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Mayhem in the Morgue: Coffin Birth · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Today's episode discusses the death of individuals. If this sort
0:03
Speaker 1: of thing upsets you, this is once again not the
0:06
Speaker 1: episode for you. May suggest you watch a movie, maybe
0:10
Speaker 1: something like Dawn of the Dead, Welcome to Mayhem, the
0:15
Speaker 1: More with their host Doctor Kender crowns today's episode coffin birth. Today,
0:28
Speaker 1: I'm going to be discussing decompositional gas formation, the odor
0:32
Speaker 1: it creates, also known as the smell of death, and
0:35
Speaker 1: artifacts associated with it founded autopsy, including the rare event
0:39
Speaker 1: known as post mortem fetal extrusion also known as coffin birth.
0:45
Speaker 1: So let's get started. When an individual dies, the body
0:48
Speaker 1: begins to decompose, and it follows several stages until it
0:53
Speaker 1: finally turns to dust. A part of this decomposition process
0:57
Speaker 1: is the development of dozens of different types of gases
1:01
Speaker 1: during the early stages of decomposition. Once there is no
1:04
Speaker 1: more oxygen circulating in the blood, the cells begin the
1:08
Speaker 1: process of atolysis, which means they digest themselves and eventually rupture,
1:14
Speaker 1: releasing a nutrient rich fluid. After enough of the fluid
1:18
Speaker 1: becomes available, the decomposition process, known as putrefication begins. When
1:23
Speaker 1: people think of decomposed bodies. This is what they're usually
1:26
Speaker 1: thinking of. Putrefication is when the body starts becoming green,
1:31
Speaker 1: begins to bloat or swell up, and the skin begins
1:34
Speaker 1: to slip off. The process of putrification is caused when
1:38
Speaker 1: the body is broken down by bacteria as well as
1:41
Speaker 1: fungi in some viruses, but mostly bacteria. The main one
1:46
Speaker 1: involved naturally lives inside of us. They are sitting there
1:49
Speaker 1: right now in you while you're listening to this show, waiting,
1:53
Speaker 1: waiting for their opportunity to digest you. These bacteria are
1:58
Speaker 1: held in check by the immune sus until the individual dies,
2:02
Speaker 1: after which the immune system shuts down and the bacteria
2:05
Speaker 1: start digesting the body, traveling through the blood, vessels and lymphatics,
2:10
Speaker 1: consuming the tissues as they go. The main source of
2:13
Speaker 1: the bacteria involved in this process is from the intestinal track,
2:17
Speaker 1: where there are over thirty eight trillion symbiotic bacteria in
2:22
Speaker 1: the average human body. One of the main gut bacteria
2:26
Speaker 1: are the ones belonging to the class Clestridia. These bacteria
2:30
Speaker 1: are anaerobes, meaning they don't rely on oxygen to function
2:34
Speaker 1: and generate energy through the process of fermentation, and when
2:38
Speaker 1: they are hard at work, breaking down the body, they
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Speaker 1: produce the decompositional gases. There are dozens of different gases
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Speaker 1: released during petrification, but there are at least ten primary
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Speaker 1: ones that are associated with the smell of decomposition, and
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Speaker 1: these are as follows. Cadaverine, putrescine, scattal, dull, hydrogen, salt, methane, thiol, methane,
3:03
Speaker 1: dimethyl disulfide, dimethyl trisulfide, and ammonia. Each one of these
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Speaker 1: gases adds a unique smell to decomposition, so let's go
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Speaker 1: through each one, starting with hydrogen sulfide and methane. These
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Speaker 1: two both have the same smell, which is reported to
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Speaker 1: be a swampy rotten egg smell. Next is cadaverrene and putresene.
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Speaker 1: They have the smell of rotting fish and at high
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Speaker 1: enough levels can actually be toxic to breathe. Scatal has
3:37
Speaker 1: the odor of feces, indulls smells like mothballs, Methane thiol
3:42
Speaker 1: smells like rotten cabbage, dimethyl disulfide and dimethyl trisulfide smell
3:48
Speaker 1: like foul garlic and are also an attractant for flies.
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Speaker 1: And finally, ammonia is described as having the smell of
3:56
Speaker 1: stale urine sweat, or pungent rotten fish. As you can tell,
4:01
Speaker 1: decomposition gases are a variable poe prix of awful smells,
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Speaker 1: and it depends on the environment and how long the
4:08
Speaker 1: body is decomposed for to determine how truly bad the
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Speaker 1: body will smell. My first exposure to a decomposed body
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Speaker 1: was during my medical school rotation at the Sedgroc County
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Speaker 1: Medical Examiner's office, in which Ta Kansas. I had been
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Speaker 1: there probably about a week or so when a case
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Speaker 1: came in. It was a typical story of an elderly
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Speaker 1: male with no family. He had not been seen for weeks.
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Speaker 1: Mail and newspapers were piling up, and the neighbors had
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Speaker 1: been noticing a spoul smell coming from his house. Sadly,
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Speaker 1: there was no paperboy paying attention to the fact that
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Speaker 1: his lights were always on and his windows were full
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Speaker 1: of flies. Eventually, a neighbor had become concerned that nobody
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Speaker 1: had seen him, and they called police. When police arrived,
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Speaker 1: they found that his student's house locked and secured. They
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Speaker 1: had to kick in the front door to gain entry,
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Speaker 1: and when they entered the house, they were struck by
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Speaker 1: an intense foul smell of decomposition. One of the officers
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Speaker 1: reportedly threw up instantly. They found that a seatent dead
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Speaker 1: in bed covers pulled up, it looked like he had
5:13
Speaker 1: just been sleeping, but of course now he was in
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Speaker 1: a moderate state of decomposition, which meant he was bloated
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Speaker 1: and green, with skin slippage and flying maggot activity about
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Speaker 1: his body. The body was brought to the medical examiner's office,
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Speaker 1: and when I arrived at the morgue that day, the
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Speaker 1: forensic death investigators told me about the case, and they
5:32
Speaker 1: told me the chief medical examiner wanted to know when
5:34
Speaker 1: I arrived because she wanted to be the one who
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Speaker 1: showed me the case, because it was the first decomposed
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Speaker 1: body I would have ever experienced, and after all, that
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Speaker 1: is important milestone in a medical examiner's career. When the
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Speaker 1: chief found me, she took me into the decomposition infectious
5:51
Speaker 1: disease morgue. It was a morgue that was separate from
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Speaker 1: the rest of the building. It had its own special
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Speaker 1: air handling system to filter out the foul smells and
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Speaker 1: infectious diseases and keep them from circulating in the building
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Speaker 1: or outside. When we walked into the morgue. Most the
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Speaker 1: lights were turned off, except for the lights directly over
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Speaker 1: the body. They illuminated the deceed in the darkness, making
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Speaker 1: for a very dramatic display. The body bag was already
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Speaker 1: opened and the scene was clothed in a formerly white
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Speaker 1: tank top that was now stained dark green with decomposition
6:24
Speaker 1: fluid and red shorts. The clothing was stretched to the
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Speaker 1: limit by the bloated, decomposed body. His skin was an
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Speaker 1: odd bright green to dark black green. There were areas
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Speaker 1: of skin slippage, and a black fluid exuded from his mouth,
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Speaker 1: and nose flies and maggots were swarming about his body.
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Speaker 1: It was truly something that I had never seen before.
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Speaker 1: The Chief medical Examiner turned to me and she said,
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Speaker 1: take a deep breath and tell me what you smell.
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Speaker 1: I breathed in deeply, but all I could smell was wet,
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Speaker 1: stale saltines and blueberries. I told her what I could smell,
7:01
Speaker 1: and she looked at me and she said, what, No,
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Speaker 1: you smell the smell of money, Because this smell, the
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Speaker 1: smell of decomposition, is what separates the true forensic pathologists
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Speaker 1: from everyone else, and that smell will forever keep us
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Speaker 1: employed because very few can stand it. That was a
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Speaker 1: very true statement. Over the years, I've seen many a
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Speaker 1: medical professional gag and vomit from the malodorous smell. When
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Speaker 1: I was in residency, the chief resident, who became a
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Speaker 1: gaser intestinal pathologist, had to show me how to do
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Speaker 1: an autopsy in the morgue and in the very next
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Speaker 1: morgue they were working on a decompositional case, and throughout
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Speaker 1: the entire dissection, he gagged and almost vomited, and finally
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Speaker 1: told me to just finish the case up because he
7:47
Speaker 1: had to go because he couldn't take the smell anymore.
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Speaker 1: I noticed this amongst my peers, the ones that didn't
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Speaker 1: want to be forensic pathologists, never wanted to be around
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Speaker 1: when there was a decomposed body. And like I said,
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Speaker 1: it never bothered me. I was truly aware I wanted
8:02
Speaker 1: to be for me. Though it is an odd smell,
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Speaker 1: sometimes stale saltines and blueberries, occasionally a damp dirt smell
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Speaker 1: like that of my grandmother's root cellar, and sometimes the
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Speaker 1: bodies smell like yeasty bread. I have always known that
8:17
Speaker 1: I don't process smells like the rest of the population.
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Speaker 1: Some smells I can pick up, like the intense smell
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Speaker 1: of cinnamon, and others I can't process at all, like
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Speaker 1: the smell of urine. I just don't smell it. Was
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Speaker 1: it something I was born with or is it the
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Speaker 1: result of multiple concussions that I have suffered throughout my childhood?
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Speaker 1: Who knows, but it definitely makes me well suited for
8:39
Speaker 1: the smelly world of forensics. Wow wow. Unlike me, there
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Speaker 1: are many a creature that are able to process the
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Speaker 1: smell of decomposition quite well and are very attracted to
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Speaker 1: the dead decaying body. These creatures help expedite the decomposition
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Speaker 1: process by consuming the body, and among them are coyotes, rats, vultures,
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Speaker 1: and flies. Flies are a constant companion of the dead,
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Speaker 1: and in every morgue that I have worked in, they
9:08
Speaker 1: are always there. The main flies we deal with are blowflies,
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Speaker 1: flesh flies, and house flies. They arrive within minutes after death,
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Speaker 1: laying their eggs around the orifices, eyes, and hair. The
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Speaker 1: eggs hatch in as little as eight to twenty four
9:24
Speaker 1: hours after being laid, producing maggots, and when the maggots
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Speaker 1: come out, they instantly begin to consume the tissues. Maggots
9:32
Speaker 1: are soft legless worms that are white to yellow in coloration.
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Speaker 1: They range in size from a grain of rice to
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Speaker 1: almost an inch, depending on their age. They can be
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Speaker 1: moving individually about the body or in giant swarms of
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Speaker 1: hundreds in a particular location. They can be very active,
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Speaker 1: writhing around on the surface of body or under the epidermis,
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Speaker 1: giving the skin an undulating appearance. In larger groups of maggots,
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Speaker 1: known as maggot masses, can create intense heat because their
10:00
Speaker 1: muscular movement and high speed metabolism, they can create temperatures
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Speaker 1: that are up to fifty four degrees fahrenheit higher than
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Speaker 1: the surrounding air temperature, and you can actually see steam
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Speaker 1: rising from the bodies and the cooler. Occasionally, they can
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Speaker 1: also create a frothy foam in chest cavities around the
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Speaker 1: skin surface from their feeding frenzies. At autopsy, you have
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Speaker 1: to scrape them off to evaluate the body. They will
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Speaker 1: get on you and crawl around. I have never been
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Speaker 1: bitten by one, but I have always had on my ppe.
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Speaker 1: They are just an occupational hazard. They'll be on your sleeves,
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Speaker 1: your gloves sometimes or even on your shoes, and you
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Speaker 1: just have to brush them off and keep working. There
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Speaker 1: was one time one got on my pin and I
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Speaker 1: wasn't paying attention and it crawled into the tip and
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Speaker 1: clogged it. So I just threw that pin away and
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Speaker 1: got a new one. Who wants to dig the maggot
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Speaker 1: out of a pin. Some of the maggots jump and
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Speaker 1: get onto the floor, and no matter what you do
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Speaker 1: after an autopsy, there's always maggots around for the rest
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Speaker 1: of the day, crawling on the floor in the sink,
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Speaker 1: and sometimes they make interesting trails in the blood in
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Speaker 1: decompositional fluid that almost looks artistic as they search for
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Speaker 1: a new food source. Occasionally, the maggot activity is so
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Speaker 1: severe they've consumed all the organs and there's really nothing
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Speaker 1: to find at autopsy. And when you don't catch these
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Speaker 1: maggots or get rid of them, they grow into flies
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Speaker 1: and they are all over the morgue. In Cook County,
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Speaker 1: the flies were so bad that they had fly strips
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Speaker 1: hanging from the ceiling to catch the wayward flies. They
11:32
Speaker 1: did work, but unfortunately they hung just low enough that
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Speaker 1: I could run into them, and occasionally I would get
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Speaker 1: stuck on one of the fly strips with my scrub cap.
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Speaker 1: I would have to pry this fly strip off my
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Speaker 1: head and then continue working. It was always frustrating when
11:47
Speaker 1: that would happen. So flies they just add to the
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Speaker 1: decomposition experience and make it just a little bit more miserable.
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Speaker 1: The decomposition gases cause the body to swell or bloat,
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Speaker 1: which will go into more of that in a little bit.
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Speaker 1: But the body's like a balloon and when you have
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Speaker 1: to cut into it, it suddenly deflates, releasing its smelly
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Speaker 1: contents into the morgue. It will fill the entire room
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Speaker 1: with the decomposition odor and you have to spend the
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Speaker 1: rest of your day working in the smell. The other
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Speaker 1: problem is it can make the whole building smell. Typically,
12:19
Speaker 1: most offices have a decomposition and infectious disease more that
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Speaker 1: has a different air handling system, so the smell doesn't
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Speaker 1: get all through the building. In Cook County, if you
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Speaker 1: didn't do the case in the decomposition morg it would
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Speaker 1: make the whole building smell. The problem was the decomposition
12:37
Speaker 1: morg was difficult to work in. It had poor lighting,
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Speaker 1: and it meant working in two separate areas which would
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Speaker 1: then need to be cleaned by the autopsy technicians, and
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Speaker 1: they were never a big fan of this. Having a
12:49
Speaker 1: decomposition case was always something you wanted to avoid. But
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Speaker 1: if you did have one and you autopsiedd it in
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Speaker 1: the main morgue, the smell started circulating about the office
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Speaker 1: would cause the chief medical examiner come down to figure
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Speaker 1: out who was doing a decomposition case outside of the
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Speaker 1: decomposition morgue. If he caught you doing this, he would
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Speaker 1: get very angry and tell you never to do it again,
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Speaker 1: and you would have fear that you would possibly get
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Speaker 1: written up. So even if it was a pain and
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Speaker 1: the autopsy technicians would complain, you would just go work
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Speaker 1: in the decomposition morg because ultimately you wanted to keep
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Speaker 1: your job. One of the doctors hated to work in
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Speaker 1: the decomposition morg He figured out a workaround. What he
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Speaker 1: did was before the decomposition case was started, he covered
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Speaker 1: the large intake vents that were in the morgue with
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Speaker 1: thin pieces of cardboard that he had cut specifically for
13:43
Speaker 1: this task. Before the case would start, he would pull
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Speaker 1: the pieces of cardboard out from his secret hiding space,
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Speaker 1: place them on the intake fence. Once they were covered,
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Speaker 1: they would make a bit of a whistling noise, and
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Speaker 1: he would start the case. The air would be foul
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Speaker 1: and stagnant in the room that he was working in,
14:01
Speaker 1: and if you were in that room, you just had
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Speaker 1: to deal with it too. He would always do his
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Speaker 1: decomposition cases last. Once he was done, the autopsy technicians
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Speaker 1: would clean up the station and sew the body back
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Speaker 1: together and wheel it back into the cooler. He would
14:17
Speaker 1: gather his notes and head to his office, and right
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Speaker 1: before he left the morgue, he would pull the pieces
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Speaker 1: of cardboard off. There'd be a loud whosh as all
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Speaker 1: the stagnant air would be sucked into the intake fence
14:28
Speaker 1: and pulled out of the room and then circulated suddenly
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Speaker 1: about the building. If you were in your office and
14:35
Speaker 1: not on the morgue on one of these days, you
14:38
Speaker 1: would be sitting there doing your paperwork, when suddenly there
14:41
Speaker 1: would be an overwhelming, intense decomposition smell filling your office
14:45
Speaker 1: and filling the entire building as well. And as soon
14:48
Speaker 1: as this would happen it was like clockwork, the chief
14:51
Speaker 1: medical examiner would come out of his office and head
14:54
Speaker 1: directly to the morgue to figure out who was doing this.
14:57
Speaker 1: And when he would come down looking for who was
14:59
Speaker 1: doing a decomp position case in the main morgue, he
15:02
Speaker 1: would only find an empty clean room. This went on
15:05
Speaker 1: for a little while, and then one day the doctor
15:08
Speaker 1: who had perfected this technique was working in the decomposition
15:12
Speaker 1: morgue just like the rest of us. I guess it
15:15
Speaker 1: only took a little while for the Chief Medical Examiner
15:18
Speaker 1: to figure out what he was doing and caught the
15:20
Speaker 1: perpetrator and redirected him. Even when you're working in the
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Speaker 1: decomposition morgue, the smell will still get about the building,
15:28
Speaker 1: just not as intense. It's a common occurrence and the
15:31
Speaker 1: Secretarial Records and administration staff always has to deal with it,
15:36
Speaker 1: especially in the summer when decomposition cases are at their highest.
15:41
Speaker 1: We had a phrase in Travis County in Texas which
15:44
Speaker 1: was in the summer, the grass gets yellow and the
15:47
Speaker 1: bodies get green. It's an occupational hazard that I'm sure
15:51
Speaker 1: some of the staff didn't realize that they would have
15:53
Speaker 1: to deal with when they signed on to work at
15:56
Speaker 1: the office. And no matter how many candles and air
15:59
Speaker 1: fresheners hear use, it still permeates the air, It permeates
16:04
Speaker 1: your clothes in your hair and does not go away.
16:07
Speaker 1: You have to wash your clothes and take a shower
16:09
Speaker 1: to finally be rid of the smell. Due to my
16:12
Speaker 1: unique smelling ability, I often don't notice that I have
16:16
Speaker 1: an odor after I do a decomposition case. I typically
16:19
Speaker 1: wear scrubs that I only wear in the morgue and
16:22
Speaker 1: change into my going home scrubs when I'm done, so
16:25
Speaker 1: at least that part of me doesn't smell when I
16:28
Speaker 1: get home. Beth, on the other hand, who has an
16:31
Speaker 1: incredible sense of smell, the second I walked through the
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Speaker 1: door to our house, she could tell, no matter where
16:37
Speaker 1: she was, that I had been around a decomposed body,
16:39
Speaker 1: and she would instantly tell me, Oh, you need to
16:42
Speaker 1: go take a shower before you go any further. And
16:45
Speaker 1: after all these years that we've been married, I know
16:48
Speaker 1: the routine. So instead of her telling me to go shower,
16:52
Speaker 1: I just assume my smell when I get home, and
16:54
Speaker 1: I instantly go take a shower. People often ask me
16:57
Speaker 1: how do I deal with the smell. I have heard
17:00
Speaker 1: others say breathe through your mouth, but then some say,
17:03
Speaker 1: then you can taste it. The main piece of advice
17:06
Speaker 1: that I've heard that I also share with other people
17:09
Speaker 1: is that it's just best to breathe normally and focus
17:12
Speaker 1: on what needs to be done, and eventually you'll become
17:16
Speaker 1: noseblind to it. But you can't leave the room because
17:19
Speaker 1: if you do, your nose resets and then you have
17:21
Speaker 1: to start the whole process over again. It stinks, but
17:25
Speaker 1: if you can smell it, you can power through it eventually.
17:28
Speaker 1: But even some medical examiners struggle with the smell throughout
17:32
Speaker 1: their career. One that I worked with in Cook County
17:35
Speaker 1: had been working for over twenty years and had done
17:38
Speaker 1: thousands of autopsies, but he always gagged with the bad
17:42
Speaker 1: decomposed cases, which made him an easy target for individuals
17:46
Speaker 1: seeking revenge with case assignments. When he would get one
17:49
Speaker 1: of these cases, he would diligently work on it, gagging
17:52
Speaker 1: every five minutes or so. But he never complained and
17:56
Speaker 1: he always got it done and he was incredibly thorough.
18:00
Speaker 1: As I said earlier, decomposition gases cause a body to
18:03
Speaker 1: swell or bloat. The body swells up like a balloon,
18:07
Speaker 1: the skin stretches and becomes tight. The gases can get
18:10
Speaker 1: between the epidermis and dermis and create blisters. These large
18:14
Speaker 1: blisters then can fill with decompositional fluid and they burst
18:18
Speaker 1: with minimal movement, getting fluid all over the place if
18:22
Speaker 1: you're not paying attention. Also, with this separation of the
18:25
Speaker 1: epidermis and dermis, it can result in skin slippage, which
18:29
Speaker 1: means the outer epidermal layer slips off the body. And
18:33
Speaker 1: one interesting thing is that the hands and feet slip
18:36
Speaker 1: off in a glove like distribution. As I have said
18:39
Speaker 1: on a previous episode, you can take the skin of
18:42
Speaker 1: the hands, place it on your own skin, and then
18:45
Speaker 1: get fingerprints from it. It's always a little odd wearing
18:49
Speaker 1: someone else's skin to accomplish this task, but it's just
18:53
Speaker 1: part of the job. Another thing that happens with skin
18:56
Speaker 1: slippage is tattoos can become more brightly colored and more
19:00
Speaker 1: visible because the tattoo ink is actually on the dermal layer.
19:05
Speaker 1: So when the skin slips off, the dermis which is
19:08
Speaker 1: still there, retains the tattoo ink and you can get
19:11
Speaker 1: a very good picture of it for documentation purposes. The
19:16
Speaker 1: swelling of the skin distorts the facial features and makes
19:19
Speaker 1: the individual difficult to identify with standard forms of identification
19:24
Speaker 1: like a driver's license, passport, or other ID, so other
19:27
Speaker 1: means of identification are needed to be used in the
19:30
Speaker 1: severely decomposed cases, such as dental records, radiographic studies, or
19:36
Speaker 1: even DNA testing. The pressure from the gas can actually
19:40
Speaker 1: cause the body to rupture. Typically, this is seen along
19:43
Speaker 1: weakened areas of skin, like a previous surgical incision or
19:48
Speaker 1: a healing scar. In these areas, the body will split open,
19:52
Speaker 1: simulating an injury. One case that I had was an
19:55
Speaker 1: individual who was intoxicated and he was walking around the
19:58
Speaker 1: house naked, which a lot of people do, shockingly enough,
20:02
Speaker 1: when he collapsed and fell on multiple liquor bottles, shattering them.
20:07
Speaker 1: Some of the glass shards stabbed into his abdomen, penetrating
20:11
Speaker 1: his liver and his intestines. He got up and then collapsed,
20:15
Speaker 1: falling backward on a mattress that was on the floor,
20:18
Speaker 1: and bled to death. He was not found for nearly
20:21
Speaker 1: a week, and by the time he was found he
20:24
Speaker 1: was moderately decomposed. His skin was bright green, his body
20:29
Speaker 1: was swollen with decomposition gases. His abdomen had three large, gaping,
20:34
Speaker 1: parallel in sized wounds that stretched from the bottom of
20:38
Speaker 1: his chest to just above his genitals. It looked like
20:42
Speaker 1: someone had dutted him. When evaluating these parallel in size wounds,
20:47
Speaker 1: I noticed they appeared to be bloodless and there was
20:50
Speaker 1: no underlying associated injuries of the organs. Upon further examination,
20:56
Speaker 1: they appeared to be old areas of scarring from previous
20:59
Speaker 1: surgeries that had ruptured because of the swelling from the
21:02
Speaker 1: decompositional gases. I did find two small stab wounds from
21:07
Speaker 1: the glass that had hemorrhage associated with them and corresponding
21:11
Speaker 1: injuries in the organs, and also recovered the glass shards,
21:15
Speaker 1: and this explained his death caused death sharp for's injuries
21:19
Speaker 1: manner of death accident, But initially it looked like he
21:23
Speaker 1: had gruesome sharp force injuries consisting of large in sized
21:28
Speaker 1: wounds splitting open his body, and that would have been
21:32
Speaker 1: a much different type of case. The other thing that
21:39
Speaker 1: the pressure causes is purging of decompositional fluids out of
21:43
Speaker 1: the orifices, meaning the mouth, vaginal canal, and rectum. These
21:48
Speaker 1: are often confused as evidence of sexual assault, and there
21:52
Speaker 1: have been more than one case in my career in
21:54
Speaker 1: which there was a concern of this. In one particular case,
21:58
Speaker 1: it was that of an elderly woman who was fully
22:00
Speaker 1: clothed in pajamas and underwear. She was found in a
22:03
Speaker 1: locked and secured residence dead in bed. The investigating officers
22:08
Speaker 1: were concerned because she had what they thought was blood
22:11
Speaker 1: coming from her mouth and there was blood on her underwear.
22:15
Speaker 1: They insisted a complete sexual assault kit be done at autopsy,
22:19
Speaker 1: she had no external evidence of injury. She was markedly
22:23
Speaker 1: swollen and she was obviously purging fluids from her mouth, vagina,
22:27
Speaker 1: and anus. I tried to explain this to the officers,
22:31
Speaker 1: but they were insistent that they wanted to rule out
22:34
Speaker 1: a sexual assault. I did the sexual assault kit as
22:38
Speaker 1: they requested, and it was submitted to the crime lab
22:41
Speaker 1: and nothing was found. They did an intense investigation and
22:46
Speaker 1: found there was no nefarious activities associated with her death.
22:50
Speaker 1: She had not been involved in gang related activities, nor
22:54
Speaker 1: was she a cartel member. There was no large insurance
22:57
Speaker 1: policy out on her. She was just an old lady
23:01
Speaker 1: who had no family and died and decomposed. She was
23:05
Speaker 1: never sexually assaulted. It was just purge fluid from decomposition
23:09
Speaker 1: that was forced out of her body because of the
23:11
Speaker 1: pressure from the gases. Another thing is the decomposition gases
23:16
Speaker 1: can be flammable, and one of the things that is
23:18
Speaker 1: often done to show this to fellows and medical students
23:22
Speaker 1: is a needle is placed in the swollen abdomen of
23:25
Speaker 1: the decedent. As the gases are released from the needle,
23:29
Speaker 1: it's lit up with a match or a lighter, showing
23:31
Speaker 1: a bright blue flame coming from the gases released from
23:34
Speaker 1: the body. It's always a good parlor trick, but it's
23:38
Speaker 1: not something that I would recommend because I've always wondered
23:41
Speaker 1: what happens if the flame pulls into the body. That's
23:45
Speaker 1: a lot of gas. Would the body explode? But in
23:48
Speaker 1: the times I've seen this done, they usually pull the
23:50
Speaker 1: needle out quite quickly, so nothing like this has ever
23:53
Speaker 1: happened in my presence. Finally, one of the other things
23:58
Speaker 1: that very rarely occurs with the compositional gas pressure is
24:02
Speaker 1: what is known as post mortem fetal extrusion, also known
24:07
Speaker 1: as coffinbirth. I have recently discussed this on the Nancy
24:11
Speaker 1: Grace Show when we were reviewing the death of Shenane Watts.
24:15
Speaker 1: If you're not familiar with her death, she was pregnant
24:18
Speaker 1: and soon to have a son. Her husband who was
24:21
Speaker 1: having an affair, evidently did not want another child, and
24:24
Speaker 1: manually strangled her. He also killed their two small daughters.
24:29
Speaker 1: The daughters were shoved into oil storage tanks and Sannan
24:33
Speaker 1: was buried in a shallow grave. Her body was not
24:37
Speaker 1: found for three days, and when she was found, she
24:40
Speaker 1: was described to be in a state of mild to
24:42
Speaker 1: moderate decomposition, consisting of generalized discoloration, which is the green
24:48
Speaker 1: coloration of the skin, skin slippage, and bloating. Sheanan was
24:52
Speaker 1: also noted to have a second trimester fetus and placenta
24:56
Speaker 1: found and I quote expelled from the gravity u uterus.
25:00
Speaker 1: This is not the first time that I have discussed
25:03
Speaker 1: Coffin Berth on the Nancy Gray Show. The other case
25:06
Speaker 1: that I have discussed on her show was that of
25:09
Speaker 1: Lacy Peterson. If you're not familiar with her, she was
25:13
Speaker 1: murdered by her husband back in two thousand and four.
25:16
Speaker 1: She was pregnant and her husband was having an affair.
25:20
Speaker 1: Notice a trend here. He strangled her and then her
25:24
Speaker 1: body was weighed down and dumped in the San Francisco Bay.
25:28
Speaker 1: Much like Shannan, her unborn fetus was found separate from
25:32
Speaker 1: her body. It actually washed ashore and was found before
25:35
Speaker 1: what was left of Lacy Peterson's remains. At autopsy, Lacey's
25:40
Speaker 1: uterus was described as enlarged and intact, and they could
25:44
Speaker 1: not find any evidence of a cesarean section, meaning that
25:48
Speaker 1: she had also had an instance of coffin birth. Coffin
25:53
Speaker 1: birth occurs because the amount of pressure formed in the
25:55
Speaker 1: abdomen by the decompositional gases pushes down on the uterus
26:00
Speaker 1: and causes a baby to be expelled. The thing is,
26:03
Speaker 1: though the smaller the baby or fetus is, the more
26:06
Speaker 1: likely the entire fetus will be extruded. At thirteen weeks,
26:10
Speaker 1: a fetus is about the size of a lemon, twenty
26:13
Speaker 1: seven weeks about the size of a cauliflower, and by
26:17
Speaker 1: forty weeks it's the size of a watermelon. And once
26:20
Speaker 1: it gets this big, it would become very difficult for
26:24
Speaker 1: just gas pressure to force it out, so depending on
26:27
Speaker 1: the size of the fetus, it may only be partially
26:30
Speaker 1: extruded from the mother's birth canal. Coffin birth has been
26:33
Speaker 1: documented for centuries, though early accounts lack scientific precision. There
26:38
Speaker 1: has been several articles written on this subject, most notably
26:43
Speaker 1: the majority of them taking place in Germany for whatever reason.
26:46
Speaker 1: One article described a thirty four year old woman who
26:50
Speaker 1: was eight months pregnant. She had died of a heroin overdose,
26:53
Speaker 1: and when her body was discovered she was in a
26:56
Speaker 1: state a modern decomposition. Her fetus was found partially extruded
27:00
Speaker 1: through the birth canal. It was an eight months gestation fetus.
27:05
Speaker 1: At this size, it's less likely for coffin birth to
27:09
Speaker 1: occur because to extrude a fetus of this side, more
27:13
Speaker 1: pressures needed to expel it from the uterus. Post Mortem
27:17
Speaker 1: fetal extrusion of a mature fetus can occur, but it
27:21
Speaker 1: requires a dilation of the internal oz of the cervical
27:24
Speaker 1: canal prompted by anti mortem uterine contractions in the sense
27:29
Speaker 1: of the first stage of labor. Things like infectious disease, eclampsia,
27:34
Speaker 1: and drug abuse can simulate this first stage of labor,
27:37
Speaker 1: causing the internal oz to soften and relax the birth canal.
27:43
Speaker 1: There is also a theory that post mortem uterine contractions
27:48
Speaker 1: occur by the onset of rigamortis within the uterine musculature
27:53
Speaker 1: that then results in contraction of the uterus and can
27:56
Speaker 1: force a late trimester coffin birth to occur. The literature
28:01
Speaker 1: discusses that a coffin birth is something that must be
28:04
Speaker 1: determined by the medical examiner because you have to separate
28:07
Speaker 1: postmorum fetal extrusion from a possible live birth, and this
28:11
Speaker 1: can only be done by evaluating the fetus and checking
28:15
Speaker 1: to see if there is any sign of life. If
28:17
Speaker 1: you do find this, it would mean the mother was
28:20
Speaker 1: buried alive or there was an attempted abortion. It cannot
28:24
Speaker 1: just be assumed that it is a result of a
28:26
Speaker 1: coffin birth, so a full autopsy of mother and fetus,
28:30
Speaker 1: as well as a microscopic evaluation is necessary to make
28:34
Speaker 1: the final determination if it truly is a coffin berth.
28:38
Speaker 1: I have never seen a case of this, and I
28:40
Speaker 1: hope I never do, but because of the research I've
28:43
Speaker 1: done for the Nancy Gray Show, at least I know
28:46
Speaker 1: what to look for. In closing, I would like to
28:49
Speaker 1: thank the members of Team Mayhem. These are the individuals
28:53
Speaker 1: that have gotten me through all the shows so far,
28:56
Speaker 1: and they are first Max Luyden, who's the test technical
29:00
Speaker 1: editor of audio production, and Katie Flatley, the digital producer extraordinaire.
29:07
Speaker 1: I'd also like to thank my wife Beth for helping
29:10
Speaker 1: me with multiple aspects of the show and the TikTok page.
29:14
Speaker 1: And finally, I'd like to thank car fifty five for
29:17
Speaker 1: providing the music for the show. And that brings us
29:23
Speaker 1: to the end of the episode. I hope you learned
29:26
Speaker 1: something and I hope you were entertained until the next time.