Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Abandoned in Concrete - Georgia's Baby Jane Doe

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Abandoned in Concrete - Georgia's Baby Jane Doe · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Body Backs with Joseph Scott Morgan. Growing up in the
0:19
Speaker 1: rural South, you spend quite a bit of time out
0:23
Speaker 1: in the woods. I come from a family that like
0:25
Speaker 1: to hunt, and I'm not talking necessarily for a big game.
0:29
Speaker 1: I'm talking about for survival. My grandfather I swear that
0:33
Speaker 1: man never met a squirrel he wouldn't eat. And I
0:37
Speaker 1: know that's for some folks that are listening to this,
0:39
Speaker 1: they might find that. I don't know, I don't know
0:42
Speaker 1: if the word were pugnant fits in there, but some
0:44
Speaker 1: people would not want to do that. Some people call
0:48
Speaker 1: the squirrel's tree rats, But man would take a squirreling
0:53
Speaker 1: rice any day over chicken and rice, I think. But
0:56
Speaker 1: you know, when you're when you're out in the woods,
0:59
Speaker 1: many times you not only appreciate the beauty, but you
1:03
Speaker 1: also appreciate the things that people do out there that
1:07
Speaker 1: you would otherwise prefer that they not do. And you know,
1:12
Speaker 1: one of the biggest things is dumping garbage and dumping
1:16
Speaker 1: old appliances. You come across those sorts of things many times,
1:21
Speaker 1: and it really does detract from the beauty of nature.
1:27
Speaker 1: But when you're out in the woods and you're doing
1:29
Speaker 1: a job, as a road crew and you're working for
1:34
Speaker 1: local government, you have to go out and identify illegal
1:38
Speaker 1: dumping sites, and that happens with great frequency, and you know,
1:42
Speaker 1: people want these things removed because they're dangerous. You don't
1:45
Speaker 1: know what people are throwing away. But in the case
1:50
Speaker 1: we're going to discuss, a road crew found one of
1:57
Speaker 1: the most precious things in the world that so one
2:00
Speaker 1: had treated like garbage and essentially tossed a little angel
2:07
Speaker 1: away and abandoned her out in the middle of a lonely,
2:12
Speaker 1: lonely stretch of road in a forest. I'm Joseph Scott
2:19
Speaker 1: Morgan and this is body Back. I hate the story.
2:28
Speaker 1: I hate this. I'd absolutely detested I you know, I
2:33
Speaker 1: cover so many cases with a lot of other folks,
2:38
Speaker 1: and the adults those cases are, they're tough, many of
2:45
Speaker 1: them are. But when I find cases in particular where
2:49
Speaker 1: somebody takes a precious little child and they treat them
2:54
Speaker 1: like garbage and they throw them away, probably many times
2:59
Speaker 1: after long periods of abuse and those sorts of things,
3:02
Speaker 1: it breaks my heart because I know how many people
3:05
Speaker 1: out there would love to have a child and have
3:07
Speaker 1: struggled for years and years to have a child. And
3:10
Speaker 1: I've often said, and I'd get angry many times, even
3:15
Speaker 1: when I was an investigator. I remember having this discussion
3:17
Speaker 1: with my wife Kim. I'd come home and I'd be
3:21
Speaker 1: in tears. I really would, after working child deaks and
3:25
Speaker 1: I would say, why, you know, why didn't they just
3:29
Speaker 1: bring them to me? They no questions asked, just bring
3:33
Speaker 1: them to our doorstep.
3:35
Speaker 2: This investigation began on December twenty first, nineteen eighty eight.
3:38
Speaker 2: Aware County, Georgia road crew comes across an illegal dumping
3:42
Speaker 2: area just off the road. In that dump area, the
3:45
Speaker 2: crew finds a console TV. Inside the TV is a suitcase. Now,
3:50
Speaker 2: as the road crew picks up the suitcase, it's heavier
3:53
Speaker 2: than it should be if it just had clothes and
3:55
Speaker 2: toiletries in it, so they opened it up. They find
3:59
Speaker 2: the lifelong body of a small girl encased in concrete.
4:03
Speaker 2: Ware County Sheriff's office is called and they call for
4:06
Speaker 2: help from the GBI. The GBI medical examiner determines the
4:09
Speaker 2: death as a homicide, but the cause of death is undetermined.
4:13
Speaker 2: There was one piece of evidence found near the console
4:15
Speaker 2: TV that suggests a connection to Albany, Georgia. Nearly one
4:19
Speaker 2: hundred miles away. Now the child in the cement is
4:21
Speaker 2: not identified and becomes known as Ware Counties Baby Jane Doe.
4:26
Speaker 2: That investigation that began on December twenty first, nineteen eighty eight,
4:29
Speaker 2: continues for the next thirty five years. Finally, in twenty
4:32
Speaker 2: twenty two, a local TV station does a report on
4:35
Speaker 2: the anniversary of the day Baby Jane Doe was found.
4:38
Speaker 2: They update the public on what little details they have,
4:41
Speaker 2: and they offer up a five thousand dollars reward for
4:43
Speaker 2: information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person
4:46
Speaker 2: or persons that threw Baby Jane Doe away like garbage.
4:49
Speaker 2: A viewer watching the broadcast calls in a tip that
4:54
Speaker 2: leads investigators to determine Baby Jane Doe is actually Kenyatta Odom,
4:59
Speaker 2: a five year old little girl they called Kiki because
5:02
Speaker 2: a woman was watching the news and saw this report
5:06
Speaker 2: on the anniversary and said, I think I know who
5:09
Speaker 2: that is. She never believed the story that her friend
5:13
Speaker 2: told her about five year old Kiki. The mother had
5:16
Speaker 2: said the Kiki had moved and was living with her father.
5:19
Speaker 2: The neighbor didn't believe the story. Once you have identified
5:23
Speaker 2: this child, now it's time to find out who is
5:26
Speaker 2: the person that did this to this child and why
5:33
Speaker 2: was nobody looking for her?
5:35
Speaker 1: The idea that you when you're talking about in casing
5:39
Speaker 1: something you know, in concrete, this rises to a level
5:44
Speaker 1: of people really thinking about this, putting thought into this,
5:50
Speaker 1: because what do you have to do. Well, first off,
5:52
Speaker 1: you have to prep the concrete. You know, you just
5:56
Speaker 1: don't go out and buy it wet. You have to
5:59
Speaker 1: prep the concret in order to utilize it to its
6:03
Speaker 1: fullest potential. Then you have to have something to contain
6:06
Speaker 1: seid concrete in. And obviously you've got to have placement
6:11
Speaker 1: for the body. And why are you going about doing
6:14
Speaker 1: it this way? I don't I don't understand, and I
6:18
Speaker 1: can only imagine at the time, and this discovery occurred
6:23
Speaker 1: in arguably one of the most isolated and rural areas
6:30
Speaker 1: in the state of Georgia, down in southwest Georgia, in
6:32
Speaker 1: a town called Millwood that's actually in Ware County, Georgia,
6:38
Speaker 1: and very very rural, isolated. Lots of dirt roads to
6:43
Speaker 1: go down, lots of thickly forested areas to go down,
6:49
Speaker 1: and there's there's no life in that area. And when
6:53
Speaker 1: I say life, I'm talking about you know, you don't
6:55
Speaker 1: have a bunch of houses around there. It it smacks
6:59
Speaker 1: as somebody that wanted to get as far away with
7:02
Speaker 1: these remains and discard them. And I guess their thought
7:06
Speaker 1: was was that if if you go to an illegal
7:10
Speaker 1: dumping site, no one's gonna pay any attention to it.
7:14
Speaker 1: But you know, there's you. You never count on the unknown,
7:19
Speaker 1: you know, you because you can't see that, you know.
7:22
Speaker 1: I think if you're a perpetrator, you can't think that,
7:24
Speaker 1: oh well, there might be a road crew that comes by,
7:27
Speaker 1: and I don't know about you. I've got I've got
7:30
Speaker 1: a couple of people that will roll by our house
7:33
Speaker 1: where we live, and they show up in pickup trucks.
7:37
Speaker 1: And if you've dumped, you know, some kind of something
7:40
Speaker 1: from your home, like you know, uh, it's furniture or
7:44
Speaker 1: maybe a piece of furniture you won't just hauled off
7:47
Speaker 1: or whatever, They're gonna stop and they're gonna look at it,
7:49
Speaker 1: you know, before the truck ever hauls it away, because
7:52
Speaker 1: they might they might be able to source it in
7:54
Speaker 1: a different way, or you know, collect it and fix
7:57
Speaker 1: it up or something like that. And those people exist,
8:00
Speaker 1: and they're out there and they're riding around, and I
8:02
Speaker 1: think that most people that perpetrate such a horrible crime
8:06
Speaker 1: like we're talking about today, they don't count on that.
8:08
Speaker 1: Their idea, I think, is to get as much distance
8:12
Speaker 1: between themselves and the corpus delecti, because that is the
8:16
Speaker 1: body of evidence there. And interestingly enough, I was just
8:20
Speaker 1: having this discussion day with my students and I teach
8:26
Speaker 1: a medical legal death investigation class at JSU, and I
8:32
Speaker 1: ask them, my class is to envision when we're working
8:36
Speaker 1: a case, and you're working a death case, obviously, envision
8:41
Speaker 1: the body as being the hub of a wagon wheel,
8:45
Speaker 1: and everything else radiates out from it, all other bits
8:48
Speaker 1: of evidence and you know, things like that. But the
8:50
Speaker 1: body is a central piece of evidence here, and you know,
8:54
Speaker 1: you never know how far those kind of radial spokes
8:58
Speaker 1: are going to extend out from a body. You know,
9:00
Speaker 1: you've got this central little body that's there, encased in
9:03
Speaker 1: cement or concrete, and you think, wow, you know, what
9:08
Speaker 1: was our point of origin? You know, where did she
9:09
Speaker 1: come from?
9:10
Speaker 2: We know the body was found on December twenty first,
9:13
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight, but we don't know when the child
9:18
Speaker 2: was placed in that location.
9:20
Speaker 1: You made a point earlier about this this this witness,
9:24
Speaker 1: this friend so called of the family, and she asked
9:28
Speaker 1: the mother about you know, where the child is, And
9:31
Speaker 1: as investigators, you have to go back to that last
9:34
Speaker 1: point of contact because that might be Look, we're talking
9:37
Speaker 1: about a little child. Many people, you know, don't don't
9:41
Speaker 1: think about the whereabouts of a child. If you don't
9:43
Speaker 1: have a closely knit family, for instance, or you're really
9:48
Speaker 1: tied in with your neighbors, that might that one person
9:52
Speaker 1: and now it's playing out right here before us, that
9:55
Speaker 1: one person has that recall and they might be the
9:58
Speaker 1: only person to ever remembered the child. So you the
10:02
Speaker 1: point that I think that needs to be made here
10:05
Speaker 1: is that how do we know how long this child
10:10
Speaker 1: had been deceased or how long had she been missing
10:12
Speaker 1: before someone actually put eyes on this location in nineteen
10:16
Speaker 1: eighty eight, which you know, you go back to the
10:19
Speaker 1: fog of toime.
10:20
Speaker 3: Man.
10:20
Speaker 1: I don't know about you. I can't remember nineteen eighty eight.
10:25
Speaker 1: I have no way of recall relative to that because
10:28
Speaker 1: so much stuff my memory is so layered now since
10:31
Speaker 1: that period of time in my life.
10:32
Speaker 3: A lot of the eighties are like that for me.
10:34
Speaker 2: But I'm thinking when the body was labeled as baby
10:38
Speaker 2: Jane Doe found in cement inside a suitcase inside a
10:41
Speaker 2: television console in illegal dump area. But Joe, could you
10:45
Speaker 2: determine right then about how long the child had been dead?
10:54
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think that to a certain degree you could.
10:57
Speaker 1: And this is a painstaking process, Dave, when you have
11:02
Speaker 1: an encasement like this, and I've worked I think maybe
11:08
Speaker 1: two over the course of my career. First off, just
11:13
Speaker 1: from a logistics standpoint, I actually worked one where we
11:20
Speaker 1: had a remain that was in a block of concrete.
11:25
Speaker 1: And this is not something that you're not just going
11:29
Speaker 1: to put it into the back of the Corners van
11:31
Speaker 1: and haul it down to the County morgue. It logistically
11:35
Speaker 1: it's a nightmare, and how are you going to process it,
11:40
Speaker 1: move it? About that sort of thing. So I think
11:44
Speaker 1: that just because the body is encased, I think that
11:49
Speaker 1: it's really important for people to understand there's no guarantee
11:53
Speaker 1: that you're going to be able to tell specifically how
11:56
Speaker 1: long they've been in there, because when you encase a
12:01
Speaker 1: dead body in concrete or maybe even something else like
12:09
Speaker 1: a suitcase, you're not just encasing the body, but you're
12:14
Speaker 1: encasing everything, even at a microbial level, that inhabits that
12:21
Speaker 1: same environment with that body, and there's no telling what
12:26
Speaker 1: you're going to find when you finally chip it all
12:28
Speaker 1: the way. Just because you have a body that is
12:51
Speaker 1: encased in concrete doesn't mean that the body is in
12:58
Speaker 1: total in case the concrete. So what I mean by
13:02
Speaker 1: that is that depending upon the skill level, the resources,
13:06
Speaker 1: the tools, the experience that a perpetrator might have relative
13:11
Speaker 1: to using some kind of medium like concrete, not everything
13:18
Speaker 1: that's going to be covered up. Because I think a
13:20
Speaker 1: big question that people would ask is, for instance, in
13:24
Speaker 1: Kenyati's case, you got a suitcase, Yes, you've got concrete,
13:29
Speaker 1: but how do you know that there's a body in concrete. Well,
13:34
Speaker 1: there's no guarantee that the encasement itself completely obscures everything
13:38
Speaker 1: you might have. And forgive me for saying this, elements
13:42
Speaker 1: of the body that are extruding from that block of concrete.
13:46
Speaker 1: There might be hair, there might be clothing, There could
13:51
Speaker 1: even be an appendage that's hanging out from there, Dave.
13:54
Speaker 1: So there's no guarantee that everything's going to be obscure.
13:58
Speaker 2: We don't know how the child died, or we don't
14:00
Speaker 2: have any of that information and thirty five years later
14:04
Speaker 2: it's a little more blerry.
14:05
Speaker 3: So where would you go with the body like that?
14:08
Speaker 1: That's an excellent question. Let me go back to my
14:11
Speaker 1: earlier comment about the body that's in like a huge
14:14
Speaker 1: block of concrete. That's something that on site that you're
14:20
Speaker 1: going to have to free the body up from that location.
14:25
Speaker 1: But you're talking about the body of a small child,
14:28
Speaker 1: a five year old. All right, this is portable. So
14:32
Speaker 1: what would have happened is that the body in total,
14:36
Speaker 1: contained within the suitcase would have been transported to the
14:40
Speaker 1: local forensic science center. And there's a couple in Georgia
14:47
Speaker 1: that in the GBI Georgia Bureau of Investigation and State
14:52
Speaker 1: Medical Examiner would have handled this case. There used to
14:55
Speaker 1: be a lab down in a town called Moultrie, which
14:58
Speaker 1: is in far south Georgia. That would be my big
15:02
Speaker 1: guess at this point in time that the body would
15:04
Speaker 1: be taken to a location like that. But here's here's
15:08
Speaker 1: the the interesting piece to this is that when you
15:12
Speaker 1: show up to a morgue, we have instruments within the
15:17
Speaker 1: morgue where we're working with soft tissue and bone. We
15:22
Speaker 1: don't have construction tools all right, So how do you
15:25
Speaker 1: how do you free a body up? You know, that's
15:28
Speaker 1: encased in cement. And here's the other thing, and this
15:31
Speaker 1: is a big piece to this. If you know that
15:37
Speaker 1: there is a body contained within it, first thing you're
15:40
Speaker 1: gonna need to do is take X rays and you
15:42
Speaker 1: have to be able to account for the density of
15:44
Speaker 1: the concrete. You know, where are you going to be
15:46
Speaker 1: able to see, if anything when you X ray this?
15:50
Speaker 1: And then secondly, you have to figure out a path
15:53
Speaker 1: to get to the body without destroying any kind of evidence.
15:58
Speaker 1: And you talk about an uphill battle because you don't
16:01
Speaker 1: you're kind of flying blind. Just think about that just
16:04
Speaker 1: for a second. So you've got this, this precious little
16:07
Speaker 1: angel that's encased in concrete. Uh, first off, what kind
16:12
Speaker 1: of tools are you going to use? Do you, as
16:17
Speaker 1: as a forensic scientist, have a skill set where you're
16:21
Speaker 1: able to dislodge the body or do you need to
16:25
Speaker 1: call in somebody else that actually works with concrete and
16:28
Speaker 1: stone and all these sorts of things to be able
16:30
Speaker 1: to chip away at this mass that has been created
16:35
Speaker 1: that contains the body that you know. They have a
16:39
Speaker 1: particular way that they can knock the concrete away and
16:42
Speaker 1: get down to what's most valuable here. And you also
16:47
Speaker 1: don't know. I think this is another salient point too.
16:51
Speaker 1: Let's just say, when they're mixing this up, are there
16:56
Speaker 1: other bits of evidence contained within the mixture and are
17:00
Speaker 1: you going to obliterate that as you're chipping away. So
17:04
Speaker 1: as the stuff is being chipped away pulverized, you can't
17:08
Speaker 1: just take it and throw it in trash, can Dave.
17:10
Speaker 1: You have to hold on to every little bit that
17:13
Speaker 1: comes off the body because contained therein might be an answer.
17:18
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about any kind of biological item or
17:22
Speaker 1: element that might be left behind. Maybe there might be
17:26
Speaker 1: a projectile that's in this stuff. There might be a
17:29
Speaker 1: chipped blade, there might be a bit of a hammer
17:32
Speaker 1: if something was used as a bludgeon. For all I know,
17:35
Speaker 1: somebody may have thumped a cigarette in there, and that
17:38
Speaker 1: has happened in what cement or concrete and then it
17:41
Speaker 1: dried and you have that encasement that's there adjacent. So
17:45
Speaker 1: you can't just like arbitrarily go into this environment with
17:49
Speaker 1: a big old hammer and a chisel and start knocking
17:52
Speaker 1: everything away. This is something that is painstaking, that takes
17:57
Speaker 1: hours and hours and hours to process.
18:00
Speaker 2: All I can think of is a five year old
18:03
Speaker 2: child is in the middle of this, and I've got
18:05
Speaker 2: to get arouse and find out who did this to
18:07
Speaker 2: her and put them in jail.
18:09
Speaker 1: Look, you and I are both daddies. Yeah, And I
18:12
Speaker 1: don't mean to speak for you, but I gotta tell you.
18:15
Speaker 1: I want to get to I want to get to
18:18
Speaker 1: the heart of the matter as quickly as possible. I want,
18:21
Speaker 1: and you have to fight that urgency, I think, to
18:25
Speaker 1: get to the body as quickly as possible, because you
18:28
Speaker 1: know speed sometimes or your pace you're pacing as you're
18:33
Speaker 1: processing a scene. And this applies to any scene, but
18:36
Speaker 1: in a case like this, you want to get to
18:37
Speaker 1: that body, to that element that's contained within there and
18:40
Speaker 1: collecting anything you can off of it. And sometimes you
18:44
Speaker 1: can you can drive, you know, metaphorically drive right over
18:48
Speaker 1: some of the most important evidence that's left behind. So
18:50
Speaker 1: you have to really take care as you're moving forward.
18:53
Speaker 2: Now, let me ask you, because you've got a scene
18:56
Speaker 2: where you found you know, it's like those Russian nesting dolls.
19:00
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, wow, Because you know now.
19:02
Speaker 2: And we've got an illegal dumping area, so there's going
19:05
Speaker 2: to be all kinds of stuff out there, and the
19:08
Speaker 2: one thing they found was the newspaper from all beneath
19:11
Speaker 2: Georgia about one hundred miles away.
19:13
Speaker 1: Isn't that something?
19:14
Speaker 2: This is when you're looking for clues. This is a
19:18
Speaker 2: big one.
19:18
Speaker 1: This is dumb luck. I'm not saying that insultingly. I'm
19:23
Speaker 1: just saying it's almost like a wink from God back
19:27
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty eight, you know, and who would have thought,
19:31
Speaker 1: because you know, you brought this up. I mentioned where
19:33
Speaker 1: county it's isolated or Millwood is the town that they're saying,
19:38
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that it's like in downtown Millwood.
19:41
Speaker 1: It's out in an area adjacent to Millwood in Ware County.
19:45
Speaker 3: You go to all of this.
19:47
Speaker 1: Trouble to encase this precious child in cement and then
19:53
Speaker 1: you know, contained in a suitcase, and you're going to
19:59
Speaker 1: leave a newspaper out there because you can't imagine Albany.
20:03
Speaker 1: I did the calculation from downtown Albany, which is in
20:07
Speaker 1: Doughtry County, Georgia, is back to the let me get
20:13
Speaker 1: this straight, is back to the southeast of Ware County.
20:16
Speaker 1: It was like ninety eight point three miles from downtown Albany,
20:21
Speaker 1: to downtown Millwood. So what are the and you're going
20:27
Speaker 1: to go all this, all this distance and you're going
20:29
Speaker 1: to leave a newspaper if somebody is out there and
20:33
Speaker 1: and I don't know that the that the road crew
20:35
Speaker 1: found the newspaper. It may have been the cops when
20:38
Speaker 1: they showed up out there. They're thinking, okay, why in
20:41
Speaker 1: the world is there a newspaper here from Albany, Georgia. Well,
20:44
Speaker 1: that was a significant lead for them, as it turned out,
20:47
Speaker 1: because they're looking to try, you know, geographic placement, and
20:51
Speaker 1: they're trying to understand, you know, what's the connection between
20:54
Speaker 1: this newspaper. And also when you're looking at something as
20:57
Speaker 1: fragile as a newspaper out and exposed in the elements,
21:01
Speaker 1: that gives you an idea of timing as well, and
21:04
Speaker 1: also the date of the newspaper. You know, when was
21:06
Speaker 1: this thing published? When did it come out this particular edition?
21:11
Speaker 1: Does it approximate the time when when this child was
21:14
Speaker 1: last seen alive? Oh my gosh, that's a big, big
21:18
Speaker 1: tail there.
21:19
Speaker 3: Day.
21:19
Speaker 2: Now you've got to identify who did it. Now you've
21:22
Speaker 2: got a basic location. Look, but obviously it wasn't enough
21:28
Speaker 2: of a clue Joe because for thirty five years they've
21:31
Speaker 2: got this child named baby Jane Doe. I'm wondering basic decomposition.
21:37
Speaker 2: Does it change inside the cement? Is it different?
21:41
Speaker 1: It can retard the process a bit. However, you know,
21:45
Speaker 1: as I you know I stated earlier, you're still all
21:49
Speaker 1: of the elements that become involved in the process of decomposition.
21:55
Speaker 1: They're contained within that that cavity because you know, when
22:03
Speaker 1: you when you pour concrete around something, you create a
22:07
Speaker 1: cavity around the body. So it's not like the concrete
22:13
Speaker 1: passes through the body and it negates anything that's around it.
22:16
Speaker 1: So the one you have to think about this, did
22:22
Speaker 1: the little bugs if you will, at microscopic level that
22:28
Speaker 1: play havoc on our bodies? Is there enough oxygen for
22:32
Speaker 1: them to continue doing what they do? Have you frozen
22:36
Speaker 1: them in that moment in time and the potential is
22:41
Speaker 1: there that you probably haven't and not to mention you know,
22:44
Speaker 1: you've got this idea of we talk about two things
22:47
Speaker 1: relative to decomposition.
22:48
Speaker 3: You talk about.
22:49
Speaker 1: Autolisis, which autosis is It means self auto so it's
22:54
Speaker 1: like self digestion, So the breakdown internally of the body.
22:58
Speaker 1: And then you have puture fact which generally counts upon
23:02
Speaker 1: external factors that are breaking down a body. You know,
23:05
Speaker 1: those things from the outside, so still contained within the body,
23:09
Speaker 1: you have this autolytic changes that are going on. The
23:11
Speaker 1: body is going to begin to be compromised and it's
23:13
Speaker 1: going to be able to break down. And the upside
23:19
Speaker 1: is is that when you have containment like this, anything
23:22
Speaker 1: that's there, this is aside from decomposition, but anything that
23:26
Speaker 1: is there is captured for that moment in time with
23:31
Speaker 1: that precious little angel, and you might have evidence that's
23:36
Speaker 1: going to bear out and give you proof of death.
23:56
Speaker 1: I've stood I know I can personally testify to it.
24:00
Speaker 1: I've stood over the bodies of dead kids over the
24:04
Speaker 1: course of my career, and I could feel I don't know, Dave,
24:07
Speaker 1: do you ever do you have that moment in time
24:10
Speaker 1: where when you're truly angry about something, you can feel
24:14
Speaker 1: the rage like rising up within you your head. You
24:18
Speaker 1: feel like you have a fever almost and it feels
24:21
Speaker 1: like the top of your head is going to blow up.
24:23
Speaker 1: I had that happen more than what. It's not healthy
24:26
Speaker 1: because I don't you know, even as an investigator, you
24:28
Speaker 1: don't have ownership over this precious life because you're not
24:32
Speaker 1: the caretaker of this child, but you know that somebody
24:35
Speaker 1: has abandoned a child, and it makes you angry, It
24:37
Speaker 1: makes you, it motivates you to want to get things done.
24:41
Speaker 1: And the frustrating thing about this and I think that
24:44
Speaker 1: probably this is the case with those investigators way back then.
24:48
Speaker 1: I know that they wanted to do something, Dave. They
24:51
Speaker 1: had to. You can't look at the body of a
24:54
Speaker 1: child that's treated like this and not want to solve it.
24:57
Speaker 1: But sometimes there are just not answers. You're left you're
25:01
Speaker 1: left wanting, you know, from just you know, scientific standpoint,
25:06
Speaker 1: there's nothing you can hang your hat on and there's
25:08
Speaker 1: no way you can trace it back. But you know,
25:11
Speaker 1: thirty years later, over thirty years later, I think that
25:14
Speaker 1: maybe maybe there were some answers that were provided.
25:17
Speaker 2: Thankfully, genetic genealogy has come into play, Joe, And now
25:22
Speaker 2: this is probably the third or fourth one in the
25:24
Speaker 2: last year that we have had a chance to cover
25:27
Speaker 2: and say, look, you thought you got away with dumping
25:29
Speaker 2: that baby in the trash canon, you know, outside of
25:32
Speaker 2: car washing Louisiana, or outside of fast food joined North Carolina.
25:36
Speaker 2: But you know what we got you. How do you
25:39
Speaker 2: go back from that call Joe of a neighbor saying,
25:42
Speaker 2: I think it might be so and so too. Here's
25:45
Speaker 2: the remains, here's what we've got. Do we have the
25:47
Speaker 2: skeletal remains that the child there was she buried?
25:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a high probability that she was in fact
25:53
Speaker 1: buried maybe in you know, Pottersfield somewhere. I hope you know.
25:59
Speaker 1: And this is kind of gas leads, but sometimes when
26:01
Speaker 1: you have when you have remains that are uh skeletonized
26:11
Speaker 1: or even partially skeletonized, what can happen is that.
26:16
Speaker 3: Is that.
26:18
Speaker 1: You can render those skeletal remains so that they're essentially
26:23
Speaker 1: cleaned all right, and I mean all soft tissue is gone,
26:26
Speaker 1: and you can retain those And I know this is
26:29
Speaker 1: horrible stuff, but this is body bags. You render down
26:34
Speaker 1: the remains to the point where they are in these
26:37
Speaker 1: skeletal components, and they're boxed up, Dave, They're they're boxed up,
26:41
Speaker 1: and many times they're placed on a shelf and you
26:45
Speaker 1: retain them. And that could happen in this manner. The
26:51
Speaker 1: saving grace I think here is that if you, if
26:55
Speaker 1: you did your due diligence, all the way back then
26:58
Speaker 1: and you took the appropriate samples, then if there is
27:02
Speaker 1: something that is left behind. I don't know that they
27:04
Speaker 1: were able to collect a blood from her at that
27:07
Speaker 1: point in time, because we would do what used to
27:09
Speaker 1: be referred to as a and that still do. It's
27:11
Speaker 1: called a blood card. And if you have blood, you
27:16
Speaker 1: essentially collect a bit of blood and you put a
27:18
Speaker 1: drop onto the specially treated card and you retain that
27:21
Speaker 1: and you can actually lift a DNA sample off of
27:24
Speaker 1: that and in the case of skeleton remain well. One
27:29
Speaker 1: of the richest sources from a skeleton of DNA is
27:33
Speaker 1: of course the teeth. You know, you can go in
27:38
Speaker 1: and extract pulp from that area and draw out DNA
27:41
Speaker 1: and do a comparison, you know, And that is in
27:44
Speaker 1: fact what I think that we're probably looking at with
27:48
Speaker 1: this case. There's at least a probability of that. And
27:52
Speaker 1: as here's the thing. Technology caught up with the criminals
27:57
Speaker 1: in this particular case, and I think that that's important
27:59
Speaker 1: to remain because some people just lose hope. And I
28:03
Speaker 1: know because we encounter I get contact about people all
28:05
Speaker 1: the time that are looking for answers, you know, regarding
28:08
Speaker 1: you know, unsolved cases in their family. This sort of
28:13
Speaker 1: thing there you never know on my side of the house.
28:16
Speaker 1: At least, I'm not talking about from an investigative, circumstantial
28:20
Speaker 1: evidence standpoint. I'm talking about from a scientific standpoint. We're
28:23
Speaker 1: really at a point in history right now where science
28:28
Speaker 1: has literally caught up to the bad guys, and that
28:31
Speaker 1: that's what we're looking at here, because it was genetic
28:33
Speaker 1: genealogy that finally gave them answers. But I got it.
28:37
Speaker 1: I got to make this point because I know people
28:42
Speaker 1: are wondering, well, how how did she die? Well, Dave
28:46
Speaker 1: there was. Her body was compromised to the point that
28:52
Speaker 1: the only thing that the medical examiner could do at
28:55
Speaker 1: that point in time state medical examiner was rule Kenyata's
29:00
Speaker 1: death as a homicide one of the five manners. But
29:05
Speaker 1: they said that it was indeterminate relative to the cause
29:09
Speaker 1: of death. And the way you work that problem out
29:16
Speaker 1: logically in your mind, if you're trying to explain that
29:18
Speaker 1: to somebody, well, how can you call this a homicide
29:20
Speaker 1: if you don't have a cause of death? Okay, Well
29:23
Speaker 1: let's go down this road and let's explore this a
29:25
Speaker 1: little bit. How do you explain that this child was
29:28
Speaker 1: encased in cement placed you know, that's placed inside of
29:32
Speaker 1: a suitcase to begin with, that would contain and obscure
29:37
Speaker 1: her body. Then drive her body. I don't think you
29:40
Speaker 1: put her on your back and took her all that
29:43
Speaker 1: way away from Albany, Georgia and discarded her in an
29:51
Speaker 1: old TV console in the middle of nowhere and where, County, Georgia.
29:56
Speaker 1: You know, you tell me, I mean, if you're doing
29:59
Speaker 1: the person here, there's a high likelihood that this is
30:02
Speaker 1: a homicide, all right, because I don't know that you
30:05
Speaker 1: have anything else to hang your hat on. And at
30:07
Speaker 1: this point in time, this case has not gone to trial.
30:11
Speaker 1: You know, this is waiting to be adjudicated. But they,
30:13
Speaker 1: the state medical examiner, did in fact rule this as
30:16
Speaker 1: a homicide. And that's going to be that's going to
30:19
Speaker 1: be tough. I think that's going to be one of
30:21
Speaker 1: the big questions for any defense attorney to ask in
30:26
Speaker 1: this particular case, well, how do you note this was
30:28
Speaker 1: a homicide? How do you know that she didn't just die?
30:31
Speaker 1: And they were so stricken with grief that they didn't
30:34
Speaker 1: have money for a funeral, so they decided to, you know,
30:37
Speaker 1: to take her to a junk pile and discard her. Okay,
30:42
Speaker 1: And you know, we wanted to so memorialize our little
30:44
Speaker 1: angel that we took her all the way out to
30:46
Speaker 1: a junk pile one hundred miles away and dumped her
30:48
Speaker 1: body in an old, abandoned TV console.
30:51
Speaker 2: I just for the life of me can't find any
30:54
Speaker 2: way of even being able to understand that.
30:57
Speaker 1: No, I can't either. But here's here's the beautiful part
31:01
Speaker 1: of this, because you know, for years and years I
31:03
Speaker 1: can't remember, they were referring to her as baby Jane Doe. Correct.
31:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think of a baby as being less than
31:10
Speaker 2: two years old. But we've got a five year old here.
31:12
Speaker 2: Did they know, being investigators?
31:14
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, they knew. And and you know, I
31:18
Speaker 1: think that the reason that they would refer to her
31:21
Speaker 1: as baby instead of diminutive female is it's a it's
31:27
Speaker 1: a term of endearment, and and I think that from
31:32
Speaker 1: that perspective, even though she's not literally a baby as
31:35
Speaker 1: we think about it, she she is a baby and
31:39
Speaker 1: in his.
31:39
Speaker 2: Break, you know, we call children baby, a baby for
31:44
Speaker 2: the whole community adopting this five year old absolutely baby, Okay,
31:47
Speaker 2: that makes that makes perfectly good.
31:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not so much an indicator of it
31:52
Speaker 1: is an indicator that she is less, you know, something
31:56
Speaker 1: less than an adult, certainly less than a pubescent child.
32:00
Speaker 1: That you're dealing with a very young child here, and
32:02
Speaker 1: that again that drives on the point of how ghastly
32:06
Speaker 1: this whole process is and this these events surrounding this death.
32:12
Speaker 1: But one of the things that they began to understand
32:14
Speaker 1: and Dave this is how this newspaper plays into this
32:17
Speaker 1: because when they took this DNA sample and plugged it
32:21
Speaker 1: into genetic genealogy database and I actually believe that probably
32:29
Speaker 1: I got the indication reading some of the associated articles
32:33
Speaker 1: that Ortham Lab was involved in this that's that's based
32:37
Speaker 1: out in Texas, that they were able to connect this
32:42
Speaker 1: child to a family tree in Albany, Georgia. Now, just
32:49
Speaker 1: let that resonate with you for a moment, because when
32:52
Speaker 1: when they're doing the genetic genealogy and they can have
32:56
Speaker 1: they have this this uh, this bi logical tie back
33:01
Speaker 1: that doesn't just lead them to Georgia, it leads them
33:05
Speaker 1: to Albany, Georgia that there is a family there. That
33:08
Speaker 1: means that someone has plugged in their DNA in that
33:11
Speaker 1: particular location, and there's multiple people that are coming to
33:14
Speaker 1: all these cousins, if you will, that are coming off
33:17
Speaker 1: of this tree. And then you reflect back to that
33:21
Speaker 1: newspaper that was left behind all the way back in
33:24
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, and those cops were smart enough to
33:28
Speaker 1: collect that, they photographed it, and how do you associate
33:32
Speaker 1: that with it? And you had a Eureka moment at that.
33:36
Speaker 1: Can you imagine all of a sudden, I mean, it's
33:39
Speaker 1: the greatest thrill in the world as an investigator when
33:42
Speaker 1: the pieces come together and they were actually able to
33:46
Speaker 1: tie this child back to her mother and as a result,
33:52
Speaker 1: and the mother's name is Evelyn Odom and she's now
33:56
Speaker 1: been arrested. She's facing charges at this point in time,
34:00
Speaker 1: and some horrendous charges at that and homicide.
34:04
Speaker 3: They've also arrested Eulyster Sanders.
34:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, who was the mother's a living boyfriend at the time,
34:11
Speaker 1: so he's so.
34:12
Speaker 3: They've arrested the couple.
34:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, and these people are now I think the mother
34:17
Speaker 1: is like fifty six at this point.
34:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, fifty six and sixty one.
34:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, and guess what, Dave, They've had a chance to
34:25
Speaker 1: live their life. Guess who didn't Kenyata. She didn't have
34:29
Speaker 1: a chance to live her life. Instead, she was discarded
34:32
Speaker 1: on a trash pile one hundred miles away from her
34:36
Speaker 1: home in Albany, Georgia. And that's the tragedy of all this.
34:40
Speaker 1: But there's a day of reckoning coming and I'm going
34:44
Speaker 1: to be very interested to see how the prosecution ties
34:48
Speaker 1: all of this evidence together and presents this case and
34:54
Speaker 1: we'll see if there is in fact justice for this
34:57
Speaker 1: little girl that was discarded. I'm just Scott Morgan and
35:02
Speaker 1: this is bodybags. Mhm.