Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Decapitated During Birth, Baby Isaiah

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Decapitated During Birth, Baby Isaiah · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:01
Speaker 1: Quality diarist, but Joseph's gotten more. I want to say
0:06
Speaker 1: something to you today, and I want you to hear
0:08
Speaker 1: me right and understand. In my opinion, and this comes
0:14
Speaker 1: from both professional and personal experience, I wager that there
0:22
Speaker 1: is no darker place, particularly for a parent, to be
0:29
Speaker 1: in than when it comes to the loss of a child.
0:37
Speaker 1: You're looking for rock bottom.
0:38
Speaker 2: You're here.
0:42
Speaker 1: It seems like nothing else in the world matters. It's
0:49
Speaker 1: as if a part of you has died as well,
0:52
Speaker 1: and it has. I want to revisit a case that
1:00
Speaker 1: that we've talked about previously on Bodybacks, and the reason
1:07
Speaker 1: I want to talk about this today is that there
1:14
Speaker 1: have been developments. There have been developments in the case
1:19
Speaker 1: involving a tiny little life, a life that died in
1:25
Speaker 1: the midst of childbirth and the horror that followed that event.
1:35
Speaker 1: What I'm talking about is the early premature death of
1:43
Speaker 1: a little one named Tree Beyond Isaiah Taylor Jr. Otherwise
1:49
Speaker 1: known as Baby Isaiah. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this
1:56
Speaker 1: is Bodybacks day. Back when we initially covered Baby Isaiah's death.
2:08
Speaker 1: I remember following following that episode, I felt a sudden
2:15
Speaker 1: need to go take a shower, and I needed to
2:20
Speaker 1: scrub my brain because I couldn't believe some of the
2:24
Speaker 1: things that we were hearing that were coming out of well,
2:27
Speaker 1: let's face at the south side of Atlanta, down in
2:31
Speaker 1: Clayton County where this baby had died at Southern Regional Hospital.
2:36
Speaker 1: That story in and of itself is horrific, but what
2:42
Speaker 1: happened afterwards and trying to understand what brought about this
2:47
Speaker 1: little angel's death, It's like it you see something that
2:52
Speaker 1: is bad and then you think it can't get any
2:55
Speaker 1: worse than all of a sudden it does.
2:57
Speaker 2: It got worse. Did this first episode about baby Isaiah
3:02
Speaker 2: dying at birth, and we we will recover this again
3:07
Speaker 2: for those who haven't heard the story yet. But you know,
3:13
Speaker 2: I didn't really go into a personal side of this
3:17
Speaker 2: that much. And I when my daughter Hannah was born,
3:23
Speaker 2: she was stuck. She was not getting over a part.
3:28
Speaker 2: Now Loadonna had had a child previously by C section,
3:32
Speaker 2: and she wanted to have Hannah vaginally, a vaginal delivery,
3:36
Speaker 2: and everything was fine, but her head was not. She
3:42
Speaker 2: was getting stuck. She was not getting over a hump
3:46
Speaker 2: in there that was keeping her from and the doctor
3:52
Speaker 2: was not operating as quickly as the nurse who was
3:55
Speaker 2: standing there with me thought he should be. But she's
3:58
Speaker 2: a nurse. I'm the dad, this is my wife, and
4:00
Speaker 2: you're the doctor. I don't like what he was doing either,
4:03
Speaker 2: but the bottom line is I realized then how out
4:07
Speaker 2: of control I was. I'm not in I cannot do
4:10
Speaker 2: anything to help, and thankfully this nurse when the doctor turned,
4:16
Speaker 2: she said, Dave, grab her head and push it up
4:20
Speaker 2: into her belly as hard as you can, and that's
4:23
Speaker 2: how we got Hannah out. He'd brought up forceps and
4:27
Speaker 2: actually did cut her, which I know there's a necessity
4:31
Speaker 2: to them, but please, God, love you don't do that. Yeah,
4:35
Speaker 2: but because it does leave damage that stays for a
4:38
Speaker 2: lifetime and it can be really bad. We didn't experience
4:41
Speaker 2: that part, but.
4:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had a friend of mind that during his
4:46
Speaker 1: birth he wound up having a His eye was compromised
4:54
Speaker 1: in birth as a result of them the manipulation that
4:57
Speaker 1: went on, and his eye was always as some people
5:00
Speaker 1: might call it a lazy eye.
5:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
5:03
Speaker 1: Drooping, but there was still visible Structurally, you could tell
5:09
Speaker 1: that there was something that was off, and a lot
5:11
Speaker 1: of it has to do with how malleable the skull is,
5:14
Speaker 1: I think, but that malleability can sometimes lead to I
5:20
Speaker 1: think maybe some practitioners thinking that the body is more
5:26
Speaker 1: resilient sometimes than it actually is. And you know, in
5:30
Speaker 1: the case of Isaiah, well.
5:32
Speaker 2: When we heard about how that what happened though, Joe,
5:34
Speaker 2: in that case, the nurses were talking about the pressure
5:37
Speaker 2: that came to bear and the section that this doctor Houston,
5:41
Speaker 2: we probably need to go over that a little bit
5:42
Speaker 2: because whereas I was present when things were happening with
5:46
Speaker 2: Lodonna and Hannah, and I realized then again how difficult
5:53
Speaker 2: this is. We take it for granted. We take so
5:55
Speaker 2: many things in our life today for granted. Childbirth cannot
5:59
Speaker 2: be taken granted. It's a moment where the new life,
6:03
Speaker 2: the life of your partner, everybody is at risk. There's
6:07
Speaker 2: a lot of risk going on at childbirth, and I'm
6:10
Speaker 2: so thankful that we have in this country such a
6:13
Speaker 2: great record for having children. But you know what, the
6:17
Speaker 2: story of baby Isaiah and the cover up that took
6:20
Speaker 2: place after it, Yeah, tells you that things are not
6:24
Speaker 2: what they seem sometimes and you better trust, you better
6:27
Speaker 2: study up before you go to have a baby. Know
6:30
Speaker 2: what a normal delivery time is, know how long a
6:33
Speaker 2: woman should be in labor before you push for something else.
6:36
Speaker 2: Because apparently this doctor didn't have a clue. It boggles
6:39
Speaker 2: my mind.
6:39
Speaker 1: Joe, Yeah, it does mine as well. And that you
6:43
Speaker 1: you know, you have to you know, you have to
6:45
Speaker 1: look at their track record. That's why. You know. The
6:48
Speaker 1: thing about it is, I think in America we're so
6:52
Speaker 1: prone to well, this person has MD after their name,
6:56
Speaker 1: and they have these board certifications. Obviously they know what
7:02
Speaker 1: they're doing. And they wouldn't put you know, my unborn
7:06
Speaker 1: child soon to be born at risk, and wouldn't put
7:10
Speaker 1: and I'm speaking as a husband now, I wouldn't put
7:12
Speaker 1: my wife's life at risk because they've been trained to
7:16
Speaker 1: do these sort of things. And when you know, we
7:19
Speaker 1: begin to discuss this and talk about the horror that
7:23
Speaker 1: was involved and what was and I'll say it, I'll
7:26
Speaker 1: say it right here, what was perpetrated upon this very
7:30
Speaker 1: young couple day where they didn't they didn't know any better.
7:33
Speaker 1: I mean, you remember when you were a young parent.
7:37
Speaker 1: I remember when you know, I didn't have my first
7:41
Speaker 1: child until I was a little bit older. You know,
7:43
Speaker 1: It's not like I was a nineteen year old kid.
7:46
Speaker 1: But still you lean into the idea that they're so
7:51
Speaker 1: well trained and that they're so highly educated and that
7:55
Speaker 1: they're going to help you. You can't see this kind
7:58
Speaker 1: of catashee happening particularly to you, you know, and the
8:04
Speaker 1: ones that you love, and then insult to injury, drag
8:10
Speaker 1: everybody into this idea that we're going to present these
8:14
Speaker 1: circumstances as if it's just the child died. The child died.
8:20
Speaker 1: There was nothing we could.
8:21
Speaker 2: Do and nothing we did to heart to cause it
8:24
Speaker 2: and nothing.
8:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, we cannot you know, we're not responsible for this.
8:27
Speaker 1: But David, I gotta tell you, man, the physical evidence
8:31
Speaker 1: here bears out something a bit different, now, doesn't it.
8:34
Speaker 2: Oh buddy, we know it started July ninth of twenty
8:39
Speaker 2: twenty three, two years coming up on the two year anniversary. Wow,
8:43
Speaker 2: this baby would be a little toddler right now.
8:46
Speaker 1: Yep.
8:47
Speaker 2: And Tevion and Isaiah Taylor Sr. And Jessica Ross expecting
8:54
Speaker 2: the child. They go through everything that she goes through,
8:56
Speaker 2: the prenatal care. They do everything they're supposed to do.
8:59
Speaker 2: She goes into labor ninth and during the vaginal birth,
9:03
Speaker 2: the baby's the baby boy's shoulders got stuck. Now, you
9:07
Speaker 2: know a lot more about biology and how the body
9:11
Speaker 2: works than I do, but a shoulder getting stuck during
9:15
Speaker 2: birth doesn't seem like it would be something unheard of,
9:20
Speaker 2: something that can't be overcome in this day and age
9:23
Speaker 2: that you know, something's obviously not right here.
9:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so most of the time in these deliveries,
9:31
Speaker 1: there are multiple ways that you can kind of spur
9:34
Speaker 1: things on. I think one of the things that that
9:40
Speaker 1: kind of comes to mind first. Then these these are
9:42
Speaker 1: not necessarily applicable in every one of the circumstances. But
9:45
Speaker 1: some things we just kind of naturally think about is like, well,
9:49
Speaker 1: an episiotomy if you've ever heard that term, if you
9:51
Speaker 1: think of if you think of the vaginal opening as
9:54
Speaker 1: a clock face at six o'clock position, there will be
9:59
Speaker 1: an ensue made, and that's to accommodate the size of
10:04
Speaker 1: the child in order to facilitate because there's this critical point.
10:10
Speaker 1: I think that when practitioners get to where they have
10:14
Speaker 1: to make a decision if if we're going to do
10:18
Speaker 1: a C section, we need to do it now before
10:20
Speaker 1: it gets to this point. And that's you know, that's
10:24
Speaker 1: the rub here. But you know, there's suction that's available,
10:27
Speaker 1: there's various rotations of the child's body that can take place.
10:34
Speaker 1: That's one of the things that doctors will do, and
10:36
Speaker 1: the nurses, the midwives that go in and they can
10:40
Speaker 1: turn turn the baby in order to facilitate this. And
10:44
Speaker 1: it takes, you know, you have to have a great
10:47
Speaker 1: scientific mind to be an effective practitioner, but it takes
10:51
Speaker 1: a bit of finesse too, that comes along with just
10:54
Speaker 1: experience and these sorts of things, and every every person
10:58
Speaker 1: is different and how they're going to respond because not
11:00
Speaker 1: everybody's body is the same.
11:02
Speaker 2: Man. You know, I'm so glad you said that, Joe,
11:04
Speaker 2: because as I was sitting here thinking about this, you know,
11:07
Speaker 2: of my children didn't have had a little bit of
11:11
Speaker 2: problem with Andrew, but no problems with Tyler. Haley was
11:16
Speaker 2: a c section, but then Hannah that that was the
11:18
Speaker 2: only problem I had encountered with the child being born.
11:22
Speaker 2: And I'm still remembering that moment, and that's why this
11:27
Speaker 2: really has hit home for me. It really has because
11:30
Speaker 2: I made some decisions for my wife that I had
11:34
Speaker 2: to make that I wasn't prepared to make, you know,
11:36
Speaker 2: just in case. But I also look at this now
11:40
Speaker 2: and realize that this child they tried to suction, they
11:45
Speaker 2: tried to use traction to pull this baby. Yeah, his
11:48
Speaker 2: shoulders are stuck. He's not coming out. And this woman,
11:53
Speaker 2: this poor woman is in labor for hours, Joe, for
11:56
Speaker 2: hours and hours, and the baby gets stuck. At eight
11:58
Speaker 2: forty pm. They know the time the baby gets stuck.
12:01
Speaker 2: Eight forty pm. That's when the trauma begins. They meaning
12:07
Speaker 2: the nurses and everything're like, we need to do an
12:09
Speaker 2: emergency C section. Doctor didn't do it. Kept pulling, kept pulling,
12:17
Speaker 2: kept using suction, was using traction rather, what is traction
12:22
Speaker 2: on the head of a baby?
12:26
Speaker 1: Well, would this methodology that you're referring to. They can
12:33
Speaker 1: brace the head in a particular way so that they
12:35
Speaker 1: can apply leverage in the vaginal opening and literally pull.
12:41
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of people think, you know, automatically,
12:44
Speaker 1: when you think about traction, Okay, the first thing you
12:48
Speaker 1: think about is when you're treating an adult that has
12:51
Speaker 1: like a neck injury.
12:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, That's what I'm thinking about.
12:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you set up in traction in order to
12:58
Speaker 1: elongate the spine. And that's generally from a manipulative standpoint,
13:02
Speaker 1: And I mean that in the sense of manipulation of
13:06
Speaker 1: spine and the musculatory of destructure and everything. A matter
13:11
Speaker 1: of fact, one of the medical examiners I used to
13:13
Speaker 1: work with, he's passed on now. He had he had
13:16
Speaker 1: he suffered from gyon Bret syndrome, and he had all
13:19
Speaker 1: kinds of muscle issues and those sorts of things. And
13:23
Speaker 1: he would put himself in traction in his office every day,
13:31
Speaker 1: and his doctor had urged him to do this, and
13:33
Speaker 1: he would counterweight it with bags of water. And I'll
13:36
Speaker 1: never forget. This contraption has set up on his sofa
13:39
Speaker 1: and it would literally elongate or pull his head. And
13:43
Speaker 1: I never could understand the ration. And I was I
13:46
Speaker 1: didn't have deep conversations with this man. He was very,
13:50
Speaker 1: very formal person. I just saw it in there and
13:53
Speaker 1: I asked him one time, what is that? And he says,
13:55
Speaker 1: that's traction for my gym beret. And I'm thinking, hmm,
13:58
Speaker 1: that's interesting. I didn't know you need attraction for gambret.
14:02
Speaker 1: But whatever. But you're talking about when you apply when
14:09
Speaker 1: you apply this kind of force to a baby that's
14:16
Speaker 1: not even born yet. Okay, we always think about how
14:20
Speaker 1: resilient little kids are, you know, they can take certain
14:24
Speaker 1: types of force and trauma that we as adults can't.
14:27
Speaker 1: But that tissue is so very fragile, Dave, and all
14:30
Speaker 1: it takes is this kind of force being exerted over
14:33
Speaker 1: a protracted period of time, which is what happened. And
14:38
Speaker 1: Dave a gout to tell you for our listeners that
14:42
Speaker 1: don't know, she applied so much for us for such
14:50
Speaker 1: a long period of time that she actually wound up
15:00
Speaker 1: to capitate this child. Do you remember, Dave, I know
15:18
Speaker 1: I do vividly. When your newborn is swaddled for the
15:24
Speaker 1: first time and they hand that child to you. First off,
15:29
Speaker 1: you have this feeling that you're insufficient to the task,
15:33
Speaker 1: even though people have been doing this for thousands of
15:35
Speaker 1: thousands of years. You think you're the one person in
15:38
Speaker 1: all of human history that's not going to be able
15:40
Speaker 1: to do this. And it's a real fear. It's a
15:42
Speaker 1: real fear, particularly I think for men in particularly because
15:46
Speaker 1: we can be really clumsy. And sometimes I was going
15:49
Speaker 1: to drop Andrew, that was my biggest football or big
15:54
Speaker 1: he was.
15:54
Speaker 2: He was almost ten pounds and he's huge, and it
15:57
Speaker 2: was like I kept thinking, if I drop him, what happens?
16:01
Speaker 1: You know?
16:02
Speaker 2: Exactly. Why couldn't I get that out of my head?
16:04
Speaker 1: And it's not terrified and it's terrifil I'm just putting
16:06
Speaker 1: them in the car to bring them home. It was
16:08
Speaker 1: for me, you know. But the joy that is kind
16:14
Speaker 1: of it's one of those moments. It's a spiritual moment.
16:18
Speaker 1: I would say. My wife always says that when her
16:22
Speaker 1: children have been born, she knows that God was present
16:25
Speaker 1: in the room. That's what she's always said. And when
16:28
Speaker 1: that child is handed over to you and you embrace
16:31
Speaker 1: that child, I get chills just speaking about it right now,
16:35
Speaker 1: that precious moment does And Dave, it's my understanding if
16:39
Speaker 1: and I might be misremembering, but it's it is true
16:43
Speaker 1: that they were not allowed to hold this baby immediately, no,
16:48
Speaker 1: and that that's where this thing kind of really goes
16:51
Speaker 1: off the rails.
16:53
Speaker 2: Here. You're right, it goes off the wheels fairly early on.
16:56
Speaker 2: But here's the deception, and here's the Okay, she's in
17:01
Speaker 2: labor for a number of hours, the shoulders are stuck,
17:04
Speaker 2: and they say, okay, we're going to have to do
17:07
Speaker 2: an emergency sea section. So hours after labor begins, they
17:11
Speaker 2: wheel her upstairs to do this emergency sea section. As
17:15
Speaker 2: Joe told you just a minute ago, the baby was decapitated.
17:21
Speaker 2: They actually pulled the baby's trunk or the body without
17:28
Speaker 2: the head by sea section, yep, and had her. She
17:32
Speaker 2: had to give birth to the baby's head. Yeah, Now
17:38
Speaker 2: they didn't. The parents don't know what's going on. They
17:41
Speaker 2: don't have a clue because these are kids. Yeah they're
17:44
Speaker 2: young in my mind. Yeah, well yeah, and they are.
17:47
Speaker 2: But you know what, they don't know what to expect. Look,
17:50
Speaker 2: the doctor's there, they're doing a c section. You don't
17:53
Speaker 2: know what all's going on, because you know, you know
17:55
Speaker 2: what you're told. And so as they're doing these things
17:59
Speaker 2: and they get the they then take the baby. The
18:02
Speaker 2: parents don't know the baby is decapitated. Now they are
18:05
Speaker 2: told the baby didn't live. And the nurses or the staff,
18:11
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say staff. I don't want to impugne anybody.
18:13
Speaker 2: I don't know who did this. I don't know, but
18:16
Speaker 2: I know that this couple wanted to hold their baby,
18:22
Speaker 2: dead or not. We want to hold our baby. That's
18:24
Speaker 2: our baby. We've already got a name for this baby.
18:27
Speaker 2: It's Trevian Isaiah. You know this is our son. I'm gonna,
18:31
Speaker 2: And so the staff then wrapped this baby's body and
18:38
Speaker 2: head in such a way that they placed the head
18:42
Speaker 2: on top of the body and wrapped it like you
18:46
Speaker 2: would swaddow a baby, but wrapped it tighter around the
18:49
Speaker 2: head so they could pass it off as a natural
18:53
Speaker 2: death at birth, that there was nothing wrong, just the
18:55
Speaker 2: baby died at birth.
18:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
18:58
Speaker 2: Now I go back to my fear of holding you know,
19:04
Speaker 2: my son Andrew when he was born, and I'm thinking
19:06
Speaker 2: they were probably the same way, even though they know
19:08
Speaker 2: the baby is dead, but they're thinking the baby's still born.
19:11
Speaker 2: You know that they're thinking something along those lines has transpired.
19:15
Speaker 2: They're grieving, they're exhausted, their panic, they're all the horrible
19:19
Speaker 2: things that you must go through at that moment I
19:21
Speaker 2: cannot imagine. And they're handed this baby as if there's
19:27
Speaker 2: no more damage to look at. They were lied to,
19:29
Speaker 2: They were cheated and lied to by everybody involved. How
19:35
Speaker 2: do you hold a baby's head onto.
19:38
Speaker 1: How do you know, how do you fix the body
19:43
Speaker 1: to the point where you feel comfortable enough as a clinician,
19:50
Speaker 1: and clinician is very broad term to mean anybody who
19:53
Speaker 1: had a hand in this. You feel comfortable enough to
19:57
Speaker 1: hand the deep, decay appetated body of an infant. But
20:03
Speaker 1: yet the head has been placed and secured quote unquote
20:07
Speaker 1: in a manner in which you feel secure enough that
20:10
Speaker 1: the head I hate, say this is not going to
20:13
Speaker 1: roll off and wind up in the floor or wind
20:16
Speaker 1: up in mom's lap. Because I got to tell you, you know,
20:21
Speaker 1: when my child was born, my children have been born,
20:25
Speaker 1: I don't go to their toes to kiss their toes.
20:28
Speaker 1: I'm kissing all over that forehead. When my son Isaac died,
20:34
Speaker 1: I was holding him when he passed, and I kiss
20:38
Speaker 1: that baby all over his face, you know. And it's
20:41
Speaker 1: one of those things I'm telling you. It's one of
20:43
Speaker 1: those things as parent that you it's almost like it's
20:49
Speaker 1: confirmatory to me it is all right, being the father
20:53
Speaker 1: of a child that passed away. I think that it's
20:57
Speaker 1: just that touch you want to confirm that a child
21:01
Speaker 1: has passed on, you know, and just opposite, I mean,
21:05
Speaker 1: when a child is alive, you want to feel that
21:07
Speaker 1: warmth that transfers from their body to your lips as
21:09
Speaker 1: you're touching your lips to them. But Dave, if it
21:15
Speaker 1: kind of a hero appears in all of this, because
21:19
Speaker 1: if it had not been for the funeral home in
21:24
Speaker 1: this case, my friend, the family would have been none
21:29
Speaker 1: the wiser. Can you imagine being a funeral director, you know,
21:34
Speaker 1: after the family has called you and said, look, we
21:37
Speaker 1: want to honor our child, have a service for the child.
21:42
Speaker 1: And yes, and let me tell you how this works
21:46
Speaker 1: in case folks are not aware when someone passed away
21:49
Speaker 1: to the hospital, it can be a baby or an adult.
21:51
Speaker 1: They will fill out an entire death packet at the
21:54
Speaker 1: hospital and when it's generally a social worker comes and
21:58
Speaker 1: talks to the family to say what funeral home do
22:00
Speaker 1: you want want to handle this? And the social worker
22:04
Speaker 1: many times will reach out, you know, to the funeral home.
22:07
Speaker 1: Of course, families reaching out at the same time too,
22:09
Speaker 1: and then they will arrange for the body to be
22:12
Speaker 1: picked up. Here's something that folks don't know. When babies die,
22:18
Speaker 1: they pass away in the hospital. Did you know that
22:20
Speaker 1: we have a little funeral homes in particularly have these
22:24
Speaker 1: They have these little open boxes. I guess they're probably
22:28
Speaker 1: about three feet now it's probably not that, about two
22:32
Speaker 1: feet by a foot and they're hinged and they have
22:36
Speaker 1: a handle right in the center of it, and it
22:38
Speaker 1: looks like a miniature casket almost, And what they will
22:41
Speaker 1: do is they'll walk in to the morgue and they'll
22:45
Speaker 1: open they'll open the top of this box and they
22:49
Speaker 1: place the baby in the box. They cover the baby
22:51
Speaker 1: in the sheet, and they transport the baby and no
22:53
Speaker 1: one really knows what they have in the box. Okay,
22:55
Speaker 1: it's not like they walk in with a stretcher. They'll
22:57
Speaker 1: just walk right back out, getting the funeral home vehicle
23:00
Speaker 1: and off they go to the funeral home to preped body.
23:03
Speaker 1: First time I ever saw one of those things, it was,
23:06
Speaker 1: you know, I've seen a lot of ghastly things that
23:08
Speaker 1: kind of center like a night gallery, you know, Rod's
23:14
Speaker 1: Serling night Gallery. Kind of shiver up my spine because
23:16
Speaker 1: it's got this kind of creepy old feel to it
23:19
Speaker 1: when you see these boxes, and they used to always
23:21
Speaker 1: have these. But when the funeral home came to pick
23:25
Speaker 1: up this child's body, I can only imagine that the
23:30
Speaker 1: people in the hospital that we're thinking about this, they
23:33
Speaker 1: were thinking, how in the world are we going to
23:35
Speaker 1: explain this? Because now that body's out of our control.
23:39
Speaker 1: That body's out of our control, you know what. That's
23:42
Speaker 1: that's no different day than these cases that we have taught,
23:45
Speaker 1: and we've had this discussion brother, where we've talked about
23:48
Speaker 1: how perpetrators that kill individuals sometimes they will bury them
23:53
Speaker 1: at their own home. They will retain the body so
23:57
Speaker 1: that they always can guarantee that they have total and
23:59
Speaker 1: complete control all over the body. And for me, that
24:02
Speaker 1: pops in my mind with this where they're thinking, oh,
24:05
Speaker 1: my lord, you know, once once that threshold is called
24:08
Speaker 1: is crossed, we no longer have control over these remains.
24:11
Speaker 2: That's exactly what happened. You know. It was kind of
24:14
Speaker 2: interesting here because I've approached this having experienced something now
24:21
Speaker 2: that I'm much more familiar with the process of death
24:24
Speaker 2: at a hospital, and I look at this young couple.
24:30
Speaker 2: They expected to go into the hospital as too and
24:33
Speaker 2: come out with a family of three and beginning their
24:36
Speaker 2: life together. And now they're faced with all of these
24:40
Speaker 2: very fast decisions that have to be made because and
24:43
Speaker 2: they're pushed on it. They want to answers, they want
24:45
Speaker 2: to know what happened. They're told by the hospital that
24:50
Speaker 2: they don't have a right to a free autopsy. You know,
24:53
Speaker 2: they want to know what happened, you know, why did
24:55
Speaker 2: my baby die? Why is my son not going home
24:58
Speaker 2: with me, and the hospital is like, nah, you don't.
25:01
Speaker 2: You don't have a right to know. I mean, yeah,
25:02
Speaker 2: you can pay for it if you want to pay
25:04
Speaker 2: to have it done. You have done. But just baby died.
25:06
Speaker 2: Babies died during birth. It happened. Sorry, sorry, And so
25:11
Speaker 2: they're kind of bum rushed out of the place now
25:14
Speaker 2: as this baby was taken to the nursing the funeral home.
25:18
Speaker 2: And I'm so glad you mentioned the heroic nature of
25:20
Speaker 2: this because had it not been for the funeral home,
25:25
Speaker 2: nobody would have known. The cover up would have been easy.
25:28
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna be honest with you, I wonder how
25:31
Speaker 2: many times things are done, you know, with a phone
25:33
Speaker 2: call and a couple thousand dollars to somebody. Think about it,
25:39
Speaker 2: they could have done a number of things that we
25:41
Speaker 2: and we would have never known about this, but they
25:44
Speaker 2: were they were told they had to pay for their
25:46
Speaker 2: own autopsy, and after and then after they found out
25:49
Speaker 2: from the nursing home that what had actually happened, you know,
25:52
Speaker 2: that there was a decapitation. And that's where I was
25:54
Speaker 2: wondering from your standpoint, from the what happens when look,
25:59
Speaker 2: I get it that baby dies naturally they're a still
26:01
Speaker 2: birth something like that. That's a that I don't I mean,
26:07
Speaker 2: as as horrible as that would be, that would have
26:11
Speaker 2: to be seen as different than a baby that is decapitated, right, it.
26:16
Speaker 1: Would, it would. And I got to tell you with
26:19
Speaker 1: a this is the interesting thing with and this would
26:25
Speaker 1: be and the way the way clinicians will frame this,
26:29
Speaker 1: and it's always made my teeth hurt every time I
26:33
Speaker 1: hear this term. They would use the term medical misadventure,
26:39
Speaker 1: and they throw that term around a lot. Well, it's
26:43
Speaker 1: a medical misadventure. Oh well, you know, that's just the
26:47
Speaker 1: way things are. Medical misadventure, medical misadventure. And I've worked
26:53
Speaker 1: cases day with quote unquote medical misadventure where there was
27:00
Speaker 1: where there's there was such shoddy work that was done
27:04
Speaker 1: that it would be it would equate two for a
27:09
Speaker 1: civilian in a civilian world outside And when I say civilian,
27:13
Speaker 1: I mean when not talking about military, I'm talking about
27:15
Speaker 1: an average, an average person outside of the clinical environment.
27:19
Speaker 1: You'd be charged with manslaughter at a baseline, right, Okay,
27:24
Speaker 1: But yet they'll use that term medical misadventure many times.
27:28
Speaker 1: And I can tell you that's probably how you know
27:30
Speaker 1: that's what they're thinking, perhaps in this particular case, and yeah,
27:35
Speaker 1: they had to. And well, let me educate you about
27:37
Speaker 1: one more thing. I feel. I feel like I'm preaching
27:41
Speaker 1: right now.
27:42
Speaker 2: Uh, no questions I have about this.
27:46
Speaker 1: Well, Listen, if a child dies, there are so many.
27:50
Speaker 1: First off, you want to know why did they die?
27:53
Speaker 1: Because if the parents which we know this parent, these
27:57
Speaker 1: parents had had gone through all of their prenatal meetings. Okay,
28:02
Speaker 1: they've been being followed all these sorts of things, and
28:05
Speaker 1: the days arriving, you know, they're all excited.
28:10
Speaker 2: For all.
28:10
Speaker 1: I know, they went through Lama's classes together. I have
28:12
Speaker 1: no idea, but you have to be able to give
28:18
Speaker 1: a scientific reason why this child died. I think in
28:24
Speaker 1: most cases, even with still bursts, that as part and
28:29
Speaker 1: parcel of the service that the hospital provides for, you know,
28:33
Speaker 1: a birth. If the child dies, it's pretty standard for
28:37
Speaker 1: them to do a hospital autopsy. Okay, you know it
28:40
Speaker 1: truly is. And this idea that no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
28:43
Speaker 1: you're not. But back to the medical misadventure, Dave, this
28:46
Speaker 1: is actually a case.
28:49
Speaker 2: That's reportable to the corner, right, That's what I was thinking, asking.
28:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah it is. And Most of the time, still
28:57
Speaker 1: bursts were reportable to the corner medical examiner. Most of
29:01
Speaker 1: them are. I mean, I can't tell you how many
29:04
Speaker 1: still birth cases I've taken report of over the phone. Now,
29:06
Speaker 1: I wouldn't go to the hospital to I wouldn't go
29:10
Speaker 1: to the hospital to examine a stillborn child, but it
29:13
Speaker 1: would still be reportable to us. We'd write a report
29:16
Speaker 1: of okay, And sometimes a baby would have a name.
29:18
Speaker 1: Sometimes a baby would not have a name. It's a
29:21
Speaker 1: weird kind of thing that happens. And when you think
29:26
Speaker 1: about this, this ain't a still birth. This is not
29:30
Speaker 1: how you would define a still birth. Okay. Now, if
29:36
Speaker 1: you've ever been in a laboring delivery suite, you know
29:40
Speaker 1: that you know there's monitors everywhere. Oh yeah, monitor the
29:43
Speaker 1: baby's heartbeat, all that sort of stuff. And this is
29:49
Speaker 1: I think what's the big mystery right now is to
29:53
Speaker 1: know if they had that fetal heart monitor going at
29:56
Speaker 1: that point in tom And this will be a question
29:59
Speaker 1: that will come up, at what point in time did
30:05
Speaker 1: that child to rest? Because this is not a still birth.
30:08
Speaker 1: This is not some kind of genetic thing that's going
30:12
Speaker 1: on where you know the child is not going to
30:14
Speaker 1: be viable and they die maybe in utero, which happens
30:18
Speaker 1: many times, and the mother has to deliver. Those are
30:20
Speaker 1: very sad. That is a classic still birth. This ain't
30:23
Speaker 1: no still birth, brother, You're talking about a baby who's
30:30
Speaker 1: had his head removed during delivery.
30:34
Speaker 2: This is a traumatic death.
30:51
Speaker 1: Years ago, when I was working down in New Orleans,
30:59
Speaker 1: I was working as a path assistant and as a
31:02
Speaker 1: corner investigator and was working with this one physician and
31:08
Speaker 1: he was rather in circles of forensic pathology. He was
31:13
Speaker 1: nationally well known, and I never could understand why he
31:20
Speaker 1: was working at our office. It's not that our office
31:23
Speaker 1: was a bad place. It's the level of renown that
31:28
Speaker 1: this individual had experienced prior to arrival at our office
31:34
Speaker 1: was pretty significant. They had been a deputy chief medical
31:40
Speaker 1: examiner in a major US city at one point in time,
31:43
Speaker 1: but yet they landed at our office. So you always
31:47
Speaker 1: have questions about that sort of thing. As it turned out,
31:52
Speaker 1: this individual had made a stop in between their deputy
31:58
Speaker 1: chief medical examiner position and our position in New Orleans.
32:04
Speaker 1: They had stopped off at another office, and while at
32:08
Speaker 1: that office, this forensic pathologist was tasked with trying to
32:14
Speaker 1: understand could a baby sustain a fracture at a certain
32:21
Speaker 1: age when falling from a certain height. The forensic pathologists
32:29
Speaker 1: took it upon themselves to begin to conduct experiments, and
32:36
Speaker 1: as a result of those experiments, a baby or baby's
32:42
Speaker 1: were dropped from a variety of heights. And it just
32:47
Speaker 1: so happened that this was witnessed by staff member who
32:50
Speaker 1: reported them. When I found that out that this individual
32:58
Speaker 1: had been involved in the so called experiments, I couldn't
33:05
Speaker 1: believe that I was standing at the same table with
33:07
Speaker 1: this individual doing post mortem examinations with them, because they
33:11
Speaker 1: did wind up getting sued, They did wind up being
33:15
Speaker 1: found liable, and the university that they were associated with
33:22
Speaker 1: was sued as well. You know, it had only been
33:27
Speaker 1: I guess at that time that was in the eighties.
33:31
Speaker 1: It had only been I don't know, probably at that
33:34
Speaker 1: time less than forty years earlier, when a group of
33:39
Speaker 1: people were doing experiments on another group of people. It's
33:43
Speaker 1: something that's so incredibly abhorrent and it runs contrary to
33:49
Speaker 1: every single ideal that we hold up in the medical
33:53
Speaker 1: legal community. And Dave, I got to tell you, brother,
33:58
Speaker 1: if you thought the story the decapitation when it comes
34:03
Speaker 1: to basic baby Isaiah is bad. This is what we meant.
34:08
Speaker 1: It went from bad to worse, and now we have
34:10
Speaker 1: new news that has burst on the horizon relative to
34:14
Speaker 1: all of this.
34:15
Speaker 2: As you know, they did file lawsuits. You know, in
34:19
Speaker 2: this day and age, you're not going to get by
34:21
Speaker 2: without somebody standing in the gap and saying something is
34:23
Speaker 2: wrong here, and we're going to help you take care
34:26
Speaker 2: of this. And that's what they did. Thankfully, somebody did
34:33
Speaker 2: help parents provide well. They sued just about everybody involved.
34:38
Speaker 2: But one thing they did, Joe, they got their own
34:43
Speaker 2: autopsy done. Remember how I told you to the hospital
34:45
Speaker 2: said they weren't entitled to a free autopsy. That was
34:48
Speaker 2: the hospital's way of bullying them. I think it was.
34:52
Speaker 1: I concur with your assessment, brother, But.
34:54
Speaker 2: They got an autopsy, they found it. And to be clear,
34:58
Speaker 2: I asked you about this earlier during the review show
35:02
Speaker 2: because I didn't know you could pay for an autopsy,
35:04
Speaker 2: Like I mean, I didn't really think about it because
35:09
Speaker 2: I would just assume that if a body needs an autopsy,
35:12
Speaker 2: it gets done, not that you actually have to fight
35:15
Speaker 2: to have an autopsy done on your child. And that's
35:19
Speaker 2: what they did. They paid to have it done. They
35:21
Speaker 2: found a doctor they would do it. Now, that was
35:24
Speaker 2: the good news. The bad news is well again, remember
35:29
Speaker 2: that this family did not hear from the doctor, the nurses,
35:32
Speaker 2: or anybody at the hospital what had happened to their baby.
35:35
Speaker 2: They didn't find that out. They found it out from
35:37
Speaker 2: the nursing home, I mean not in the funeral home. So,
35:42
Speaker 2: realizing that they were lied to, they went and hired
35:44
Speaker 2: doctor Jackson Gates to perform an autopsy. Doctor Jackson Gates
35:52
Speaker 2: does an autopsy and then, in a violation of every
36:00
Speaker 2: thing I can imagine. I cannot think of one redeeming
36:07
Speaker 2: thing to say about what he did with a videotape
36:12
Speaker 2: of the autopsy.
36:15
Speaker 1: You know, for years, this is okay, Just so that
36:20
Speaker 1: we're clear on this. For years, I've had people that
36:25
Speaker 1: would come to me and they would they would beg
36:29
Speaker 1: to be able to attend an autopsy, just people that
36:33
Speaker 1: are curious. I've got tons of medical student, nursing students,
36:38
Speaker 1: and of course cops. Because autopsies are not something that
36:43
Speaker 1: you normally get access to. First off, you have no
36:47
Speaker 1: way of vetting the person that's going to come through
36:49
Speaker 1: the door. You don't know who's going to show or
36:50
Speaker 1: what they're what their true reason is. And nowadays, in particular,
36:54
Speaker 1: you never know what the reason is. You know what
36:57
Speaker 1: I mean. You can't do anything in public without somebody
37:01
Speaker 1: having a camera and their videotape. You could just be
37:05
Speaker 1: having a regular everyday discussion with somebody and something that
37:09
Speaker 1: you say can be taken out of context. Well, I
37:13
Speaker 1: got to tell you, it might wind up on social media.
37:17
Speaker 1: And Dave, again, we have an example of somebody, a pathologist,
37:24
Speaker 1: who felt like that it was a good idea to
37:30
Speaker 1: do the post warnum examination on this precious child and
37:39
Speaker 1: then display the body in an Instagram reel. An Instagram reel, Dave, Yeah,
37:52
Speaker 1: pictures and video of this child's macerated body and.
37:59
Speaker 2: Display so it's like and by the way, without the
38:05
Speaker 2: permission of the parents. Now I could see if and
38:09
Speaker 2: I can't imagine a parent doing this. But let's just
38:11
Speaker 2: say for the sake of argument, that doctor Gates went
38:14
Speaker 2: to them and said, look, there's some educational value. I
38:17
Speaker 2: would like to share some of this autoposy with whoever,
38:22
Speaker 2: other professionals, whatever. There might be some value in that.
38:26
Speaker 2: I don't know what it would be, but doctor Jackson
38:29
Speaker 2: Gates doesn't bother to ask them permission to do anything.
38:32
Speaker 2: He posts them on Instagram for all the world to see,
38:35
Speaker 2: and that's how they found out about it. It wasn't
38:38
Speaker 2: like they called for permission, Joe. Somebody saw it and said, hey,
38:43
Speaker 2: what is this?
38:44
Speaker 1: Well, you ought to have the good sense to understand
38:46
Speaker 1: first off, that it doesn't You don't have to be
38:50
Speaker 1: a board certified forensic pathologist to appreciate this. This is
38:55
Speaker 1: going to blind up in a lawsuit. And I'm not
38:58
Speaker 1: talking about the Instagram thing, which obviously does. However, the
39:03
Speaker 1: death of this baby at this hospital is going to
39:06
Speaker 1: wind up in litigation. In what universe have you decided
39:13
Speaker 1: that this is a good idea that I should take
39:17
Speaker 1: imagery of this baby and display it for the entire world.
39:22
Speaker 1: Particularly that's bad enough, but particularly understanding the fact that
39:27
Speaker 1: this is going to go to court. Okay, it's going
39:30
Speaker 1: to go to court. I can you know, dollars to donuts?
39:34
Speaker 1: I bet you that it's going to go to court,
39:36
Speaker 1: which it's going to and you're going to You've so
39:40
Speaker 1: not only not only are you compromising the not only
39:46
Speaker 1: are these poor parents being subjected to this Emotionally, what
39:50
Speaker 1: happened to their baby what they eventually found out with
39:52
Speaker 1: the decapitation during birth. And not only are you humiliating
39:58
Speaker 1: them further because this is the ultimate and humiliation by
40:01
Speaker 1: displaying the desecrated remains of their baby, now you're putting
40:08
Speaker 1: them at risk for what's going to happen in the
40:12
Speaker 1: courts later on, you know, by displaying the images. You know,
40:16
Speaker 1: because any any defense attorney worth their you know, worth
40:21
Speaker 1: their weight, is going to be questioning this imagery that's
40:26
Speaker 1: put up and they'll ask questions. They'll say, well, you know,
40:30
Speaker 1: our defendant here was just trying to do their job
40:33
Speaker 1: at the hospital as an obg y N. Now you've
40:36
Speaker 1: hired this person that's going to display this for the
40:39
Speaker 1: whole world. It's a mockery, you know, and now our
40:42
Speaker 1: client can't be treated fairly by the courts. You see
40:45
Speaker 1: how this works, and so your inability to be able
40:49
Speaker 1: to control your actions relative to social media and what's
40:55
Speaker 1: going to happen, you know. I hope, I hope, against
40:59
Speaker 1: hope that there is some You can never replace a
41:05
Speaker 1: child period and as you as we always say on
41:10
Speaker 1: the show, there's no such thing as closure. But I
41:13
Speaker 1: hope that the reward that is going to drop into
41:17
Speaker 1: the lap of this family. And I'm not talking about
41:20
Speaker 1: just monetarily, but receiving some kind of satisfaction from the
41:25
Speaker 1: courts is going to go at least some small way
41:29
Speaker 1: in trying to heal them in some level so that
41:32
Speaker 1: maybe they'll be brave enough to have another child at
41:36
Speaker 1: some point in time. But I gotta tell you, brother,
41:38
Speaker 1: if this was me, it would put me so off
41:41
Speaker 1: of wanting to bring new life into this world. By
41:44
Speaker 1: this experience, yeah, I would really question my reality.
41:48
Speaker 2: Man. They did sue everybody involved, including doctor Gates. Now
41:51
Speaker 2: the reason we're doing the show update today is because
41:55
Speaker 2: the trial the jury has made an announcement about the
42:00
Speaker 2: lawsuit about what doctor Gates did. He's the one that
42:03
Speaker 2: did the autopsy and put the stuff on social media.
42:06
Speaker 2: I want to read you the jury's ruling. The jury
42:09
Speaker 2: find that for intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of
42:15
Speaker 2: privacy through intrusion into private affairs, and fraud, defendant Jackson Lgates, MD,
42:21
Speaker 2: and Gates Rapid Diagnostic Laboratory of Atlanta, doing business as
42:25
Speaker 2: Medical Diagnostic Choices will pay two million dollars in compensatory
42:31
Speaker 2: damages to Jessica Ross and Trevion Isaiah Taylor Senior. That
42:36
Speaker 2: was the jury's ruling. The jury also awarded an additional
42:40
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars impunitive damages. That's the
42:43
Speaker 2: maximum amount allowed, so two and a quarter million that
42:48
Speaker 2: will be paid, hopefully without argument, by the insurance company
42:52
Speaker 2: that doctor Gates has. I'm sure he has one. They
42:57
Speaker 2: start with that. Now. I want to be clear on
42:59
Speaker 2: this because this is not over. This is just doctor
43:03
Speaker 2: Gates putting the video, which that's you know what, Joe,
43:07
Speaker 2: I cannot imagine the You can get past a lot
43:12
Speaker 2: of things, you know. You can look at it and
43:14
Speaker 2: go they did they may you know, even if I
43:17
Speaker 2: believe they were wrong and what happened was a bad
43:20
Speaker 2: outcome and they deserve to you can get past that
43:24
Speaker 2: by saying they didn't intentionally kill my child. That wasn't
43:27
Speaker 2: their game plan. They weren't trying to kill this baby.
43:30
Speaker 2: The baby died by their actions, but that wasn't their intent.
43:33
Speaker 2: You could get by that at some point, maybe, but
43:37
Speaker 2: you can never get past the fact that an adult
43:40
Speaker 2: doctor that you're paying to give you the truth about
43:44
Speaker 2: what happened to your child violated your trust. Emotional damage
43:50
Speaker 2: of putting your baby up for all the world to
43:53
Speaker 2: see something so private, something so painful. They'll never get
43:59
Speaker 2: a that there's no closure.
44:01
Speaker 1: And you know, you know what they say the Internet,
44:04
Speaker 1: it lives forever, It lives forever. So whoever was out
44:09
Speaker 1: there that happened to see this before it was taken down,
44:13
Speaker 1: they've got video captures of this now, Dave, I guarantee
44:17
Speaker 1: you as sure as the sun is going to rise
44:19
Speaker 1: in the east tomorrow morning, I guarantee you that those
44:23
Speaker 1: images are floating around out there. What you know, who
44:26
Speaker 1: does the family see about that? Who do they see
44:29
Speaker 1: about it? Please tell me? And I I'm you know,
44:33
Speaker 1: I don't mean you to give me an answer for that.
44:35
Speaker 1: But who do you go and complain to about that?
44:38
Speaker 1: There is nobody you can complain to about that. This
44:42
Speaker 1: is a you know, I would like to call this
44:44
Speaker 1: a series of unfortunate instances in their life. But Dave,
44:49
Speaker 1: some of this stuff, all the way from the birth
44:52
Speaker 1: to the post wartem circumstances, there is and certainly with
44:59
Speaker 1: the delivery. I don't think that there's specific content there,
45:03
Speaker 1: but there are decisions that could have been made that
45:07
Speaker 1: would have had a better outcome than what we're seeing
45:12
Speaker 1: right now, because I got to tell you, David, there
45:16
Speaker 1: is not enough money in this old world to heal
45:23
Speaker 1: the broken hearts of these parents. May rest in peace.
45:29
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scotten Morgan and this is Body Backs