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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Toes in the Ground · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:01
Speaker 1: Body bats. But Joseph's gotten more over the course of
0:08
Speaker 1: my adult life. Like many of you, I'm sure i've been,
0:13
Speaker 1: I've found myself in the position of having to rent,
0:17
Speaker 1: and the rentals that I have had, it's always a
0:22
Speaker 1: mixed bag. You never know what you're going to get,
0:26
Speaker 1: you know, and it's amazing how they can kind of
0:28
Speaker 1: polish things up to kind of draw you in, lure
0:31
Speaker 1: you in if you will. Now, I was never one
0:34
Speaker 1: of these that was in some kind of huge apartment complex,
0:40
Speaker 1: you know, like they have today. I kind of stuck
0:43
Speaker 1: with renting even a space and otherwise occupied home. I've
0:48
Speaker 1: had basement apartments, I've rented entire homes in New Orleans
0:53
Speaker 1: in particular, I would have an affinity for shotguns. Shotgun
0:57
Speaker 1: doubles is what they were called, you know everything As
1:01
Speaker 1: they say, you could fire a shotgun through the front
1:03
Speaker 1: door and you'd never hit a wall because you'd go
1:05
Speaker 1: out the back door. But I always liked those homes
1:08
Speaker 1: and I like the history of them. But there are
1:11
Speaker 1: certain structures out there, I think, and locations that develop
1:15
Speaker 1: a history along the way. I've always stated as a
1:18
Speaker 1: death investigator that I truly believe that places many times
1:23
Speaker 1: are haunted, and they're not necessarily haunted by ghost but
1:28
Speaker 1: by memories and the horror potentially of what happened. Today,
1:34
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about one such case that has
1:39
Speaker 1: come to my attention that is absolutely horrific and has
1:46
Speaker 1: been described that way by a prosecutor. Today, we're going
1:51
Speaker 1: to talk about a little boy named Zamar King who
1:57
Speaker 1: was left in a shallow gray in the backyard of
2:02
Speaker 1: a rental home by his mother. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan
2:10
Speaker 1: and this is body Bags. David. Got to tell you something.
2:15
Speaker 1: You know who the you know what the coolest place
2:18
Speaker 1: was that I ever rented? I got it. You're not
2:22
Speaker 1: gonna I bet you you would never guess this about me,
2:26
Speaker 1: because it just it was kind of like lightning, that
2:29
Speaker 1: kind of struck. Do you remember when we were kids
2:36
Speaker 1: and one of the coolest movies that came out in
2:41
Speaker 1: the early seventies was The Original Planet of the Apes
2:44
Speaker 1: Charlton Heston and crash Lands back on Earth in the future,
2:52
Speaker 1: and you know, it had like Roddy McDowell in it,
2:54
Speaker 1: and you know, whole cast of characters. Dude, I rented
3:01
Speaker 1: a basement apartment, which, by the way, is dangerous in
3:04
Speaker 1: New Orleans because everything floods. And that did happen to me.
3:07
Speaker 1: By the way, I rented a basement apartment from an
3:13
Speaker 1: old retired guy who was actually a marine that had
3:18
Speaker 1: fought at Iwo Jima. Wow. And he was the chief
3:22
Speaker 1: makeup artist for the Planet of the Apes.
3:25
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
3:26
Speaker 1: And I had no idea in renting an apartment. Now
3:30
Speaker 1: it was no he purchased his place. And he was
3:32
Speaker 1: not from New Orleans, Oh wow, Yeah he was. He
3:36
Speaker 1: was from Cali. He had born and raised in Cali
3:40
Speaker 1: and wound up like many people do, falling in love
3:45
Speaker 1: with falling in love with New Orleans, you know, on
3:49
Speaker 1: one of these visits, and it was it was quite amazing,
3:55
Speaker 1: you know, just to get to know him and learn
3:57
Speaker 1: about old Hollywood because he he started working in Hollywood
4:02
Speaker 1: right after he got out of the Marine Corps in
4:04
Speaker 1: War two, so he was in that the studio you know,
4:08
Speaker 1: the studio era of time, the studio system. Yeah, and
4:11
Speaker 1: so it was pretty fascinating. And it was he was
4:14
Speaker 1: a cool landlord. I mean, it was, it was awesome.
4:17
Speaker 2: But this landlord in this story is it's a shocking
4:22
Speaker 2: way that he tells this imagine, Joe, you're renting a property,
4:26
Speaker 2: the former tenant is gone, and you've had to go
4:29
Speaker 2: in and stage the property make it look better. Oftentimes
4:32
Speaker 2: they'll even bring in furniture and things like that, so
4:34
Speaker 2: the individual looking at the rentel it can get an
4:36
Speaker 2: idea of what it could look like with stuff in it.
4:39
Speaker 2: And it's while he's preparing to stage the house the
4:43
Speaker 2: apartment that he sees in the backyard something odd. And
4:51
Speaker 2: I cannot imagine what your first thought would be. But
4:55
Speaker 2: if I saw something that looked like a small foot
4:59
Speaker 2: sticking out of the dirt, I would think baby doll.
5:02
Speaker 2: I would think somebody had a Halloween joke. You know,
5:06
Speaker 2: That's where my mind would go. It would not go
5:09
Speaker 2: to human being, to child. That would not be part
5:12
Speaker 2: of it. And I thought, I can't wait to ask Joe.
5:16
Speaker 2: This would a foot, a human foot sticking up out
5:21
Speaker 2: of the ground look different than a fake foot, a
5:26
Speaker 2: plastic foot, because a plastic foot made for a dollar
5:32
Speaker 2: a mannequin would not change based on time or anything else.
5:36
Speaker 2: It's just going to be sticking up out of the
5:37
Speaker 2: dirt like a toy. But a human foot would have
5:42
Speaker 2: suffered even for a very limited amount of time, some
5:45
Speaker 2: type of decomposition. Oh yeah, would it be obvious to
5:49
Speaker 2: the regular person?
5:52
Speaker 1: You know? I think And this goes back to a
5:55
Speaker 1: conversation that you and I'm a friend have had many
5:58
Speaker 1: times relative to doing the double take, where your brain
6:02
Speaker 1: is trying to say that this is something other than
6:06
Speaker 1: maybe what my eyes are telling, right, And with decomposition,
6:13
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of like it's kind of like one
6:17
Speaker 1: of those puzzles or one of those images that you
6:20
Speaker 1: try to stare at for a particular period of time
6:23
Speaker 1: to try to pick out what's real, what's a true feature.
6:27
Speaker 1: And because of a normal biological process such as decomposition,
6:35
Speaker 1: you might look on the ground and think that it's
6:41
Speaker 1: debris laying there like a piece of wood, because it's
6:45
Speaker 1: going to have Unlike say, for instance, and this is
6:47
Speaker 1: a great point where you talked about a baby doll
6:51
Speaker 1: or a mannequin. Those things are manufactured basically plastic and
6:57
Speaker 1: their form stays the same other than weathering over a
7:01
Speaker 1: long period of time. But with a foot human foot,
7:07
Speaker 1: if you were to see it month after month, it
7:10
Speaker 1: is going to change in appearance and it will be
7:14
Speaker 1: so modeled in the in in this environment, and also
7:18
Speaker 1: with turn to Earth, which my assumption is is that
7:22
Speaker 1: there was turned to earth here. You know, our tissues
7:26
Speaker 1: blacken over a period of time as well, they will
7:30
Speaker 1: go dark if not properly preserved, and so you'll have this,
7:36
Speaker 1: you'll have this scene that kind of blends into the
7:39
Speaker 1: natural environment. So my suspicion is is that the finder
7:43
Speaker 1: in this case, And of course we always talk about
7:45
Speaker 1: the finder, don't we. We talked about how important they are
7:47
Speaker 1: because they're the first eyes on the finder in this
7:51
Speaker 1: in this particular case, look down and I'm sure that
7:55
Speaker 1: within their brain they're thinking, okay, what what precisely is this?
8:00
Speaker 1: And they're drawn in and suddenly they begin to move
8:03
Speaker 1: toward that location upon closer examination, and all of a
8:08
Speaker 1: sudden details begin to pop out. And the foot in
8:11
Speaker 1: and of itself is highly complex as far as an
8:16
Speaker 1: anatomical structure. You know, each toe, each toe, nail, by
8:21
Speaker 1: the way, each digit of the foot has got a
8:25
Speaker 1: specific characteristic to it in size, structure, in the composition.
8:32
Speaker 1: And so when you begin, and I can only imagine,
8:35
Speaker 1: you begin to make out those details, particularly of the
8:39
Speaker 1: tips of each toe. And if everybody will just think
8:42
Speaker 1: about how your toes are kind of graduated in size,
8:44
Speaker 1: going from the big toe to the h to the
8:47
Speaker 1: one that goes we we we all the way home.
8:50
Speaker 1: You know, you're looking at these and they're going to
8:55
Speaker 1: cease to blend. Now you're starting to see an outline.
8:58
Speaker 1: And I've had this. I've had this happen Dave on
9:01
Speaker 1: scenes where I've had people that are literally melted into
9:07
Speaker 1: the environment. Okay, with decomposition and even with significant lighting
9:16
Speaker 1: that is out there, strong lighting. I've had to stare
9:19
Speaker 1: for a protracted period of time so that I could
9:22
Speaker 1: kind of outline things, you know, where I could try
9:26
Speaker 1: to understand where the outer perimeter is of you know,
9:30
Speaker 1: the final resting spot. And we're not even talking and
9:33
Speaker 1: this is kind of fascinating about this case. We're not
9:36
Speaker 1: even talking about animal activity, you know, where when we
9:39
Speaker 1: get into this phase where elements of the body have
9:42
Speaker 1: been taken away, that's that's not what we're looking at here.
9:46
Speaker 1: This foot is actually intact. The fact that the foot
9:54
Speaker 1: is intact and that it is appreciable and that, as
9:58
Speaker 1: you mentioned, sticking up out of the earth is a
10:04
Speaker 1: huge benefit for crime scene investigators and for me, investigators
10:10
Speaker 1: that go out there because the key, the watchword here
10:13
Speaker 1: is containment. Containment because you know therein as we've talked
10:19
Speaker 1: about with human remains, human remains are the primary piece
10:24
Speaker 1: of evidence that you have at any scene. Okay, these
10:28
Speaker 1: remain stay are not scattered to the wind, so you
10:32
Speaker 1: have them buried in one particular spot, and if there's
10:36
Speaker 1: no other defect in the earth where you've got other
10:39
Speaker 1: elements of the body sticking up, or where you have
10:41
Speaker 1: indication of maybe burrowing animals, that sort of thing. As
10:45
Speaker 1: far as this is, this is a gold mine for
10:48
Speaker 1: anybody working in forensics because you've got containment here.
10:53
Speaker 2: You know, Joe, when I'm looking over the story and
10:59
Speaker 2: heire's actually dug a shallow grave in the backyard. And
11:04
Speaker 2: you know, whenever we see something like this usually it's
11:11
Speaker 2: it's the end result of something that went too far.
11:15
Speaker 2: A mother father disciplining a child and taking it a
11:19
Speaker 2: step too far, causing their death, and then a panic
11:24
Speaker 2: sets in to to get rid of the body to
11:28
Speaker 2: you know, that's where we end up searching in trash,
11:32
Speaker 2: you know, yards and things like that. In this case,
11:35
Speaker 2: she's in a rental home, Joe, and she goes out
11:39
Speaker 2: in the backyard and digs a shallow grave to place
11:43
Speaker 2: her nine year old son. But then after doing that,
11:48
Speaker 2: she leaves. Now you have pointed out on many occasions
11:52
Speaker 2: that oftentimes the suspect will will take the the victim
12:01
Speaker 2: and get rid of them close to home. And I
12:05
Speaker 2: always thought that was so they could kind of lord
12:08
Speaker 2: over the body, they could protect the body, and in
12:12
Speaker 2: this and that way. Hey, if anybody comes looking, I
12:14
Speaker 2: can misdirect them someplace else, I can protect what I've done,
12:17
Speaker 2: nobody can find.
12:18
Speaker 1: But she didn't do that.
12:19
Speaker 2: She buries him in a shallow grave and then bolts,
12:23
Speaker 2: doesn't pay rent, and leaves, and there's nobody there to
12:27
Speaker 2: prevent the landlord from coming. As a matter of fact,
12:30
Speaker 2: he has to come and stage the house, he has
12:32
Speaker 2: to go through the front yard, in the backyard, he
12:34
Speaker 2: has to inspect everything. So I guess in my head,
12:38
Speaker 2: I'm thinking she did. Now there's the reason why they
12:41
Speaker 2: very close to home and stay there.
12:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I'm glad you revisited that because we always,
12:49
Speaker 1: you know, I always think about control, control over. You know,
12:53
Speaker 1: I actually had a guy that beat his grandmother to death.
12:59
Speaker 1: And interestingly enough, for those that are familiar with Atlanta.
13:02
Speaker 1: This was right in the height I think it was
13:04
Speaker 1: probably in about ninety eight, maybe it was right in
13:08
Speaker 1: the height of what's referred to in Atlanta as Freaknik.
13:13
Speaker 1: And this a big spring break, you know, gathering. I
13:19
Speaker 1: remember it was hot, and he beat his grandmother to
13:23
Speaker 1: death and then takes her and buries her in a
13:26
Speaker 1: clay wall beneath the house of where he had beaten
13:31
Speaker 1: her to death. And I've you can look at it
13:34
Speaker 1: a couple of ways. You can look, well, it's convenient,
13:37
Speaker 1: I can do this under the cover of darkness. I
13:40
Speaker 1: can just take her from the house and put her
13:43
Speaker 1: under the house, and I'm not going to be seen,
13:46
Speaker 1: you know, leaving the home with the body in the car,
13:52
Speaker 1: so that anybody could question what I'd done. You are
13:57
Speaker 1: controlling in that sense. But in this particular case, Dave,
14:03
Speaker 1: because and you know you pointed this out to me
14:06
Speaker 1: yesterday when we were talking about the case. This is
14:09
Speaker 1: a rental. This is a rental. So for me, I
14:15
Speaker 1: think I concur with your assessment that this was a
14:19
Speaker 1: reactionary event to something that had in fact gone horribly wrong.
14:24
Speaker 1: It was and I hate to reduce it down to this.
14:28
Speaker 1: This was a matter of convenience for this individual, and
14:33
Speaker 1: of course I believe that panic set in and this
14:38
Speaker 1: precious little life was taken and they disposed of in
14:43
Speaker 1: a property that they didn't even own. David, I'd like
15:01
Speaker 1: to know a bit more about this, and I'll go
15:06
Speaker 1: and say it. This familial dynamic. Lord, we spent a
15:09
Speaker 1: lot of time talking about this on bodybacks.
15:12
Speaker 2: Uh.
15:13
Speaker 1: You know again the old trope about you have to
15:16
Speaker 1: look at those that are within the intimate circle. You
15:19
Speaker 1: know who who is it that would put their hands
15:23
Speaker 1: on in this case, nine year old Zamar King to
15:29
Speaker 1: the point where he winds up deceased and buried in
15:33
Speaker 1: the backyard of a rental home. What is this familial dynamic?
15:40
Speaker 1: Like if you could just come.
15:42
Speaker 2: To there actually are a couple of children in the
15:45
Speaker 2: home she had. You had nine year old Zamar and
15:52
Speaker 2: you have her three year old son that was there
15:56
Speaker 2: as well, so you got a six year age difference
15:57
Speaker 2: between the two. And by the way, I don't know
16:00
Speaker 2: if she has other children. Those are just the two
16:03
Speaker 2: that she had in the home in Detroit that we're
16:05
Speaker 2: aware of. She ends up leaving the police suggests that
16:13
Speaker 2: she kills Zamar sometime in the U in October. They
16:17
Speaker 2: don't know exactly the date because she killed him and
16:22
Speaker 2: then buried him in the backyard, and being that she
16:25
Speaker 2: was the sole custodian of the child, there could be
16:28
Speaker 2: days where nobody saw them together or what have you.
16:33
Speaker 2: So they're not exactly sure from that standpoint, but they
16:37
Speaker 2: do know that she left in a hurry. She didn't
16:42
Speaker 2: like have a lease that ran out, and she moved.
16:45
Speaker 2: She left in a hurry, didn't tell the landlord, and
16:48
Speaker 2: based on what we're seeing timetable wise, I'm guessing when
16:52
Speaker 2: she didn't pay the rent for November. You know, the
16:55
Speaker 2: landlord comes by, sees that she's gone, and that's when
17:01
Speaker 2: he starts making plans to rent the place again. Meanwhile,
17:04
Speaker 2: she has gone to Georgia with her three year old
17:09
Speaker 2: and she's there while police are uncovering in Detroit. You
17:14
Speaker 2: know that we've got this nine year old boy who's
17:17
Speaker 2: just killed, left behind, where's the mom? And yeah, and
17:21
Speaker 2: so they end up she's arrested in Georgia, where she
17:26
Speaker 2: had moved. I mean she I'm trying to find out
17:31
Speaker 2: what she was arrested for originally in Georgia, Joe, because
17:35
Speaker 2: they had her in custody in Georgia. When police began
17:39
Speaker 2: looking for her in Detroit. It was an unrelated charge,
17:43
Speaker 2: unrelated to the murderer of the death of Zamar. But
17:47
Speaker 2: she was in jail in Georgia. And then as police
17:51
Speaker 2: were doing the old biland lookout for her, they had
17:53
Speaker 2: traced her to Georgia. And again, I don't know how
17:56
Speaker 2: all the detectives keep things straight. You know, they really
18:00
Speaker 2: are incredible at what they've.
18:02
Speaker 1: Got to be. You've got to be a great note
18:04
Speaker 1: taker and keep up with your notebook and make sure
18:08
Speaker 1: that everything has a time uh annotation on it relative
18:13
Speaker 1: because it does get very and particularly when you're talking
18:16
Speaker 1: about with multiple jurisdictions involved, because you know that the
18:21
Speaker 1: folks down in Georgia uh where she wound up, which
18:25
Speaker 1: I think was Brookhaven, if you was taken, those authorities
18:30
Speaker 1: there are going to have to communicate with those individuals
18:34
Speaker 1: uh in Detroit, where of course Zamar was found uh,
18:39
Speaker 1: because they're they're trying to mesh all this together relative
18:43
Speaker 1: to a timeline. Now, look, they're going to come, They're
18:46
Speaker 1: going to come to us in forensics, and as you
18:50
Speaker 1: well know, the biggest question that whether it's the general
18:55
Speaker 1: public or police always ask us is not not just
19:00
Speaker 1: how did they die, but how long has it been?
19:03
Speaker 1: And we can only you know, we can only frame
19:06
Speaker 1: these things out to a certain degree where we can say, Okay,
19:14
Speaker 1: this is what we believe as far as it now.
19:19
Speaker 1: With zamar he's last known or she's last known, the mother,
19:28
Speaker 1: Pierce is last known to be present there back in October. Okay,
19:35
Speaker 1: well she bolts after that period of time, and Dave.
19:38
Speaker 1: One of the reasons that I wanted to talk about
19:40
Speaker 1: this case today. This is a brand new case. This
19:42
Speaker 1: is something that popped onto our radar, and again, Pierce
19:46
Speaker 1: in this case, I have to make this disclaimer. She's
19:50
Speaker 1: merely a suspect and has been charged alleged, and we'll
19:54
Speaker 1: get into her charges in a bit. But it was
19:59
Speaker 1: so over the top and so very bizarre, you know,
20:04
Speaker 1: considering a lot of the stuff that comes across your
20:06
Speaker 1: desk in my desk, that I wanted to address it
20:10
Speaker 1: and just just to say that she's not you know,
20:12
Speaker 1: she's not been convicted in this case, but you know,
20:16
Speaker 1: he was found and correct me if I'm wrong. I
20:18
Speaker 1: think his remains were actually found January the ninth. If
20:23
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken up in Detroit or approximates that period
20:26
Speaker 1: of time.
20:28
Speaker 2: Actually, Joe, the remains of Zamar were found on January sixth,
20:34
Speaker 2: and to she was arrested in Georgia on January tenth,
20:41
Speaker 2: now on January tenth, for the death of Zamar. But
20:46
Speaker 2: to be very careful here, she already was in the
20:49
Speaker 2: system with police on child abuse charges, alleged child abuse
20:53
Speaker 2: of the three year olds.
20:54
Speaker 1: Which please, Dave, please tell me that the three year
20:59
Speaker 1: old is a.
20:59
Speaker 2: Lot The three year old is alive, Okay, And again
21:03
Speaker 2: you're mentioning how I knew this story is it is
21:05
Speaker 2: very new. We're talking a couple of weeks ago now.
21:07
Speaker 2: So to get the timeline is they believe police believe
21:12
Speaker 2: that sometime in October Zamar was killed, that he was
21:16
Speaker 2: smothered and chocked. We need to get into the autopsy
21:18
Speaker 2: in just a minute, but they believe, they investigators believe
21:22
Speaker 2: he was killed in October and that she fled town
21:27
Speaker 2: after the first of November. The landlord, and that's why
21:32
Speaker 2: I was looking at the dates, and how long before
21:35
Speaker 2: a landlord, you know, starts the process of moving somebody
21:38
Speaker 2: out that doesn't pay rent, you know, and things like that.
21:41
Speaker 2: And so she leaves. His body is buried in a
21:45
Speaker 2: shallow grave in the backyard. She's in Georgia and runs
21:49
Speaker 2: a foul of the law, allegedly for abusing the three
21:51
Speaker 2: year old. On January sixth, they find the body of
21:56
Speaker 2: Zamar in the backyard. His hands and feet are tied
22:00
Speaker 2: by the way, and they then take her into custody
22:06
Speaker 2: for that, for the death of Zamar in Georgia. Her
22:10
Speaker 2: other child, the three year old, is put into foster
22:13
Speaker 2: care in Georgia. And this is all happening just last month,
22:17
Speaker 2: so a few weeks ago. And of course they're going
22:20
Speaker 2: through the entire process now of putting this case back together.
22:24
Speaker 2: But that kind of lines you up there.
22:27
Speaker 1: Wow, this takes this to an entirely different kind of
22:33
Speaker 1: ghastly level. First off, I think the sweet lord above
22:37
Speaker 1: this three year old is still alive, because you know,
22:40
Speaker 1: I found Dave in a lot of these cases that
22:43
Speaker 1: we cover. God, this sounds horrible and forgive me, but
22:49
Speaker 1: I'm going to go ahead and say it. I don't care.
22:54
Speaker 1: The first one's hard, but after that, there's an ease
23:01
Speaker 1: I think that overcomes the perpetrator. I've done this already,
23:05
Speaker 1: I can do it again. It's not a bridge too
23:07
Speaker 1: far if you will that the initial event. You know,
23:12
Speaker 1: I've lightened my load by abstein myself of this nine
23:17
Speaker 1: year old. How much easier now would my life be
23:20
Speaker 1: if I didn't have the three year old? And I
23:22
Speaker 1: just thank the Good Lord that this child is now
23:27
Speaker 1: hopefully safe and is protected and is not, you know,
23:33
Speaker 1: within arm's reach of this alleged perpetrator. Because you know,
23:39
Speaker 1: it's amazing to me that a mama could harm her child.
23:47
Speaker 1: Let's don't even say harmed, let's say killed, murdered, bury
23:56
Speaker 1: a child in the back yard of where that child
24:01
Speaker 1: probably played, probably walked over that same earth bolts out
24:09
Speaker 1: of town with a three year old, you know, they're
24:14
Speaker 1: they're not where else do you have to go? You know,
24:17
Speaker 1: I talked about how there's uh. I've said this before,
24:21
Speaker 1: but there's uh. You know, there's there's no uh, there's
24:27
Speaker 1: no basement in the house of depravity. It just keeps
24:30
Speaker 1: going and going and going. Hopefully the future is going
24:39
Speaker 1: to break a little bit brighter, perhaps for the three
24:42
Speaker 1: year old, but still we have to understand what actually
24:49
Speaker 1: happened to Zamar Dave. I'm going to say something to
25:06
Speaker 1: you right now that I don't know that I've ever
25:09
Speaker 1: mentioned to you on on body backs and it it
25:15
Speaker 1: actually applies to the title of the show. Did you
25:23
Speaker 1: know that in medical legal death investigation that we don't
25:31
Speaker 1: simply have one sized body back. Did you know that
25:36
Speaker 1: we have children's body bags? Most people don't know that,
25:41
Speaker 1: and we will, we do utilize those, and a lot
25:47
Speaker 1: of people don't understand that, and it's weird. I wanted
25:52
Speaker 1: to kind of paint this picture for you and for
25:55
Speaker 1: our friends. I was, you know, in the offices that
26:00
Speaker 1: I've worked in, we have what's referred to as you
26:07
Speaker 1: have freezers where you store bodies, but you also have
26:10
Speaker 1: what are referred to as cool rooms, which are these big,
26:13
Speaker 1: big walk in rooms where bodies are literally on the gurney. Okay,
26:18
Speaker 1: they're on a tray, uh, but they're not like slid
26:23
Speaker 1: into the wall, okay in one of the doors that
26:25
Speaker 1: opens up. So when you walk in, you're surrounded by bodies.
26:29
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got and generally, depending upon the office
26:33
Speaker 1: in the manufacturer, you can have white body bags, you
26:35
Speaker 1: can have black body bags. I've seen them in blue
26:37
Speaker 1: as well. I think I've even seen orange. But you
26:41
Speaker 1: walk in and David's always it's always those little tiny
26:49
Speaker 1: body bags that you see in that room that you
26:56
Speaker 1: know you're about to have a really bad day. And
27:00
Speaker 1: and when you think about zamar and I have no
27:04
Speaker 1: way of knowing if the Detroit Medical Examiner used a
27:09
Speaker 1: child body bag. But he's only nine, Dave, he's probably diminutive,
27:14
Speaker 1: he's smaller, and we carried these bags, you know, and
27:22
Speaker 1: it denotes something that's different. You know, kids are always different.
27:28
Speaker 1: I mentioned this over and over multiple interviews I've given
27:30
Speaker 1: over the year, over the years. Rather, when you see this,
27:35
Speaker 1: it's striking. And then you line all of the bodies
27:41
Speaker 1: up in the body bags at the various stations where
27:45
Speaker 1: you're about to do the examinations, and it's still it
27:48
Speaker 1: stands out. It's like this dark, dark beacon. You know,
27:52
Speaker 1: that's flashing because you know what's waiting. And it's one
27:56
Speaker 1: thing to unzip a bag that contains the remains of
28:02
Speaker 1: an adult. But when you pull down that zipper, and
28:05
Speaker 1: that zipper has a very very distinctive sound, It's very
28:09
Speaker 1: robust compared to other sounds. The morgue in and of
28:12
Speaker 1: itself kind of echoes with sounds. And you open that
28:18
Speaker 1: bag and you see some precious little face sticking up.
28:23
Speaker 1: And when I think about Zimar and the condition, my friend,
28:29
Speaker 1: that he was left in, what type of willpower does
28:34
Speaker 1: it take for you to dig not just a grave,
28:38
Speaker 1: but a shallow grave, and then to stare down on
28:47
Speaker 1: those mortal remains of that precious little child and you
28:51
Speaker 1: start pitching dirt in on top of them. To what
28:55
Speaker 1: load do you have to sink in order to get
28:58
Speaker 1: past that hurdle? You know, people, I think a lot
29:01
Speaker 1: of people think that individuals like me, you get numb
29:05
Speaker 1: to it. And I've been around dead bodies since I
29:09
Speaker 1: was twenty years old. We're talking about an accused who
29:14
Speaker 1: I don't know how many you know, dead bodies Peers
29:18
Speaker 1: has been around. I cannot imagine she's been around dead
29:22
Speaker 1: bodies of her own offspring. If that gives you, you know,
29:26
Speaker 1: you can you even begin to plumb the depths of that,
29:30
Speaker 1: you know. So that's one of the things that's really striking,
29:33
Speaker 1: you know, about child deaths and about child homicides in particular,
29:36
Speaker 1: and the way bodies are treated.
29:38
Speaker 2: Dave, you know, the prosecutor in this case, your name
29:41
Speaker 2: is Kim Worthy, and she actually talked about it. She
29:46
Speaker 2: said that I've been a prosecutor for a long time,
29:51
Speaker 2: and I often say that I have seen it. All
29:53
Speaker 2: the horrors of this child abuse case defy that the
29:57
Speaker 2: alleged actions of this defendant a the most callous I
30:02
Speaker 2: have seen and hoped never to see again. We've got
30:06
Speaker 2: the details from Zamar being alleged, no, not allegedly killed.
30:14
Speaker 2: He was killed, they believe in October. They believe that
30:18
Speaker 2: he was then buried on that property by his mother.
30:20
Speaker 2: And the hands and feet are tied, Joe, and I'm
30:24
Speaker 2: they're not being specific if his hands and feet were
30:29
Speaker 2: tied before he was killed.
30:34
Speaker 1: Now, now I read one report where it said they
30:37
Speaker 1: thought that they were done post mortal. Okay, and Dave,
30:40
Speaker 1: that raises another specter, brother, And here it is how
30:45
Speaker 1: long how long had had Zamar been deceased? And just
30:54
Speaker 1: go with me here on this line of logic from
30:58
Speaker 1: an investigative perspective, If in fact Zamar had been deceased
31:05
Speaker 1: for some time, this child may have very well have
31:10
Speaker 1: had Roger Mortis setting in. And in order to accommodate
31:21
Speaker 1: this horrible task that she decided upon, she had to
31:26
Speaker 1: break riger or at least contain the limbs. The limbs
31:29
Speaker 1: are very hard to manage. So if she if in fact,
31:34
Speaker 1: as has been alleged, she brought about the death of Zamar,
31:39
Speaker 1: if he's in a rigid position, you might have to
31:42
Speaker 1: break riger and you can't do that. It becomes bodies
31:46
Speaker 1: become very stiff. And then in order to guarantee that
31:50
Speaker 1: he's going to stay in this kind of contained, easily
31:54
Speaker 1: manipulated position. And I'm not talking about some kind of
31:58
Speaker 1: psychobabble manipulation that I'm talking about physical manipulation of the body.
32:04
Speaker 1: If that's the case, then the hands could in fact
32:08
Speaker 1: be bound and the ankles be bound. The one interesting
32:12
Speaker 1: thing is is she goes to Trouble allegedly to bind
32:17
Speaker 1: the ankles, but yet the foot is sticking up by
32:19
Speaker 1: the ground, and so you can kind of go with
32:24
Speaker 1: it slide of logic, and you're thinking, what was this
32:27
Speaker 1: dynamic that had that had occurred? Because if if I
32:31
Speaker 1: am to believe that that report about this may have
32:36
Speaker 1: been done post mortem, then why why go to this trouble?
32:42
Speaker 1: And there are certain scientific, you know, certain scientific conclusions
32:46
Speaker 1: that you begin to to reach relative to this.
32:51
Speaker 2: I couldn't figure it out. Joe, I was trying to
32:53
Speaker 2: figure out before or after, But how did Zamar die?
32:57
Speaker 2: How does a nine year old child? And again the
33:00
Speaker 2: mother allegedly did this, she's been charged with it, but
33:04
Speaker 2: she also has a three year old, And back to
33:06
Speaker 2: that timeline. Very quickly after leaving Detroit, after burying her son,
33:13
Speaker 2: leave allegedly going to Georgia from Detroit with her three
33:16
Speaker 2: year old. Police were called to her on December twentieth,
33:21
Speaker 2: five days before Christmas, of alleged child abuse of the
33:25
Speaker 2: three year old.
33:27
Speaker 1: And it was.
33:30
Speaker 2: During the time that she was in jail on that
33:32
Speaker 2: charge that the other charges came through from Detroit and
33:35
Speaker 2: things started linking up, you know, from the investigation standpoint
33:39
Speaker 2: in Detroit and Georgia and all that. But when I
33:43
Speaker 2: was trying to figure out what was taking place in
33:46
Speaker 2: that home and thinking, you know, you mentioned, well, you
33:51
Speaker 2: know about somebody being able.
33:52
Speaker 1: To repeat the work.
33:54
Speaker 2: The worst thing you can do is kill somebody, right,
33:56
Speaker 2: That's the top of the line. It doesn't get any
33:58
Speaker 2: worse than that. So if you at once, I mean,
34:01
Speaker 2: I had never thought about that, Joe, I did it
34:03
Speaker 2: before I can do it again. Was that what she
34:05
Speaker 2: was trying to do to the three year old. You know,
34:08
Speaker 2: somebody step in. I want to find out more of
34:11
Speaker 2: what took place with that child. But anyway, the nine
34:15
Speaker 2: year old after they get the nine year old out
34:17
Speaker 2: of the grave, and I have to wonder. And you
34:21
Speaker 2: pointed out earlier that one of the questions we always
34:23
Speaker 2: ask is when can you tell me when this child died?
34:27
Speaker 2: And I'm you know, I think a lot of times
34:30
Speaker 2: we wanted to be very specific, you know, what day
34:32
Speaker 2: and what time of the day. And you know you've
34:34
Speaker 2: cleared that up from me, and I'm thankful that you have,
34:37
Speaker 2: because I really I was one of the many that
34:39
Speaker 2: thought that you could do it, like counting the inside
34:42
Speaker 2: rings of a tree, you know, that you could get
34:44
Speaker 2: me down to lunchtime on the twenty third of November,
34:48
Speaker 2: you know, October or whatever. I thought you could. I
34:51
Speaker 2: didn't realize how tough it was to determine. I had
34:55
Speaker 2: no clue. I really did think it was something you
34:57
Speaker 2: guys did is no.
34:58
Speaker 1: No doos make things. And I've talked about this before,
35:02
Speaker 1: as you well know, Uh you've heard me, you know,
35:05
Speaker 1: blather on about it.
35:06
Speaker 2: Uh.
35:07
Speaker 1: And it's because it's it's one of those things that
35:09
Speaker 1: has to be dispelled because of what we hear in
35:14
Speaker 1: in modern media and you know, in television shows and whatnot,
35:18
Speaker 1: because people think that we're you know, that we're magical
35:21
Speaker 1: elves where we can facilitate these sorts of things, and
35:25
Speaker 1: that is just that's not the case where we can
35:27
Speaker 1: narrow this down. One of the other issues relative to
35:33
Speaker 1: UH to Zamar's death is this, you know, this dynamic
35:40
Speaker 1: of decomposition. How does that play into making a terminal diagnosis?
35:49
Speaker 1: You know where you're you're actually stating not just the manner.
35:55
Speaker 1: I think the manner is pretty obvious. Here we have homicide, uh,
36:00
Speaker 1: but how how compromised were the remains, you know, as
36:08
Speaker 1: the medical examiner stood over his little body in the
36:13
Speaker 1: morgue there. Well, it's it's interesting because they came up
36:17
Speaker 1: with a couple of possibilities. Here they're saying smothering, but
36:22
Speaker 1: they also talk about net compression. And net compression. You know,
36:28
Speaker 1: when you think about something being compressed, okay, that that
36:33
Speaker 1: is a force that is being applied to a specific area.
36:38
Speaker 1: So when you say net compression, it sounds very generalized
36:42
Speaker 1: to me, because if there was say a mechanical assisia
36:48
Speaker 1: like you're using a literature, then not why not state that,
36:53
Speaker 1: But they saw something in the structures of the neck
36:57
Speaker 1: that gave them the impression that force had been applied
37:02
Speaker 1: to the neck where perhaps the trachea is compromised, you know,
37:07
Speaker 1: and if you feel, if you feel your trachea in
37:10
Speaker 1: the center of your neck, it's cartilaginous and you can
37:16
Speaker 1: actually fracture cartilage. But that's not firmly stated at this
37:20
Speaker 1: point in time because we don't have the autopsy report,
37:22
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't have it at this point in time.
37:25
Speaker 1: But did they see any little fractures in the in
37:29
Speaker 1: the cartilage that might marry up with somebody placing a
37:33
Speaker 1: hand like a c clamp or something like that over
37:36
Speaker 1: the trachea. But then they're saying smothering as well, And
37:41
Speaker 1: I'm really wondering what signs of smothering they saw, because
37:45
Speaker 1: smothering is arguably one of the most difficult diagnoses to
37:50
Speaker 1: make as far as from a medical legal death perspective,
37:57
Speaker 1: because you can use a hand, you can you know,
37:59
Speaker 1: the asic idea, you can use a pillow, you know,
38:03
Speaker 1: that's that's that's pressing down on the nose in the mouth.
38:08
Speaker 1: But here's here's something that I've also entertained with this
38:13
Speaker 1: case day. There are abusers out there, and we know
38:18
Speaker 1: that Miss Pierce has been charged with abuse of a
38:24
Speaker 1: three year old in charge, not convicted. But did you
38:29
Speaker 1: know that sometimes abusers and this goes back to an
38:33
Speaker 1: earlier statement you made. I don't know if you're aware
38:35
Speaker 1: of this, and you may have made a diagnosis here.
38:39
Speaker 1: Did you know that some abusers will block the airway
38:43
Speaker 1: of the child that they're abusing, uh, to deprive them
38:47
Speaker 1: of oxygen in order to get a point across. Okay,
38:51
Speaker 1: whether they've got they're running their mouth, or they're doing
38:55
Speaker 1: something that the individual doesn't agree with. You've got an
38:59
Speaker 1: adult lording over a small child. So I'm going to
39:03
Speaker 1: show you. I'm going to put my hand over your
39:05
Speaker 1: nose in your mouth, and that'll shut you up and
39:08
Speaker 1: you'll feel that horror of that. Well, I think the
39:12
Speaker 1: question is did that occur here and it went too far?
39:19
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I promise you this, zamar King,
39:27
Speaker 1: This nine year old buried in the backyard of a
39:33
Speaker 1: rental home and abandoned did not deserve this. And I
39:40
Speaker 1: can promise you this myself and Dave mac will be
39:46
Speaker 1: following up on this case to find more specifics and
39:51
Speaker 1: hopefully more answers. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is
39:59
Speaker 1: body Facts