing. Yeah, and then
9:40
Speaker 2: when they get there, Now do they pick up the
9:42
Speaker 2: phone and call you, you know somebody and say can you
9:45
Speaker 2: meet us over there?
9:46
Speaker 1: Yeah? And anytime you have any question about and I'm
9:50
Speaker 1: saying you referring to the police, anytime they have a question.
9:54
Speaker 1: And this happens more than I think a lot of
9:56
Speaker 1: people realize you have a question about h some type
10:00
Speaker 1: of a bit of anatomy I like to say anatomical element,
10:04
Speaker 1: because you never know what that's going to be. If
10:07
Speaker 1: there is any kind of question whatsoever, you call the
10:09
Speaker 1: corner mme and they'll come out and they'll take a
10:11
Speaker 1: look and they'll they'll confirm it.
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Speaker 2: So you'll see it in the state that the police
10:15
Speaker 2: see it.
10:16
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, yeah, exactly, and hopefully you know, and here's
10:20
Speaker 1: the rub, we don't know what the people actually did
10:23
Speaker 1: with this item once it you know, gravity took over
10:27
Speaker 1: to the earth.
10:28
Speaker 2: What we have in the story are first hand accounts
10:30
Speaker 2: of people that were there, and that's why I'm I
10:34
Speaker 2: was looking at all the different accounts of what people
10:36
Speaker 2: claimed on social media and other places, and there happens
10:39
Speaker 2: to be a person who did take pictures of the
10:41
Speaker 2: police going in and out. And that's what I wanted
10:42
Speaker 2: to ask you, because other than the head, again, it
10:46
Speaker 2: was wrapped in a plastic there was a plastic bag.
10:49
Speaker 2: Inside the plastic bag. This head had been wrapped several
10:52
Speaker 2: times apparently, and they were unwrapping it because they obviously
10:56
Speaker 2: have felt different. The bag felt different. But the head
10:59
Speaker 2: fell out and there were hands in there as well. Now,
11:03
Speaker 2: because the police were called as soon as they head
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Speaker 2: hit and nobody touched it after that, apparently, that's I'm
11:09
Speaker 2: guessing it was. If it's somebody like me, after I
11:11
Speaker 2: stopped screaming and crying, I would and somebody called nine
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Speaker 2: one one. You know, I wouldn't touch it, and you
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Speaker 2: tell anybody else don't touch that. It's evidence.
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Speaker 1: Now, No, I could have sworn it. They got hands,
11:23
Speaker 1: you found they found they got.
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Speaker 2: Hands, yes, But the thing is, I don't know if
11:28
Speaker 2: it was the people that found the hands, or if
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Speaker 2: it was the police.
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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, because I got to tell you
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Speaker 1: if if even at the stage, after everything I've seen,
11:37
Speaker 1: and just as a civilian as I am now, if
11:39
Speaker 1: this is laying at my feet, I'm backing off, and
11:41
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell everybody else to back off. Don't touch
11:44
Speaker 1: this any longer. I don't know what Look, if somebody
11:47
Speaker 1: is of a mind to put a head in a freezer,
11:51
Speaker 1: I don't know what else they'll put in there, right
11:54
Speaker 1: because I want the police to come out and secure it,
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Speaker 1: and I want there to be accountability. First off, I
12:00
Speaker 1: don't want them to think I had anything to do
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Speaker 1: with it, and so that's that's an important piece to it.
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Speaker 2: The thing is, I was looking over this and the
12:07
Speaker 2: people that came to get the freezer, like I said,
12:09
Speaker 2: they're there to pick up a working freezer, and there
12:13
Speaker 2: was stuff in the working freezer, and they saw other meat,
12:16
Speaker 2: and they had decided they were going to donate the
12:18
Speaker 2: freezer food to an animal shelter, which I think it's
12:22
Speaker 2: all well and good, but you don't know what it is.
12:24
Speaker 2: You don't know how long it's been there. I don't
12:26
Speaker 2: think this is I'm not suggesting you do that at all.
12:28
Speaker 2: I hate throwing stuff away, but you don't give away
12:30
Speaker 2: something you don't know its origins. You just don't.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and to be able to verify it, even if
12:37
Speaker 1: it's got, you know, some kind of meat stamp on it,
12:39
Speaker 1: you know where I just I don't know about giving
12:43
Speaker 1: this away to an animal shelter. They and they even
12:46
Speaker 1: admitted that this collection of meat, and we're not talking
12:51
Speaker 1: about the head at this point, just the meat that
12:53
Speaker 1: it was in fact freezer burned. So maybe it was
12:58
Speaker 1: just completely on I mean, I don't know about you.
13:02
Speaker 1: Particularly back in my bachelor days, I would buy stuff
13:05
Speaker 1: and stick at my freezer and inevitably I'd never use
13:09
Speaker 1: it. It would wind up being freezer burned. And so yeah,
13:12
Speaker 1: that that happens. So would the animals actually consume this, and.
13:17
Speaker 2: Would don't do that? That's the tip, you know what
13:19
Speaker 2: your tip of today on body bags. If you've got
13:21
Speaker 2: meat in your freezer and you can't tell what it is,
13:23
Speaker 2: don't give it animals.
13:24
Speaker 1: Rules rules to live by, yeah, absolutely, And and but
13:28
Speaker 1: you know, the police are faced with a heck of
13:31
Speaker 1: a conundrum here because they're coming into this thing cold.
13:37
Speaker 1: Literally no no pun intended. Yeah, they're coming in here
13:40
Speaker 1: cold where.
13:42
Speaker 2: Give me a heads up next time you're going to
13:43
Speaker 2: do something, I will.
13:44
Speaker 1: I will. And when you have when you have remains
13:48
Speaker 1: like this and you're trying to understand it and trying
13:53
Speaker 1: to understand the origin of this, uh, this becomes highly
13:57
Speaker 1: complex because that signals. That signals for us from a
14:03
Speaker 1: forensics perspective, that the rest of the house, the rest
14:09
Speaker 1: of that structured Dave is the potential for a crime scene.
14:12
Speaker 1: Because we've talked and we even did a remember we
14:17
Speaker 1: did a special at Crime con about dismemberments, remember yah,
14:21
Speaker 1: and people. I think we blew a lot of people's
14:23
Speaker 1: minds relative to this because you and I had encountered
14:26
Speaker 1: these cases and here we are, we're back at it again.
14:31
Speaker 2: And oh man, I forgot about us doing that. Yeah, yeah,
14:34
Speaker 2: you kid look at us weird after that.
14:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, well they did. But that's okay. I'm used to it.
14:38
Speaker 2: But let me ask you this, because the police always
14:41
Speaker 2: act like, you know, it's a homicide investigation. Well, I'm
14:44
Speaker 2: gonna be honest with you. Is there any other way
14:47
Speaker 2: you could look at finding a frozen head and hands.
14:50
Speaker 2: You're not finding a whole body that's frozen. You're finding
14:53
Speaker 2: parts of a human being. You're finding the head and
14:56
Speaker 2: hands where we don't hear anything about finding any other part.
14:59
Speaker 2: Just head in hand. Now, I'm asking you, how can
15:02
Speaker 2: you look at that and say, Okay, do we actually
15:04
Speaker 2: have like a table in coffee where we debate how
15:06
Speaker 2: a person's head and hands could end up in the
15:08
Speaker 2: freezer and it not be a homicide?
15:11
Speaker 1: Yeah? The only reasonable explanation I could think of, and
15:16
Speaker 1: I don't even know how reasonable it is if this
15:18
Speaker 1: was an anatomical donation that they had stolen or that
15:22
Speaker 1: someone had taken away from a medical school or a
15:25
Speaker 1: dental school. Dental schools in the past have been known
15:28
Speaker 1: to use human heads what merely yeah, to work on
15:33
Speaker 1: teeth and really yeah, I don't know if that still
15:36
Speaker 1: occurs to this day or not, but used to years
15:40
Speaker 1: and years ago, and there are specimens like that that
15:42
Speaker 1: have been dissected out. But you know, how do you
15:46
Speaker 1: explain the hands as well? And here's the thing we've got.
15:50
Speaker 1: You know, I'm going back to this term element. We've
15:52
Speaker 1: got three elements, okay, And just because we're looking at
15:56
Speaker 1: this through the lens of science at this point in time,
15:59
Speaker 1: you cannot assume anything. So this is what the police
16:03
Speaker 1: are faced with relative to these three elements. They are
16:07
Speaker 1: faced with a prospect that these three anatomical elements, two
16:11
Speaker 1: hands and a head don't necessarily have to have the
16:14
Speaker 1: same point of origin. Okay, doesn't mean that they came
16:18
Speaker 1: from the same body. I know people are probably listening
16:21
Speaker 1: and rolling their eyes and say, come on, Morgan, be realistic.
16:24
Speaker 1: I am being realistic. You cannot assume anything, right because,
16:27
Speaker 1: for I mean, how many times do we talk Dave
16:30
Speaker 1: or do our coll Well, you and I haven't covered
16:31
Speaker 1: a lot of serial cases on here, but how many
16:34
Speaker 1: times have we sat through lectures or listened to something
16:36
Speaker 1: on television? And you'll have people that will say, well,
16:39
Speaker 1: serial killers love to take trophies. You know, they love
16:43
Speaker 1: to take trophies. I don't know, maybe that's the case.
16:47
Speaker 1: But you cannot just simply blow it off. It cannot
16:50
Speaker 1: just simply dismiss it.
16:51
Speaker 2: You said the whole house now as a crime scene. No, yeah,
16:54
Speaker 2: we did hear a neighbor referred to the house as
16:56
Speaker 2: the house of hoarders, and.
16:57
Speaker 1: Well in the backyard as well, any of the yard
17:00
Speaker 1: space as well.
17:01
Speaker 2: I'm sorry goeh, no, no, and that's why the new owners. Okay,
17:04
Speaker 2: when the house was sold. A week before the house
17:07
Speaker 2: was sold, the a neighbor reported that the family had
17:11
Speaker 2: a U haul truck. Now, I want to back up
17:12
Speaker 2: and tell you a little bit about the family that
17:14
Speaker 2: was there. Can I do that real quick?
17:15
Speaker 1: Oh?
17:15
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, you had the Imer family there. I am
17:19
Speaker 2: I am Er, I am Eer, Bradley, David Iimer and
17:23
Speaker 2: lee Ann Iimer. And I looked him up. I followed
17:27
Speaker 2: the tree on Facebook because David Iimer he died. It
17:32
Speaker 2: was COVID related. He went in in June twenty twenty
17:37
Speaker 2: one and never came out and died on July seventh
17:40
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty one. They did a fundraiser online. His
17:43
Speaker 2: wife did just said, Bradley Iimer came down with COVID
17:47
Speaker 2: last month and was admitted icy U June twenty seventh.
17:49
Speaker 2: He passed away July seventh. Our family's trying to raise
17:52
Speaker 2: money to pay for his burial and medical And she
17:54
Speaker 2: goes on to list this is what she says. Now,
17:55
Speaker 2: this is in twenty twenty one. We're talking about this
17:59
Speaker 2: head being found in the working freezer in January of
18:02
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. We're talking last month. In July of
18:05
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, this is what Leanne Aimer wrote. We
18:09
Speaker 2: had a flood in our home a couple of months
18:12
Speaker 2: ago and have been living in a hotel since May third.
18:15
Speaker 2: All right, they've been in a hotel since May third.
18:18
Speaker 2: Her husband gets sick in June, dies in July. All
18:23
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, she said, they're trying to work
18:25
Speaker 2: it out with the homeowners or insurance and contractors to
18:27
Speaker 2: complete the repairs needed. Our daughter is starting her senior
18:31
Speaker 2: year in a couple of weeks, and her father's passing
18:33
Speaker 2: has just devastated her. They were the best of friends.
18:35
Speaker 1: You know, as an investigator you have to have, particularly
18:38
Speaker 1: if you're looking at a case where you've got all
18:44
Speaker 1: of this familial unit. That is, you know that this
18:48
Speaker 1: event is concentric, so it's like right in the center.
18:52
Speaker 1: It's the bull's eye when you begin to think about
18:55
Speaker 1: where the head is found, the hands are found, and
18:59
Speaker 1: so everything else that extends out from there, all the
19:02
Speaker 1: family connections, the immediate people that were occupying that dwelling.
19:08
Speaker 1: There's I think more than just the brother and the
19:12
Speaker 1: sister and the mother. There's probably a couple of other people.
19:16
Speaker 1: At least there's an indication of that. Where are all
19:19
Speaker 1: of these people? And right now the police to this
19:22
Speaker 1: date have not released who these remains belonged to.
19:29
Speaker 2: Is it possible, Joe, if I die and you don't
19:32
Speaker 2: have and my family can't bury me, they can't. They've
19:34
Speaker 2: tried to raise ten thousand dollars to bury mister Aymer,
19:37
Speaker 2: and they raised about fifteen hundred. I think, yeah, okay,
19:40
Speaker 2: if they don't raise enough money to bury you, does
19:42
Speaker 2: the family ever get the body back? Can I go
19:44
Speaker 2: and just claim the body and say, can you put
19:46
Speaker 2: it in my van? I'm gonna take him home for
19:47
Speaker 2: a little while. It all depends on state statue. Really,
19:51
Speaker 2: I was making a joke. That's actually really that you can.
19:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. We you know, famously, we had a case in
19:57
Speaker 1: Atlanta where we had family members that lived up in
20:00
Speaker 1: the mountains in North Georgia. I'll never forget this tonight
20:03
Speaker 1: that had happened in Georgia, and you know, Atlanta is
20:08
Speaker 1: not in the Blue Ridge Mountains. These people lived up
20:11
Speaker 1: in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Georgia, and they
20:12
Speaker 1: came and they picked up their loved one in the
20:14
Speaker 1: back of a pickup truck and covered him with a tarp.
20:17
Speaker 1: They had a burial certificate and all of them, and
20:20
Speaker 1: we had the death certificate, and they weren't going across
20:24
Speaker 1: state lines with him, so we released the body to
20:26
Speaker 1: them and they had a family plot where the family
20:29
Speaker 1: all pitched in and dug the grave. So yeah, it
20:32
Speaker 1: is a possibility, but most of the time there is
20:36
Speaker 1: In most counties there's an indigent burial fund. And so
20:40
Speaker 1: if the family does not have means in order to
20:44
Speaker 1: bury the body, and you know who the person is
20:48
Speaker 1: that is the deceased, you can go and beg if
20:52
Speaker 1: you will the county look, please aid us, and they
20:57
Speaker 1: will bury the body for you, But you're not going
21:01
Speaker 1: to get the body back immediately. If that's what is
21:04
Speaker 1: going to happen either way, I hope because in this
21:09
Speaker 1: particular case, that we're going to be able to find
21:13
Speaker 1: the rest of the body, because right now all were
21:15
Speaker 1: left with are a pair of hands and a head.
21:36
Speaker 1: So in Mason County, Colorado, the authorities are faced with
21:43
Speaker 1: several problems. First off, I think the biggest thing is
21:50
Speaker 1: who is this? You think about the head, the hands,
21:54
Speaker 1: We've got ways to identify the body if we have
21:58
Speaker 1: a head in the hands, and then they have to determine, well,
22:04
Speaker 1: is it possible to understand what may have been the
22:07
Speaker 1: cause of the mechanism of death. Well, if you're limited
22:10
Speaker 1: to only hands in a head, it's going to be
22:14
Speaker 1: a tough, uphill battle. Right.
22:15
Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you this too, because there was
22:17
Speaker 2: a report that these might have been hoarders in their
22:19
Speaker 2: varying degrees of hoarding. We know that the yard was
22:21
Speaker 2: a mess. We know there was a lot of stuff
22:23
Speaker 2: in there that was toted off, and that's why the
22:25
Speaker 2: flippers wanted somebody people to come and get stuff. But
22:27
Speaker 2: one of the things that was described a neighborhood taken
22:29
Speaker 2: pictures of the Soon after they got police got there
22:34
Speaker 2: determined what they really did have. They pretty much shut
22:38
Speaker 2: down the area and people showed up and has matt
22:40
Speaker 2: suits and then white truck with a camper shell without
22:44
Speaker 2: windows showed up that was identified as belonging to the
22:48
Speaker 2: Mason County Coroner's office. Neighbors decided the coroner's presence meant
22:54
Speaker 2: there was human remains, because at first it was you know,
22:58
Speaker 2: it was a doll. It was a Halloween thing, you know,
23:01
Speaker 2: But then they see the corner and it's like, oh
23:03
Speaker 2: my gosh, that was human. People wearing corner jackets are
23:07
Speaker 2: starting to show up. And then the night after this
23:10
Speaker 2: is on a Friday afternoon, on Saturday night, they're working
23:13
Speaker 2: all day Saturday, Saturday night, law enforcement returns to the
23:16
Speaker 2: house and went through with black lights. The neighbors were
23:21
Speaker 2: watching them go from room to room with the black lights.
23:24
Speaker 2: That glow is different than what you would normally see.
23:27
Speaker 2: What were they looking for with black lights?
23:30
Speaker 1: Joe, blood deposition. This is messy business. Yeah, when anytime
23:35
Speaker 1: you get anytime you have a dismemberment, particularly when you're
23:42
Speaker 1: talking about the head. Even okay, we're going to say
23:45
Speaker 1: this from this perspective, even if the person is dead,
23:50
Speaker 1: the head is so vascular, the neck is so vascular,
23:53
Speaker 1: you're going to have some level of seepage that's going
23:56
Speaker 1: to come out of the body. So let's just say,
23:58
Speaker 1: for instance, in an example, you shoot body dead, okay.
24:03
Speaker 2: Or.
24:04
Speaker 1: You're left with this idea, well, what do you do
24:07
Speaker 1: in order to take apart this body? So that is
24:13
Speaker 1: going to leave behind the least amount of mess. Well,
24:16
Speaker 1: if they're shot, you're going to have blood that comes
24:20
Speaker 1: forth from any kind of defect in the body. If
24:22
Speaker 1: they're choked out, if they're suffocated, you're not going to
24:26
Speaker 1: have that manifestation. But what you will have is is
24:32
Speaker 1: the deposition of blood from the process of dismemberment. And
24:37
Speaker 1: this blood is not going to be as It's not
24:39
Speaker 1: going to be dynamic like we've talked about high velocity
24:42
Speaker 1: blood spatter. It's not going to be like that with
24:47
Speaker 1: a gunshot wound or even medium velocity. It'll be more low.
24:51
Speaker 1: It might be passive dripping, and that's going to give
24:54
Speaker 1: you an indication of the orientation of where the body
24:57
Speaker 1: was and the activities of the end of vials that
25:01
Speaker 1: did this, perhaps maybe even the type of tool that
25:05
Speaker 1: was utilized to facilitate this. That's another thing that's very
25:09
Speaker 1: important here because if these people were hoarders, I'd like
25:13
Speaker 1: to know, first off, what walked out the door before
25:16
Speaker 1: these folks got to the freezer. Were there tools in
25:19
Speaker 1: the house. Can you imagine what a nightmare it would
25:22
Speaker 1: be for the cops to have to go out and
25:23
Speaker 1: try to track down everybody that had been in that house. Hey,
25:26
Speaker 1: did you happen to claim an old handsaw you saw
25:29
Speaker 1: laying around? Did you grab an old chainsaw, Was there
25:33
Speaker 1: a limb saw? Was there? Or did you have a
25:36
Speaker 1: limb shears? Because those have been used in cases I've
25:39
Speaker 1: been involved in. Knives? Was there a collection of knives?
25:42
Speaker 1: So anything with an edge to it like that that
25:45
Speaker 1: could facilitate a dismemberment. You got to go collect that
25:48
Speaker 1: stuff and track it down. That's what makes this case
25:52
Speaker 1: nightmarish for whoever is involved in it. And I guess
25:57
Speaker 1: one of the big questions also, Dave, is where's the
26:01
Speaker 1: rest of these remains? We still got upper and lower
26:04
Speaker 1: Torso now I don't know that they're necessarily intact, but
26:09
Speaker 1: why would you go to the trouble of saving a
26:14
Speaker 1: head and hands and then get rid of the rest
26:18
Speaker 1: of the body. Where is that body? Did you take
26:21
Speaker 1: it and bury it in the backyard? Did you cart
26:23
Speaker 1: it off? And you look at that and you think, well,
26:27
Speaker 1: what type of vehicles have the people own that have
26:30
Speaker 1: lived in that house? That makes those cars potentially potentially
26:35
Speaker 1: a secondary crime scene or tertiary crime scene. Holy, So yeah,
26:40
Speaker 1: it's so it was endless. It is endless, and you
26:43
Speaker 1: could go nuts thinking about it if you're an investigator.
26:46
Speaker 2: I was pitching about it purely from the standpoint, and
26:48
Speaker 2: they said, there's all this extra meat that they were
26:50
Speaker 2: going to take to and I thought, well, what is that?
26:52
Speaker 1: Hey, no, no, no, you're You're absolutely right. I want
26:55
Speaker 1: to know how that meat is wrapped. And even if
26:57
Speaker 1: it is wrapped, I'm not going to believe my line
26:58
Speaker 1: in eyes, as as my granny used to say, I'm
27:02
Speaker 1: gonna have to confirm it for myself that anything that's
27:04
Speaker 1: packaged in there. You know, they use the term animal meat.
27:08
Speaker 1: Now I don't know if that means that, you know,
27:11
Speaker 1: somebody had been l hunting or deer hunting or killing antelope.
27:14
Speaker 1: You're out in western Colorado and they had it, they
27:19
Speaker 1: had it butchered at a you know what we call
27:22
Speaker 1: down here in the South, a deer cooler, where you
27:25
Speaker 1: had somebody that could butcher the meat for you, or
27:27
Speaker 1: is this something else, if you know what I mean.
27:30
Speaker 1: And the head and the hands were just secondary to that.
27:33
Speaker 1: It's also fascinating to me too that you've got fish
27:39
Speaker 1: in the bag with the head. And I had thought
27:42
Speaker 1: about that, and I'm thinking, well, what significance do fish have? Well,
27:45
Speaker 1: if it we all know what rotting fish smells like.
27:49
Speaker 1: There is nothing that quite stinks as bad as fish,
27:52
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering if that was used in an attempt
27:55
Speaker 1: to mask the smell of decomposing human remains.
28:00
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what. Six months before he died, I'm
28:03
Speaker 2: looking at a picture of Bradley Eimer holding up a
28:06
Speaker 2: big fish. He says, fishing. He's got a big old
28:09
Speaker 2: cigar in his mouth. He's holding up a big fish.
28:11
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if that was the trophy.
28:13
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, it could have been, but I think
28:15
Speaker 1: it was. It could have been one of the trophies.
28:17
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a I think it said. I think
28:20
Speaker 1: it said plural like fish fell out of the bag
28:24
Speaker 1: and they apparently were on the surrounding the head, which
28:28
Speaker 1: was contained wrapped in another piece of plastic. That's yeah.
28:31
Speaker 2: It was like the you know when you're wrapping up
28:34
Speaker 2: something to go in the freezer. And the way it
28:36
Speaker 2: sounded to me that because there was meat that was
28:38
Speaker 2: wrapped in there, and I know, we can wonder what
28:42
Speaker 2: it was. I do think because of the way it
28:44
Speaker 2: was wrapped, in the way it was identified, in the
28:46
Speaker 2: way it was wrapped, that that was meat that was
28:49
Speaker 2: wrapped differently than the head was wrapped. That the head
28:51
Speaker 2: had been wrapped multiple times, and that it was inside
28:55
Speaker 2: of another bag, and inside of this other bag there
28:58
Speaker 2: was you know that the fish fell out first because
29:02
Speaker 2: the bag was ripping, had been there for a while.
29:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know people talk about about serial killers holding
29:09
Speaker 1: onto trophies. I've got another perspective on this, and and
29:13
Speaker 1: this has nothing to do with with a serial killer
29:17
Speaker 1: necessarily being involved. However, when you have individuals that commit
29:25
Speaker 1: a homicide, it's always amazing to me how many of
29:31
Speaker 1: these people hold onto the remains that they don't take
29:34
Speaker 1: them away in order to dispose of them in such
29:40
Speaker 1: a manner that is not going to connect them back
29:42
Speaker 1: to it. If you're keeping a human remain within your
29:46
Speaker 1: domicile automatically, you know the police are going to come
29:50
Speaker 1: looking for you if this, if this is discovered, and
29:54
Speaker 1: why would you not create separation. I think it has
29:58
Speaker 1: a lot to do with people wanting to have possession
30:01
Speaker 1: and control over these damning items that they want to
30:05
Speaker 1: have accountability. Because if you go and you bury that
30:08
Speaker 1: head out somewhere in the high desert out in western
30:11
Speaker 1: Colorado or wherever you know they might have taken it to,
30:16
Speaker 1: you no longer have control over that item, it's thrown
30:19
Speaker 1: to the winds of chance at that moment. Tom, maybe
30:22
Speaker 1: you don't do a good enough job. Maybe you think
30:24
Speaker 1: you can keep it better secure there in your home.
30:27
Speaker 2: It's interesting because if you do let it out of
30:29
Speaker 2: your possession, it could be found by somebody else. But
30:32
Speaker 2: let me ask you this, Joe, because we are only
30:33
Speaker 2: dealing with the head and hands scientifically. Yeah, first things first,
30:38
Speaker 2: what do you do? Because they said there was an
30:41
Speaker 2: autopsy done, and okay, I get that. I think of autopsy,
30:45
Speaker 2: body laying out and we got the work. But now,
30:48
Speaker 2: I mean, you have the head and hands and that's it.
30:52
Speaker 2: Where do you start and what kind of information are
30:54
Speaker 2: you going to be able to get from the hands
30:56
Speaker 2: and the head.
30:58
Speaker 1: I think that since those two areas are targeted, obviously,
31:02
Speaker 1: at least that we know of, they have been taken
31:07
Speaker 1: away from from the body, first place I'm going to
31:11
Speaker 1: start is doing thorough X rays. I wonder if, first off,
31:17
Speaker 1: with the head in particular, if there is any indication
31:22
Speaker 1: of fatal trauma, and that can come in any number
31:25
Speaker 1: of ways, dependent upon how soon they got that head
31:28
Speaker 1: into a frozen state. Dave, if that person was struck
31:31
Speaker 1: in the head, you're still going to have evidence of, say,
31:35
Speaker 1: hemorrhage contained inside of the head. Also the skull itself.
31:41
Speaker 1: If they were struck with some kind of blunt object,
31:44
Speaker 1: you're going to have evidence perhaps of a hairline fracture
31:48
Speaker 1: or even a depressed skull fracture. You might even be
31:51
Speaker 1: able to appreciate if the person had raccoon eyes. Maybe
31:56
Speaker 1: they had been so traumatized in the head that these
32:00
Speaker 1: the civil ridges right through here and going back into
32:02
Speaker 1: the floor of the skull that's been fractured, we see that.
32:07
Speaker 1: And if depended upon here's really really something to consider
32:11
Speaker 1: as well, how much of the neck was left attached
32:13
Speaker 1: to the head, because if you can go into the
32:16
Speaker 1: neck and do a limited dissection, because it's going to
32:19
Speaker 1: be self limiting because of the lack of anatomy that
32:22
Speaker 1: you have, when you reflect back that tissue, are you
32:25
Speaker 1: going to be able to see hemorrhage in the soft
32:28
Speaker 1: tissue of the neck in the muscle it's a hyoid intact.
32:31
Speaker 1: There's that word again. You know, all those sorts of
32:34
Speaker 1: things you want to see if their teeth have been
32:36
Speaker 1: knocked out, and you know, and the same thing with hands.
32:41
Speaker 1: But the head is going to be very key here
32:44
Speaker 1: when it comes to X raying the body. If they've
32:46
Speaker 1: been tortured, you can look at the hands to see
32:48
Speaker 1: if you've got any fractures, and are those fractures related
32:50
Speaker 1: to an anti mortal event, which means before death, like
32:55
Speaker 1: where they torture, where they hit in the head, in
32:57
Speaker 1: the hands with a hammer, where they sliced in any
33:03
Speaker 1: way with a sharp object. Did this person try to
33:06
Speaker 1: defend themselves. There'd be evidence of that on the hands.
33:09
Speaker 1: So there's a lot you can do with the post
33:10
Speaker 1: wartem examination. After you do the X ray, then you're
33:13
Speaker 1: going to go in and you're actually going to do
33:14
Speaker 1: a dissection, and you know, you're going to dissect that head.
33:18
Speaker 1: You're going to open the scalp, you're going to open
33:21
Speaker 1: the skull, you're going to take out the brain, you're
33:23
Speaker 1: going to weigh it. You're going to look at the eyes.
33:26
Speaker 1: It would not surprise me if the eyes had been
33:28
Speaker 1: removed as well by the physician to retain them. You're
33:33
Speaker 1: not You want to be able to have these specimens
33:35
Speaker 1: so that you can go back and if you can't
33:38
Speaker 1: find anything in the immediate you can get get a
33:42
Speaker 1: consult with someone else. In a case like this, I
33:45
Speaker 1: would certainly reach out to a neuropathologist and have them
33:48
Speaker 1: look at the skull and look at the brain and
33:50
Speaker 1: render their opinion, because sometimes the stuff doesn't appear necessarily
33:57
Speaker 1: with the unaided eye. You might have to take micro
34:00
Speaker 1: scopic slides and look at it. And again, there's so
34:03
Speaker 1: many unanswered questions here. You're going to retain as much
34:06
Speaker 1: as you possibly can in case like this day.
34:08
Speaker 2: You can get DNA and all that, right, and you
34:10
Speaker 2: test the DNA against every family member and yeah.
34:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and that's certainly something and you would probably
34:16
Speaker 1: request those those living in this home, they're gonna go
34:22
Speaker 1: get a buckle mu coastal swab from each and every
34:25
Speaker 1: one of these people. That's gonna be valuable nuclear DNA
34:30
Speaker 1: that they're going to retrieve from each one of these people,
34:32
Speaker 1: as far as you know, harvesting DNA sample from the head,
34:38
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, and from the hands, and there's other things too.
34:42
Speaker 1: I think it's important to remember regarding the head, unless
34:47
Speaker 1: they've all been extracted, you're gonna have teeth, and do
34:53
Speaker 1: the teeth do they have all of their teeth? Do
34:56
Speaker 1: they have what's referred to as carryou s dentition, which
34:59
Speaker 1: means that it is they have rotten teeth, They've never
35:03
Speaker 1: been under dental care. Do they have restorations, do they
35:05
Speaker 1: have caps, do they have fillings, do they have dental implants?
35:09
Speaker 1: Are they wearing a partial? So the teeth are going
35:13
Speaker 1: to tell a lot about the person, the lifestyle. And
35:16
Speaker 1: then from an anthropomorphic standpoint, if the skull or the
35:22
Speaker 1: head is not completely intact, I mean with soft tissue,
35:27
Speaker 1: they could do a facial reconstruction on the skull. Because
35:30
Speaker 1: it's going to be important to determine the race of
35:34
Speaker 1: the individual. Does this individual the race of the head,
35:39
Speaker 1: does it fit with the other racial characteristics of the
35:41
Speaker 1: individuals that live in this home?
35:44
Speaker 2: Will the head continue to decompose after you put it
35:46
Speaker 2: in the freezer.
35:47
Speaker 1: It's going to be greatly slowed. What happens is is that,
35:52
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about freezer burn a little while ago.
35:54
Speaker 1: What happens is is that we use the term desiccation.
35:59
Speaker 1: You hear that with fruit and that sort of thing,
36:01
Speaker 1: like desiccated dates or something like that. Essentially, all that
36:05
Speaker 1: means is that it's drying out. So over a period
36:08
Speaker 1: of time, you can have a frozen item like this,
36:12
Speaker 1: and it will literally begin to contract, kind of shrivel
36:17
Speaker 1: the bone want but all of the tissues so it
36:20
Speaker 1: might not be recognizable, but you could still appreciate hair length,
36:24
Speaker 1: hair color, Do they have eyebrows, had they plucked their eyebrows?
36:30
Speaker 1: If it's a male perhaps, do they have facial hair?
36:35
Speaker 1: And you can even you can even appreciate this far
36:38
Speaker 1: down range, even if the head has been frozen. You
36:41
Speaker 1: can appreciate things like beard's double have they shaved recently
36:46
Speaker 1: prior to death? If they do have a beard, how
36:50
Speaker 1: long is the beard? All of those little little nuances
36:54
Speaker 1: in a case like this are going to be pivotal
36:57
Speaker 1: when they're trying to determine what exactly happened. But I
37:00
Speaker 1: do know this. To date, the police have not released
37:06
Speaker 1: any information, given us any indication as to first off,
37:10
Speaker 1: who this person is. They've also not released what the
37:14
Speaker 1: cause of death is. But we do have a manner
37:17
Speaker 1: the police and the corner have decided that this is
37:22
Speaker 1: a homicide. We're going to need to follow up on
37:25
Speaker 1: this case. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body
37:30
Speaker 1: Backs