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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: A Pink Hammer's Dark Secrets -The Mysterious Death of Leon Hignite · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Down here in the South,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: we have some interesting names that we call our grandparents.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's the case all over the country, but for
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: me spending my entire life down here, that's kind of
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the norm. I call my grandfather Papa. I love that
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: man more than anything. Had two papas, But the one
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about right now was what's referred to as
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: a finishing contractor or a finishing carpenter, and he ran
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: a crew of guys. It would actually frame houses. He
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: was not a big man, but he had gigantic hands,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: and he had farms that I remember as a small
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: child that looked like Popeye. And the reason I bring
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: this up is that he always carried a hammer, and
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: he had a wide variety of him. I think probably
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: the one that everybody knows about is a claw hammer.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: That means that you've got the blunted side where you're
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: driving nails, and you've got the other side that's pulling
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: him out. Today, we're gonna talk about a case that
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: involves a hammer, and it's a hammer that my grandfather
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: probably never would have been seen with. It's actually a
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: pink claw hammer. But we're going to talk about its
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: involvement in the alleged homicide of an elderly man of
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: seventy six years of age. His name was Leon Dwayne Hygnit.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Packs My
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: buddy Dave mac He's a reporter for Crime Online. He's
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: joining me today to help me make sense out of
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: this case and break down the forensics. And Dave, there
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: are just certain cases out there that you think, when
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: you've heard the worst that humanity has to offer, you
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: come across a case like this and you think, Wow,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: can't it go any deeper and any darker? And I
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: think this is pretty dark. This is one of those
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: situations where you've got an elderly couple. Carol Higne sixty
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: nine at the time that this took place, husband Leon
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: is seventy six at the time. You know, when you
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: see an old couple out and about and you just
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: think how sweet it is to have a partnership like
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: that that lasts a long time. You don't think about
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: what could possibly be going on in the relationship beyond
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: what you see, just a nice little couple together. They're
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: sunset years, but the sunset years for Carol and Leon. Leon,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: in particular, we're not what you and I would wish
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: on anybody. Listen, when I see an older couple together.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I'm a romantic at harm. I have hope for love
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: and this case, it's actually chilling to the bone now
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: when I'm thinking about that elderly couple, and I'm wondering
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: if that's what people think of my wife and I
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: or you and your wife, you know, when we're out,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: are we that? Are we that elderly couple? Now? Oh
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: my goodness, but I think we are because I think
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: somebody actually referred to my wife and I were at
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Dollar General and I think I heard somebody say, isn't
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: that a cute old couple? And I thought, hey, yeah,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: it does. This is a dose of reality. But hey,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: we've made it to this point, so I'm thankful for that.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I wonder if Leon felt that way. I've made it
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: to this point. I'm good. Well, here's what actually happened.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Nine one one was called on September twenty fifth, and
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: they were called because there was a senior citizen suffering distress.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: He was not in good health and the wife called
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: saying I need help. She indicated he had gone to
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the bathroom and had fallen couldn't get up. She checked
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: on him and the door was locked, so she couldn't
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: get in to help him. Leon after about fifteen minutes,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: was able to get out of the bathroom and get
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: out enough to crawl towards the bedroom. This is where
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: his loving wife helped him to the bedroom. Now she
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: noticed that there was a lot of blood on the
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: floor of the bathroom Joe because he had hit his
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: head and apparently more than once in trying to get up,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: maybe slipping in the blood and having trouble. So Carol
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: helps him to the bedroom where he says, I have
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: a bad back. Let me lay on the floor, and
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: so he does. That's on the twenty fifth September. He
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: laid there for a couple of days. Carol says she
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: thought he was going to get better because he had
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: fallen before and got up. It just took him a
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: little time to recover. But she called their family doctor
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: and he says, well, no, you need to call nine
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: one one. He needs help. He's been on the ground
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: too long. And that's when paramedics showed up and they
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: took one look around the place and they said, hey, Joe,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: this is not a loving elderly couple where the man
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: has fallen and can't get up. There's more to this
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: than meets the eye. As a matter of fact, one
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: of the paramedics noticed blood on the ceiling and the wall.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Is there a way you could hit your head on
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the sink in the bathroom and get blood on the
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: ceiling on the wall, Joe, that you can think of.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: You will encounter circumstance where people say and it generally
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: happens in cases, particularly involved in small children, where there's
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: ongoing child abuse. This is clearly to me a case
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: of what could be defined as older abuse. Remember Leon,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: not only did he not get around well, he was
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: blind and he couldn't hear real well, so you don't
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: know what his level of ability to communicate was. Can
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: you imagine that you've suffered these injuries and then it's
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: almost like you're locked inside your head and the people
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: or person that you're totally dependent upon as your caregiver,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: is not paying attention to you. They're not rendering aid.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: You know that you're in a desperate circumstance. But there's darkness,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: there's an absence of sound. Perhaps the floor is cold,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and you know nothing is changing. You don't know if
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: anything will change until the end eventually comes. But when
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: we think about head injuries in particular, for every point
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: of contact relative to a head injury, there will be
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: a singular point of impact. That's important to remember in
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: this case because as a result of a later examination
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: that's done of Leon, it was determined that this man
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: had sustained at least thirty count them, thirty blunt force
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: impacts all about his head, over and over and over again.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: And the fact that that had occurred and you have
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: that much head trauma, it's hard to take the measure
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: of what's going on internally with his brain. But I
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: can tell you this, the brain, probably at the initial onset,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: was beginning to swell, and if there's nowhere for that
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: brain to receive any kind of relief, it becomes more
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and more progressively congested. You enter into an altered mental state.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: And this is not even counting the pain that would
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: have been involved as you linger there and probably eventually
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: going into a comma. We have brought this about with
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: this case with Carol and Leon Hignite, and have brought
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: it to the situation where Leon is on the floor
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: and paramedics have been called. Basically, I was giving you
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the story from Carol Hignite, what she told their primary
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: care physician and later what she told paramedics. The actual
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: truth of the matter was somewhat different, because, as you mentioned,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: there's not a case where a person could end up
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: with over thirty lacerations about their head by falling in
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the bathroom and hitting a sink. For three days, leon
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Hignite laid on the bedroom floor. When nine one one
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: was called and paramedics arrive, they find leon Hignite unresponsive, dehydrated,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: lacerations to his head and lying in his own filth
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: and waste excrement. They saw blood on the walls and
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: ceiling as well as on the bedroom floor around his head.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: And when you actually see some of the photos, Joe,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: you can see that leon Hignite actually wedged himself underneath
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: a bed frame in the bedroom. And I am only
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: going to assume that he did that to try to
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: protect himself, that he's doing anything you can to try
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: to find some type of comfort. Because this did not
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: happen on accident. It couldn't have, right, No, it can't,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: because for every point of impact that you have, there
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: will be evidence of that. And so back to this
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: idea of elder abuse. Many people that are charged in
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: cases of elder abuse and certainly child abuse, will say, well,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: my child fell down the staircase, and this is how
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: they wound up with these injuries. You're looking at them.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: The logical part of your brain wants to scream out, well,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: how many times did they fall down the staircase? Because
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: now you've got bruises all over the body. They're specific
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: pattern injuries that come along with this. You had mentioned
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the idea of lacerations, and there are patterns that you
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: can tie back to this and the fact that he
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: had gone in I think probably in those early moments
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: into a posture of protection. I use this term a lot,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: maybe I overuse it, but it's almost a primal thing.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: You're trying to survive, and even as your compromise from
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: a century standpoint, you can make it from the bathroom
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: to the bedroom. You would imagine that that would be
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: a normal course. In my estimation, given how extensive these
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: injuries were on his head, I would imagine that there
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: was probably a blood trail and the dynamics of the
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: blood that you would see in the bathroom would certainly
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: be different than those areas of blood that are essentially pooled,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: because that's going to tell the tale in the case
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: of Leon. If you're looking for more true crime, check
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: out the Piked and Massacre new details into what was
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: uncovered at the gruesome crime scenes in Pike County. Accused
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: murderer George Wagner faces a judge and jury. No Wagner
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: family DNA was found at a crime scene. Will he
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: face the death penalty or will he walk free? Mark
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: my words, this case is about to blow wide open.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Been to the entire season of The Piked in Masker
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: season four on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Two words come to mind. Helpless
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: and hopeless. I can't even begin to fathom what it
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: would be like to be abandoned and a place that
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: you would consider hopefully your safe harbor, your haven, that
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: home that you've lived in, perhaps for years. There's no
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: point of retreat, there's no place that you can go
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: to where you're going to feel comfort, that you're going
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: to get better. And I think that that's probably the
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: position that Leon Hickney found himself in I've never been
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: to a scene like this. I've been to a number
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: of scenes where extreme things have happened to people, but
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I've never been to one like this where authorities are called.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: After the man has been laying for three days that
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: nine when one people walk in and they see what's
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: going on, they recognize it is so bad that they
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: begin taking action. They, being authorities, begin taking action immediately.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: They get Leon out of the situation, get him to
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: the hospital, and they start doing what they can to
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: help him. He is seventy six years old, he's blind,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: he's got some hearing is She's already has a number
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: of health issues. When all of this is looked at
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: by a third party, they go, this is not the
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: way she's claiming. This man did not slip and fall
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: in the bathroom on accident. He's not been laying there
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: for three days. While she waits to help him, police
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: get involved. They get a search warrant to come and
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: look at the house. Police arrive to serve the search warrant,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: and as they go in, they smell smoke and find
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: that the house has been set on fire in the basement.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: So already we have Carol Hignite, the wife. She's been
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: charged now with assault. She's been charged with elder abuse
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: now Arson, Yeah, and he's just hanging on by thread.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: And this is roughly three days post accident quote unquote,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I'm using air quotes here where this head strike has
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: taken place. When the doctors begin to assess they've got him,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: I'm sure on NEUROICU, which means that they're going to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: have to do the calculus here to try to determine
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: what they're going to do to save him, because all
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: the while I'd mentioned just a moment ago, how when
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: you sustain this kind of trauma to your head, your
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: brain does in fact begin to swell. You don't know
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: if there's perhaps underlying fractures, but one of the things
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: they have to do is to relive that pressure, and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: it's a surgical intervention most of the time, where they'll
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: go in and they will drill what's referred to as
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: a burrhole in the skull itself to relieve this pressure.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: They'll also insert a pressure monitor into the skull that
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: keeps track of the indwelling pressure. There's a range of
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: pressure that is acceptable in the human brain where if
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: you begin to get up past that normal level. It's
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: curtains for you. So they're trying to assess all of
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: this day. Being the team at the hospital, there are
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: three days behind the curve. I'm not saying it would
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: have been a survivable event if they'd got to him immediately,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: but I can tell you his chances may have been
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: a little bit better. He's there on the floor for
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: three days and he is dehydrated, he's ematiated, he's had
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: no food or water. How long can anybody much less
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: a seventy six year old man with underlying medical issues
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: lay on the floor without dying, no food, no water,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: and he's bleeding. This is not something that you're going
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: to recover from just by resting on this hard surface floor.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: This is something that requires medical intervention, probably surgical intervention,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: in order to correct this issue, just to give him
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: immediate relief. So you couple that with this idea of dehydration.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: There's one element to this case that's kind of fascinating.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Carol had claimed that while she had chosen to let
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: him rest on the floor, that she had made efforts
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: in order to hydrate him. As a matter of fact,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: she stated that she had gotten a cup and was
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: giving him ice chips. If you've ever been in the hospital,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: they might not let you drink water, but they will
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: give you ice chips in order to kind of hydrate
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: your mouth stem the dry mouth that you get while
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: you're in there, and that this was her effort apparently
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: at hydration. Dehydration is absolutely lethal. Probably goes without saying.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: We can't go very long without taking water on in
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: our body because all of our cells are depended upon it.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: And so it's not just that he struck his head, Dave,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: It's not just that he was allowed to lay on
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the floor. It's the idea of deprivation of basic needs.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying. You're depriving this individual that
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: is literally at your mercy. Carol Hignet claimed that she
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: checked on her husband periodically, but didn't think his injuries
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: were severe enough to call an ambulance. So, Joe, let
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: me ask you. According to healthcare providers who took care
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: of Leon Hignite when he arrived at the hospital, he
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: sustained an extensive brain injury. I collapsed a lung, broken ribs,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: broken leg, a fractured orbital socket, and bed sores. Are
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: these injuries typical of a fall. No, they're not. Let's
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: just go to the fractures that you're referring to. When
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: you see someone with fractured ribs and they're in a
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: diminished position like this. Now, you can have fractured ribs
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: as a result of a fall, and the elderly do
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: sustain those. How many times does anybody in the audience
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: reflect back, think, well, I had my aunt or my
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: grandmother that broke their hip. That does happen. Sometimes it
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: will happen spontaneously, but many times if the elderly or
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: compromise physically, that will fall and strike that area and
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: it will fracture. The bones become brutal as we get older.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: But how many fractures were there? And also how recent
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: are the fractures? How recent are the broken bones? And
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: from a forensic stand point, if you're trying to establish
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: a timeline, one of the things that you look for,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: particularly when it comes to bony fractures is has the
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: healing process begun at this point in time? Is there
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: any indication that the bones have begun to kind of
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: naturally mend on themselves. And you'll get these odd appearing
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: fracture lines where you'll see the bonus communicating where it's
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: beginning to mend itself. And these stand out. You can't
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: miss it when you're doing an internal examination. It would
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: also be evident certainly in X rays as well. So
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: absent that from a forensic standpoint, you have to take
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: what you're being told by the investigators and try to
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: marry up these injuries and try to appreciate to what
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: extent these things have healed. Are they in the distant past,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: are they all recent? And also you think about, well
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: do any of them communicate with one another? And what
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I mean by that, do you have overlapping contusions? Certainly
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: fractured areas where you might have a bone that's not
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: distractured once but maybe twice. Two things that stand out
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: that you had mentioned, how do you get a leg fracture,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: because that requires a tremendous amount of pressure in order
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: to generate that. Sometimes you can see leg fractures with
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: individuals that will be stomped on. Perhaps if you have
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: a leg fracture, that means that there ought to be
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: some kind of related contusion overlying the area of fracture.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: For anybody's ever fractured bone in their body, you can
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: actually see that kind of focal strike there. But this
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: other thing that you mentioned, Dave, this orbital fracture that
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: he sustained. Does anyone actually realize how rare these are.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: We're talking about an eye socket, that's fracture that requires
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: a direct strike. Generally you see orbital fractures many times
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: in fatal car accidents. That's how rare these kinds of
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: things are. Maybe someone that takes a line drive baseball
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: to the face, that's how much force is required. In
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: this case. I think that there's far too much to
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: just ignore in total. When you begin to think about
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Leon and the trauma that he sustained. I'm reflecting back
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: on my career. I've worked plane crashes where victims have
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: had fewer injuries than this. Fatal injuries they had, but
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: fewer injuries than this. I would associate this with maybe
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: a car accident as well, any kind of motor vehicle
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: accident where you have extreme force and trauma that's applied
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: to an individual. I'm amazed that this man survived at all.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: You mentioned at the very beginning, the pink hammer, and
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at these in particular, the fractured orbital socket,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: as you mentioned, a very difficult thing. But looking at
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: the injuries, we know we have the pink hammer, and
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: we know that there was blood on the hammer. We
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: know there's blood on the ceiling and the walls. We've
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: got blunt force trauma to the head, over thirty lacerations
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: just dealing with the head. Does it sound like rather
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: than using the hammer to crush up blocks of ice
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: to lovingly feed her husband while he lay there in
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: his own excrement and blood and feeding him ice chips,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: or was that hammer used for something else? Just about
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: out of every instrument that we examine at the Morgue
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: relative to blunt force trauma, I think probably hammer stands
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: out the most based upon the unique mark that it
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: leaves on the body. If everybody at home right now
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: that's listening to me, or in your car, think about
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: what a quarter looks like and you're looking down on
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: the quarter. The dimensions of quarter very closely resemble what
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: the striking surface of a hammer would look like. And
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: remember the head and the skull. Many people don't think
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: about their or their skull many times, but you have
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: uneven surfaces. It's a flat bone, but it's curved when
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: a hammer comes down and it strikes to scalp initially
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: because that's where it's going to first make contact. There's
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: this friction event that occurs, and you'll get an overlying
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: braided area many times, and also if the surface of
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: that contact the impact point of the hammer, some of
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: them will be dimpled. You'll see that transferred onto there.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: But that force is transferring into that area and it
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: leads to tearing. Remember they're calling these lacerations, and lacerations
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: are not associated with sharp force injuries. Contrary to what
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: people say. Lacerations are associated with blunt force trauma. So
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: you've got tearing of the skin, but yet it will
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: leave a very specific mark that's going to look a
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: lot like a quarter. Also, you get this kind of
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: what I refer to as a beaver teeth mark, which
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: if someone spins the hammer around where you're attacking with
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: a claw, you'll get this penetrating event where you have
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: it looks like two large beaver teeth had gone into
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: the tissue side by side, and that's the claw. You
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: don't know if that's been slipped around because lots of
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: times the hammer itself, the handle will get just saturated
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: with blood. Blood's very slick. If you're holding it as
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: you're striking over and we know that there were multiple
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: strikes because investigators at the scene talked about how there
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: appears to be cast off, a copious amount of cast
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: off in this bathroom, on the walls and the ceilings,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: and that blood actually matched Leon. The one problem here
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: with this case, though, forensically, is that they only found
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: blood on the underside of the head of the hammer
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and also onto the leading edge of the handle, and
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: that blood could not be specifically tied back to Leon,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: nor could it be tied back to his wife Carol.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: That might be an indication that at some point in
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: time that weapon went through some kind of cleansing, perhaps
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: because you can imagine the thing would have been super saturated.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: We're talking about at least thirty strikes to the head,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: not to mention these other areas of the body. So
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: that's kind of telltale here. And one of the things
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: that's particularly telling when you take back the scalp at
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: autopsy and you begin to take a look at the
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: external table of the skull. Remember those quarter shaped injuries
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: that I talked about on the skin, boy, or they
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: appreciate it, on the surface of the skull, they look
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: like plugs essentially, where that hammer strike has taken place,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: that energy transfer down onto that bone and the bone
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: becomes detached and suddenly portions of it might fragment and
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: go into the brain, or the plug itself is pressuring
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the brain as well. So he's got all of this
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: to contend with Physiologically, I stand by my statement. The
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: fact that he survived as long as he did is
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: absolutely a miracle. Talking about the hammer and the lack
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: of blood from Leon the victim here, would you not
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: have two different types If the hammer is the weapon
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: that causes the head trauma, would there not be blood
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: spatter from impact that would be at head level as
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: well as cast off from raising the hammer back and
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: blood coming off the hammer onto the ceiling or the wall.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: That's a good point one of the things that happens.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: We teach our students at Jacksonville State this as well.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: When you're thinking about cast off, it's almost like if
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: you took a bucket of red paint and dipped a
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: paint brush in it, withdrew it, and initially when you
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: withdraw it, what's going to happen, Well, that paint is
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: going to drip down kind of passively off of it,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: but as you draw it up over your shoulder. If
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: you're trying to imitate this idea of casting off, depend
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: upon the force that you're using in drawing it back.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: You can cast blood forward and then kind of arching,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: and then as you're coming down you're going to generate
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: more force. And it happens many times where these patterns
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: have cast off overlap one another. Just imagine in your
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: mind that you've got this big X that's happening going
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: up with an upward stroke and then down with a
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: down stroke, and you'll get these kind of communicating events.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: The fact that he was struck this many times allegedly
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: with this hammer that they've talked about would give us
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: an indication because they've made no bones about it here, Dave.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: They talk about the volume or the amount of blood
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: cast off that they're seeing at the scene. So you
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: can get an idea that this would have been a
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: rather dynamic event. Now to your other point, when you
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: are striking down. If you take a hammer and you
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: were to drive it into some like a tomato for instance,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: well when at that point of impact, what's going to
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: happen with all of the fluid that's contained in that tomato. Well,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: it's going to kind of blast out, isn't it. Now.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: It's not going to be high velocity, but it will
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: at least be medium velocity. We talk about velocities of blood.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: We talk about a low, medium, and high. High is
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: generally generated from a firearm. But when you have medium velocity,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: that's easily associated with things like hammers, baseball bats, crowbars,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: motor vehicle accidents. And you're thinking about a firearm, you're
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: thinking about maybe subsonic or supersonic round this passing through
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: a body that generates that kind of blast effect. It's
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: not quite to that level, and the blood droplets themselves,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the deposition of blood will be larger, they'll be easier
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: to appreciate, whereas if you have high velocity, it'll be
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: almost histamine like, it'll be very fine spray that you'll see.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: With that, they would have been able to appreciate that.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: And he could have been in multiple positions, because if
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: you're talking about this number of strikes and impacts, he's
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: not going to just simply sit there statically, at least
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: in the beginning. He's going to try to fend this off.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: So you might have these impact patterns that are all
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: over the place, and they're going to settle in various locations,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: maybe underneath the sink, maybe on the side of the toilet,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: on the wall under the sink. You just never know
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: because this is such a dynamic event. One other thing
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I wanted to get clarity on is that you talked
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: about the hammer not having blood. One would expect. But
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: obviously between the time of the incident on the twenty
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: fifth and the time that Carol Hignite called nine one
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: one was three days. That's not in debate. During that
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: three day period of time, one could clean up a
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: lot of things. Now, those of us who are crime watchers,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: watching crime stories and things like that, we hear of
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: luminol that it doesn't matter how much you clean up,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: that luminol can be sprayed and it just shows up
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: where the blood was. Is that true or is that
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: TV stuff? Joe? It's accurate, It truly is. I know
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: of cases that have been ten, twelve, even fifteen years
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: down range from the actual event. They were able to
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: go back. On one case in particular, in the early days,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the use of luminol comes to mind a friend of
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: mine where a fellow had killed his wife in a
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: basement and redund the basement and even carpeted the floor,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and the cops have been watching the house for some time.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: They were aware that she was missing. A young couple
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: bought the house and they found luminol under the carpet
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: its surface after all those years, and as it turns out,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: the wife was actually buried out in the rose garden
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: and the back of the house. So it's quite possible
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: to go back over a period of time, and certainly
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: in this case, it's such a short period of time,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: you're not going to have too much degrading of that
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: sample anyway, so yeah, you'd be able to pick up
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: on it. So Carol Hignet was initially charged with assault.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: She was charged with abuse of the elderly and arson,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and then it was upgraded because Leon did die nine
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: days after the initial attack. The date was October the fourth.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: He passed away, and that's when the charges against Carol
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: were upgraded to murder. Yeah, you're absolutely right, and she
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: went to trial on this. They brought in forensic experts,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: they had all of the witnesses and back to the
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: fire they had a retired fire investigator that worked for
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the county. There. He testified that the fire that was
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: set was set by an individual with a handheld torch
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: perhaps or fire source like a lighter, that it wasn't
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: as a result of maybe faulty electrical box or something
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: like this, which the defense experts said that you couldn't
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: rule that out. Remember they said you can't rule it out.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: But at the end her trial ended in a hung jury,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: but the DA has stated that they're going to try
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: her again. So more to come on this case. We'll
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: see what happens. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Bodybacks