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Body Bags: Murder in Piedmont Park · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:09
Speaker 1: Body Backs with Joseph Scott Morgan. We all have a
0:19
Speaker 1: place of peace that we try to seek out at
0:21
Speaker 1: the end of a long day of work. Maybe go
0:24
Speaker 1: for a walk, take our dog with us, our best friend,
0:29
Speaker 1: clear our mind. That place of safety, that place of
0:33
Speaker 1: peace suddenly explodes and your life comes to the end.
0:39
Speaker 1: Somebody's wielding a knife. They're hovering over you. They're burying
0:43
Speaker 1: the knife into your body, over and over and over again,
0:48
Speaker 1: and maybe the last thing you see is your dog
0:51
Speaker 1: dying right before you. That's our case today. I'm Joseph
0:57
Speaker 1: Scott Morgan and this his body bags. Joining me today
1:04
Speaker 1: is my good friend Jackie Howard, executive producer of Crime
1:09
Speaker 1: Stories with Nancy Grace. Jackie, what can you tell us
1:12
Speaker 1: about this case? Catherine Katie Janis took her dog Bowie
1:17
Speaker 1: for a walk in Atlanta's Piedmont Park now Piedmont Park.
1:21
Speaker 1: To put this in terms where other people who are
1:23
Speaker 1: not from this area can understand, would be like taking
1:26
Speaker 1: a walk in Central Park in New York. Katie went
1:29
Speaker 1: to see her girlfriend Emma, who was working down the
1:31
Speaker 1: street as a bartender, and there were lots of people
1:34
Speaker 1: out walking their own dogs. This is kind of a
1:37
Speaker 1: typical scene for this midtown neighborhood. After leaving the bar,
1:42
Speaker 1: Katie continued her walk. After work, Emma went home, but
1:46
Speaker 1: Katie wasn't there. She should have been. She should have
1:49
Speaker 1: been back from the dog walk by then. So Emma
1:51
Speaker 1: started calling Katie's cell phone but did not get an answer.
1:54
Speaker 1: Then she said text messages. They also went unanswered, and
1:58
Speaker 1: that's when the worry said, and Emma went out to
2:01
Speaker 1: look for Katie. Now, obviously, when you're walking a dog,
2:04
Speaker 1: you can go anywhere, so Emma used to find my
2:07
Speaker 1: iPhone app on Katie's phone. It showed Katie's phone was
2:11
Speaker 1: about a hundred yards inside Piedmont Park, which was very
2:16
Speaker 1: close to Katie and Emma's home. Emma thought maybe Katie
2:20
Speaker 1: had dropped the phone, so she went into the park
2:22
Speaker 1: to find it. But what she finds is a very
2:24
Speaker 1: gruesome scene. The first thing she saw was Bowie. Bowie
2:28
Speaker 1: was dead. That is the dog, and it's a pit bull.
2:31
Speaker 1: Not too far away, Emma found Katie's body and she
2:36
Speaker 1: was dead. This is a very gruesome crime, Joe, that
2:40
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about. But let's talk about the beginning.
2:44
Speaker 1: Bowie and Katie were not found next to each other,
2:48
Speaker 1: but they were found, especially Bowie, at the entrance of
2:51
Speaker 1: the park. There's so much to talk about here, Joe Back,
2:55
Speaker 1: You're gonna tell you. As you know, i worked in
2:58
Speaker 1: Atlanta for a long time and I'm very familiar with
3:01
Speaker 1: Piedmont Park. This is a wide open space in the
3:05
Speaker 1: area where this young woman was found with her pet
3:11
Speaker 1: is immediately adjacent to one of the main entrances to
3:14
Speaker 1: the park. It's this kind of big arched area that
3:17
Speaker 1: you can walk through that you know, plainly states Piedmont Park.
3:21
Speaker 1: It's it's an area where people actually go through on
3:24
Speaker 1: a regular basis to take nice, long, pieceful walks through
3:28
Speaker 1: this area. It's very bucolic, beautiful old trees and this
3:31
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Areas to picnic. And the fact that
3:35
Speaker 1: her body, her body is actually found, I mean, let's
3:38
Speaker 1: face it, in plane view, is quite striking to me,
3:43
Speaker 1: you know, as an investigator when you begin to look
3:45
Speaker 1: at a scene like this and trust me, what this
3:49
Speaker 1: young woman went through took time. So that tells us
3:52
Speaker 1: something about the perpetrator. They essentially had no fear of
3:58
Speaker 1: being found. Perhaps now you know, some people will say, well,
4:01
Speaker 1: you know us under the cover of darkness. It is
4:04
Speaker 1: under the cover of darkness, but it's not like we're
4:06
Speaker 1: out in a cow pasture in rural Georgia somewhere. We're
4:11
Speaker 1: in the most one of the most populated cities in
4:14
Speaker 1: the South. People walk through this area, They make it
4:18
Speaker 1: a point to walk through this area. It's very popular.
4:22
Speaker 1: Who would do this in this specific environment? And you
4:26
Speaker 1: begin to think about the nature of the scene where
4:29
Speaker 1: she was found, where Bowie was found, and you have
4:33
Speaker 1: to think this must have been an absolute blood bath
4:36
Speaker 1: around this area because there were so many injuries to
4:39
Speaker 1: both genesis body as well as her pet dog's body,
4:46
Speaker 1: that blood would have been spilled on all of the surfaces.
4:49
Speaker 1: And those are some of the things that you have
4:50
Speaker 1: to think about as an investigator. It's an open area.
4:54
Speaker 1: Who would have access to it, who would have knowledge
4:58
Speaker 1: that she would be walking through the specific area at
5:02
Speaker 1: this time of evening, and who would be bold enough,
5:07
Speaker 1: bold enough to approach this young woman, who, as you mentioned,
5:12
Speaker 1: is walking along with a pit bull at their side.
5:16
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, Jackie, but for me, you know,
5:19
Speaker 1: a person that's got a pit bull in toe is
5:22
Speaker 1: going to be probably the last one of the last
5:24
Speaker 1: people I'm gonna want to try to target because they're
5:28
Speaker 1: they're very affectionate when it comes to their master. They
5:33
Speaker 1: are very protective when it comes to their master. So
5:38
Speaker 1: that gives us an insight into who may have perpetrated this.
5:41
Speaker 1: One of the things that struck me about this show.
5:43
Speaker 1: You were talking about the big sign that goes into
5:45
Speaker 1: Piedmont Park, and on the very bottom of the sign
5:49
Speaker 1: there is a post that says pets must be on
5:53
Speaker 1: a leash. So it's not like the pit bull got
5:57
Speaker 1: away and ran after somebody. We know the dog was
6:00
Speaker 1: on a leash to begin with, so we know that
6:03
Speaker 1: the initial attack, the two of them were standing close together. Yeah, yeah,
6:08
Speaker 1: they they absolutely would have men standing close together. She's
6:12
Speaker 1: got the dog and toe or it's like my dogs.
6:14
Speaker 1: My dogs have me and toe. You know many times
6:17
Speaker 1: they're they're excited, they're ready to get out of the house,
6:19
Speaker 1: they want to go for a walk. This is there,
6:21
Speaker 1: it's their happy place. So you know that the dog
6:24
Speaker 1: was right by her side as they're walking along. The
6:27
Speaker 1: dog didn't get away, the dog didn't alert on something
6:30
Speaker 1: I don't think, and you know, hopped off the leash
6:33
Speaker 1: magically and ran off to chase somebody that was a threat.
6:36
Speaker 1: That dog would have hung back, if you will, in
6:39
Speaker 1: order to protect uh Miss Janis. So that that's something
6:43
Speaker 1: that you know that comes to mind when you're beginning
6:46
Speaker 1: to try to assess the scene out there in this
6:49
Speaker 1: open area. You know, how and how did they get
6:52
Speaker 1: this much distance between the dog and the dog's master?
6:57
Speaker 1: How does that happen in this environment in the midst
7:01
Speaker 1: of this attack, So, you know, it really gives you
7:04
Speaker 1: pause to think. So, how does this happen? Joe? How
7:07
Speaker 1: do you kill a dog? Now we do know there
7:11
Speaker 1: was not a gun used in this attack. How do
7:15
Speaker 1: you kill a pit bull with a knife or a
7:20
Speaker 1: stabbing instrument of some kind. I mean, a pit bull
7:25
Speaker 1: is extremely strong. A pit bull can be in protective mode,
7:31
Speaker 1: and we're assuming that that's the case. A pit bull
7:34
Speaker 1: can be vicious. So how was the perpetrator able to
7:40
Speaker 1: do this? And do they do autopsies on dogs? You know?
7:44
Speaker 1: An answer to your question, Jackie, Yeah, they do. They
7:46
Speaker 1: do examinations on dogs. Now, in this particular case, from
7:49
Speaker 1: my understanding, at least this point, Bowie's body did not
7:54
Speaker 1: go did not go to the medical examiner's office for
7:57
Speaker 1: instance there in the seat of Atlanta. The dog's body
8:00
Speaker 1: was actually taken by the state Investigative Agency, the GBI,
8:05
Speaker 1: and I would probably put money on it that they
8:08
Speaker 1: would have a consulting veterinarian perhaps as well as a
8:13
Speaker 1: forensic pathologist out at the State Medical Examiner's lab to
8:16
Speaker 1: take a look at the dog's injuries. And this is
8:20
Speaker 1: important because you know, listen, the dog and Miss Channis
8:25
Speaker 1: were not killed in two separate instances. This is all
8:29
Speaker 1: one big event that's taking place. So from an evidentially standpoint,
8:34
Speaker 1: one of the things that you're going to be looking
8:35
Speaker 1: for when it comes to injuries, you want to be
8:38
Speaker 1: able to try to compare the injuries that the dog
8:41
Speaker 1: had to those that Miss Channis sustained is at the
8:44
Speaker 1: same knife. That's the big question here, right, because we
8:47
Speaker 1: do know that this is a sharp force injury death.
8:50
Speaker 1: So you know some of the things that you're going
8:51
Speaker 1: to be looking for on Bowie's body. For instance, is
8:55
Speaker 1: this a single edged weapon or was it a double
8:59
Speaker 1: edged weapon? Was it a particular type of knife that was,
9:02
Speaker 1: you say, for instance, something that had a smooth edge
9:05
Speaker 1: as opposed to say, for instance, a serrated edge, which
9:09
Speaker 1: sometimes you can have a combination of both, and it
9:12
Speaker 1: leaves very very distinctive markings that can be examined after
9:17
Speaker 1: the fact and possibly possibly compared, certainly at a microscopic level.
9:24
Speaker 1: And there again you've got this connectivity in forensic science
9:27
Speaker 1: that we are always looking for. And in case like this,
9:30
Speaker 1: we have two victims and we would have to be
9:33
Speaker 1: looking for DNA in the dog's mouth because most likely
9:38
Speaker 1: the dog went on an attack, so that we'd be
9:40
Speaker 1: looking for evidence from a dog bite. Oh, you're absolutely right.
9:45
Speaker 1: One of the things that you would look for is
9:47
Speaker 1: you'd mentioned DNA, Jackie. But let's keep in mind, how
9:51
Speaker 1: does a dog attack. Well, when a dog attacks, they
9:54
Speaker 1: bite and they rip. I want everybody to think about
9:58
Speaker 1: just for a second, and this kind of a little
10:01
Speaker 1: dwelling lesson here. People are familiar with the two pointy
10:05
Speaker 1: teeth that you have on the top and on the bottom.
10:08
Speaker 1: These are actually referred to as canine teeth. And the
10:11
Speaker 1: way biting actually works is that these teeth are sunk
10:15
Speaker 1: in to say, for instance, tissue. When a dog bites,
10:19
Speaker 1: it doesn't chew. The dog bites and it rips. So
10:23
Speaker 1: you're not just going to be looking at a molecular
10:26
Speaker 1: level for DNA that you know you might can swab
10:29
Speaker 1: Bowie's mouth for, but you're also going to be looking
10:32
Speaker 1: for things like tissue that might be caught up in
10:35
Speaker 1: the teeth, or maybe even fabric that's caught up in
10:38
Speaker 1: the teeth, and these things would actually be left behind.
10:41
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, you know, I cannot imagine in my
10:45
Speaker 1: wildest fantasies that the perpetrator would have taken time to
10:49
Speaker 1: go back and clean the dog's mouth out. There would
10:52
Speaker 1: be something there if in fact the dog did attack
10:55
Speaker 1: this potential perpetrator. And again this begs the question, a
11:00
Speaker 1: dog that is so prone to a defensive posture and
11:03
Speaker 1: a protection posture like a pit bull, how do you
11:07
Speaker 1: get so close to them that you can actually drive
11:10
Speaker 1: a knife not just once, but multiple times into this
11:14
Speaker 1: canine's body. And while this is going on, what's missus
11:18
Speaker 1: janis doing. Is she already deceased or she's looking on
11:21
Speaker 1: in horror Jackie. We've had a little discussion about the
11:46
Speaker 1: nature of this environment in which this poor woman was
11:49
Speaker 1: just brutally attacked along with her her pet dog, Bowie.
11:55
Speaker 1: But we need to talk a little bit now. As
11:57
Speaker 1: hard as it is. We've got to talk about these
11:59
Speaker 1: injuries because it got to tell you, Jackie, in my career,
12:02
Speaker 1: I've seen very few cases that even rival this one.
12:05
Speaker 1: Katie Janis was found about a hundred yards inside the
12:10
Speaker 1: park and about one hundred feet from Bowie, her dog.
12:14
Speaker 1: The suggestion is that from where Bowie was found and
12:18
Speaker 1: where Miss Janis was found, that likely Katie Janis tried
12:22
Speaker 1: to run away and the killer caught up to her.
12:25
Speaker 1: And we do know that she died from As we've
12:29
Speaker 1: talked about sharp forced injuries, where were those injuries and
12:35
Speaker 1: what kind of damage do they do? Jackie. I've actually
12:38
Speaker 1: got the autopsy report here laying before me as you
12:42
Speaker 1: and I are chatting right now, and I've spent the
12:44
Speaker 1: past few days just going over it, and I gotta
12:47
Speaker 1: tell you it's it's extensive. I mean absolutely a washwood
12:54
Speaker 1: details about what she went through. And you know, we'll
12:56
Speaker 1: try to chake this from the top and just walk
12:58
Speaker 1: through this very carefully. She's got you know, like I
13:02
Speaker 1: said previously, these are what are referred to as sharp
13:06
Speaker 1: force injuries and as sharp force injuries. Just so our
13:08
Speaker 1: audience understands, is it's anything that involves an edged weapon,
13:14
Speaker 1: and that can either be a stab wound, and stabs,
13:17
Speaker 1: keep in mind, are deeper than they are long. And
13:20
Speaker 1: then you have in sized wounds which are just think
13:23
Speaker 1: of miss slices and they're generally shallow. Okay, So with
13:28
Speaker 1: missus Janis's body, we have to think about, well, first off,
13:34
Speaker 1: how can somebody get so close to her in order
13:37
Speaker 1: to facilitate this because there were so many injuries with
13:40
Speaker 1: somebody laying in wait for her as she walked through
13:42
Speaker 1: this gate or through this archway at at Piedmont Park,
13:47
Speaker 1: you know, kind of tracking our lawn, and there was
13:50
Speaker 1: such there's such a level of trauma here that it's
13:54
Speaker 1: hard to kind of take its measure. I think that
13:57
Speaker 1: one of the things that really stood out to me
14:00
Speaker 1: was the fact that I don't normally use this term,
14:05
Speaker 1: but there is an attempt, at least on my part,
14:08
Speaker 1: at least from my perspective as a medical legal death investigator,
14:12
Speaker 1: in an attempt to disfigure Miss Janis and kind of
14:15
Speaker 1: let me lay lay the groundwork here. She's got a
14:19
Speaker 1: lot of injuries over the totality of her torso, but
14:23
Speaker 1: what's really striking is that her face and these are
14:27
Speaker 1: all if you think about the head, we have the front,
14:30
Speaker 1: which is referred to as the anterior. These are all
14:34
Speaker 1: anterior injuries, and they start they start actually at the forehead.
14:38
Speaker 1: There's even one I think that goes to the very
14:40
Speaker 1: top of the head. They go all the way to
14:44
Speaker 1: the top, slice through the forehead, across the surface of
14:48
Speaker 1: both eyes, both eyelids are involved. Just you know, just
14:52
Speaker 1: keep that in mind. The lips are actually in size,
14:55
Speaker 1: remember we talked about it in size. When that's a cut,
14:58
Speaker 1: that's a slice all the way down to the chin.
15:01
Speaker 1: And there are multiple of these, so it's almost like
15:04
Speaker 1: somebody is in a fevered state as they are attempting
15:09
Speaker 1: to disfigure her, slice her up, and really make her
15:14
Speaker 1: into this grotesque person in death. And you really have
15:19
Speaker 1: to think about, you know, I think to a great degree,
15:22
Speaker 1: what's going on inside the mind of a perpetrator in
15:26
Speaker 1: a case like this. What you're describing to me, Joe,
15:29
Speaker 1: sounds like a slasher film. Yeah, it kind of does,
15:31
Speaker 1: doesn't Jackie. You know, you begin to think about it
15:34
Speaker 1: and to give our audience a little understanding of this.
15:39
Speaker 1: One of these injuries that really stood up to me, obviously,
15:42
Speaker 1: the slicing of the eyes is significant, but or the eyelids.
15:48
Speaker 1: One of the things that really kind of stuck with
15:51
Speaker 1: me is that the friendship pathologist talks about the slice
15:56
Speaker 1: injury to the mouth goes down to the buckle MC.
16:00
Speaker 1: So remember we've heard that term before. That's actually where
16:02
Speaker 1: we go in harvest DNA out of the living with swabs.
16:05
Speaker 1: That means that not only was the lip slice through,
16:08
Speaker 1: it goes through what's referred to in forensic terms as
16:11
Speaker 1: it's a full thickness wound, which means it goes all
16:15
Speaker 1: the way down to underlying tissue. So you've sliced through
16:20
Speaker 1: the lip at this point in time. That gives you
16:23
Speaker 1: an idea as to what has happened. And one other
16:27
Speaker 1: interesting component is that as you work your way down
16:31
Speaker 1: from these injuries on the head, and I'm not suggesting
16:33
Speaker 1: in any way that this is the order in which
16:35
Speaker 1: they took place, but you know, if we're kind of
16:37
Speaker 1: because there's so many injuries here, if we kind of
16:39
Speaker 1: think about this anatomically, if you start with the head,
16:43
Speaker 1: after we have examined all of these injuries on the head,
16:48
Speaker 1: you have to begin to think about, well, the neck,
16:51
Speaker 1: you know, what's involved with the neck. Oh my gosh,
16:53
Speaker 1: it's it's remarkable. If you think about the right side
16:57
Speaker 1: of your neck, starting essentially directly below your right ear,
17:02
Speaker 1: there is an incised injury that runs again, this is
17:06
Speaker 1: what's referred to as full thickness injury. It goes down
17:10
Speaker 1: through the SubQ fat, into the vessels and into the muscle.
17:14
Speaker 1: Did you know that, miss Janice, both of her carroated arteries,
17:19
Speaker 1: which are the main blood supply that goes from the
17:21
Speaker 1: heart to the brain, both of those were sliced through.
17:25
Speaker 1: That's that's set a depth of over an inch beneath
17:29
Speaker 1: the surface of your neck tissue. You're getting down close
17:33
Speaker 1: to probably two inches in thickness. You're going down there,
17:37
Speaker 1: and not only that, but her trachea, her windpipe essentially
17:42
Speaker 1: is what the doctor refers to as transsected. These vessels
17:46
Speaker 1: are transsected, the windpipe is transected, going all the way
17:50
Speaker 1: down to the cervical vertebrate. So those the supports, the
17:54
Speaker 1: supports for the head. From a skeletal standpoint, that's becoming involved.
17:59
Speaker 1: Now you've even on the backside of her neck, the
18:02
Speaker 1: skeletal attachments, the muscle skeletal attachments back there Jackie. The
18:07
Speaker 1: muscles were sliced as well. That's at like the C two,
18:10
Speaker 1: C three level of the vertebrates, so those are really
18:13
Speaker 1: high up in the neck and those have also been
18:16
Speaker 1: cut away. And what's really ghastly about this is the
18:20
Speaker 1: fact that in those muscles on the back of the
18:23
Speaker 1: neck they found hemorrhage. And guess what, when you find hemorrhage,
18:29
Speaker 1: that's an indication the heart still beating. We know that
18:33
Speaker 1: she had over fifty wounds. This is taking some time
18:39
Speaker 1: and some effort. Yeah, it does take time, Jackie, you know,
18:44
Speaker 1: and you know, when I started reading this autopsy report,
18:47
Speaker 1: I began to think about the years, all of those
18:50
Speaker 1: years I spent working on the Morgans an autopsy assistant,
18:53
Speaker 1: and let's face it, we're just going to be adults
18:55
Speaker 1: here and talk about this. I spent that time protecting
18:59
Speaker 1: human cadaver and it would of course, we were very
19:02
Speaker 1: purposeful in what we would do. But you know, autopsies
19:05
Speaker 1: many times involved sharp instruments. That's what we do, and
19:09
Speaker 1: it would take you two hours. Sometimes. We're talking about
19:13
Speaker 1: a tremendous number of sharp force injuries that have taken
19:17
Speaker 1: place in an open space out on the bare earth,
19:21
Speaker 1: if you will, in plane view, Majie. Though it is
19:23
Speaker 1: at night, it's still in plane view. These are taking
19:27
Speaker 1: place out there. So was this a frenzied event or
19:30
Speaker 1: was she somehow removed somewhere else, maybe under cover, and
19:34
Speaker 1: all of this stuff was done to her. But you
19:36
Speaker 1: can't get past the fact that this was facilitated by
19:41
Speaker 1: an individual that had to take a significant amount of time.
19:46
Speaker 1: You know, you can say frenzy, we can apply that term,
19:50
Speaker 1: but still it doesn't necessarily mean that it happened over
19:55
Speaker 1: a very short period of time. This knife was buried
19:58
Speaker 1: into her body every single time. Remember, every time a
20:01
Speaker 1: knife is buried, it takes effort on the part of
20:05
Speaker 1: the perpetrator to pull it out. You know, you talked
20:08
Speaker 1: about the sab wounds that she had on her back.
20:10
Speaker 1: She had stab wounds so deep on her back. And
20:13
Speaker 1: you know, I like to teach my students that when
20:17
Speaker 1: you think about an attack from the rear, people kind
20:19
Speaker 1: of contract up into almost like a turtle shell. The
20:23
Speaker 1: back is hard to get through. This knife was buried
20:27
Speaker 1: into her back so deeply that it actually punctured one
20:30
Speaker 1: of her lungs posteriorly, which means from behind and here's
20:34
Speaker 1: the kicker. One of the wounds actually penetrated her A order,
20:40
Speaker 1: which is the main vessel that comes off of the
20:43
Speaker 1: heart that supplies blood to the rest of the body.
20:47
Speaker 1: And you know what I know about this. I know
20:49
Speaker 1: that she was alive when this was happening because her
20:53
Speaker 1: left chest, her left chest where her left lung is
20:55
Speaker 1: in the A order had begun to fill up with blood.
20:59
Speaker 1: That means that the heart still beating at this point.
21:01
Speaker 1: And what's very important here when you begin to try
21:06
Speaker 1: to put this together from a forensic pathology, is a
21:09
Speaker 1: standpoint and you begin to think about what's referred to
21:12
Speaker 1: as sequencing of injuries, because everybody wants to know, you know,
21:16
Speaker 1: what was the fat the fatal blow that brought about
21:21
Speaker 1: her death at the end of the day, and how
21:23
Speaker 1: much of the stuff that was going on this trauma
21:26
Speaker 1: was it anti mortem or was it post mortem? And
21:29
Speaker 1: that means staying around with a body after an individual
21:32
Speaker 1: is deceased to continue to slice and cut and stab
21:37
Speaker 1: and all of these things that are involved. And she's
21:39
Speaker 1: even got you know, and we haven't even mentioned contusions.
21:42
Speaker 1: She's got multiple blunt forced contusions. So she was struck
21:46
Speaker 1: in some way or struck with something. We don't know
21:48
Speaker 1: what that was, whether it's a hand or a fist
21:51
Speaker 1: or some object, but she does have multiple you know,
21:54
Speaker 1: that's a lot of activity going on in a case
21:57
Speaker 1: like this, Jackie. So, Joe, what does it tell us
21:59
Speaker 1: about the weapon you were just talking about that she
22:02
Speaker 1: would stabbed so deep that it cut the eight order
22:06
Speaker 1: around the heart? What does that tell us about the
22:09
Speaker 1: size or the possible size of the weapon? I think
22:13
Speaker 1: probably one of the most significant things about this weapon, Jackie.
22:16
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people want to think about
22:17
Speaker 1: things like the length of the blade. That's important. Okay,
22:22
Speaker 1: that is certainly important. It's certainly something that we consider.
22:26
Speaker 1: But you know, what really fascinates me about this weapon
22:31
Speaker 1: is that this weapon would have had to have been sturdy.
22:34
Speaker 1: That is the backside of that weapon, if it's a
22:37
Speaker 1: single edged blade. Just you know, if you have an
22:40
Speaker 1: opportunity to go into your kitchen or whatever and look
22:42
Speaker 1: at the knives you have when you in your drawer,
22:45
Speaker 1: if you take out like an old butter knife or
22:47
Speaker 1: even a stake knife that you've picked up at the store,
22:50
Speaker 1: they're not really robust. They have specific edges on them.
22:53
Speaker 1: And the back is not very robust. But if you
22:55
Speaker 1: find a butcher knife, like a substantial butcher knife, there's
22:59
Speaker 1: going to be a thickness that occurs on the back
23:02
Speaker 1: of this. And the reason this is important to me,
23:04
Speaker 1: remember what I said about stabbing her in her posterior chest,
23:08
Speaker 1: her back. You're going to have to be able to
23:11
Speaker 1: generate so much force, not just once, not just twice.
23:14
Speaker 1: But we're talking about fifty injuries, Jackie. So that means
23:17
Speaker 1: that that blade would have had to have been strong
23:21
Speaker 1: enough to endure this frenetic slicing and stabbing over and
23:28
Speaker 1: over and over again, unless unless the perpetrator showed up
23:33
Speaker 1: with multiple edged weapons. And one more thing that you
23:38
Speaker 1: have to consider about this. These are very specific injuries. Okay.
23:43
Speaker 1: You know one of the reasons we sharpen knives. You
23:46
Speaker 1: know some people have sharpeners at home. One of the
23:48
Speaker 1: reasons we do that is because you lose your edge.
23:52
Speaker 1: You know, after a period of time you slice things
23:55
Speaker 1: over and over and over again in the kitchen, you
23:57
Speaker 1: have to resharpen a knife or it's not worth any thing.
24:01
Speaker 1: How is it that this knife you can still continue
24:05
Speaker 1: to use this time after time after time so I
24:09
Speaker 1: would think that that would be a good indicator from
24:11
Speaker 1: a forensic standpoint as to how well the knife was sharpened,
24:16
Speaker 1: the quality of the blade that it's being utilized, because
24:20
Speaker 1: as these injuries go on, the nature of the injuries
24:25
Speaker 1: is going to become more blunted, if you will, you
24:28
Speaker 1: might see more hemorrhage associated with it because the edge
24:31
Speaker 1: is not there as it was the first time that
24:33
Speaker 1: you put the edge that knife to missus Janesi's body.
24:37
Speaker 1: The last one is going to be particularly difficult to
24:41
Speaker 1: enter into her body with because the edge is gone
24:44
Speaker 1: on the weapon at that point time, or it's not
24:46
Speaker 1: the same as it was when you actually started. Joe,
24:49
Speaker 1: knowing what you've taught me about blood and how it
24:53
Speaker 1: comes from the body while the heart is still pumping,
24:55
Speaker 1: we have two victims here, a dog and a woman.
24:58
Speaker 1: This perpetrator is going to be covered covered, literally covered
25:04
Speaker 1: in blood. How does a person just walk away and
25:09
Speaker 1: not be seen covered in blood? I've thought about this.
25:13
Speaker 1: This is one of the very compelling points about this case,
25:20
Speaker 1: because you're going to have human blood and canine blood,
25:23
Speaker 1: which in forensic parlance is that's what we refer to
25:26
Speaker 1: as commingling. Of blood. You can't get past that, and
25:31
Speaker 1: I don't like to Maybe I'm being too melodramatic, but
25:34
Speaker 1: I don't like to use the term covered in blood.
25:37
Speaker 1: I like to say use the term bathed in blood,
25:40
Speaker 1: almost painted in blood, because you've got Bowie's blood and
25:44
Speaker 1: Miss Genus's blood commingled, and it would be covering certainly
25:47
Speaker 1: the hands, the arms. If any of the arteries are
25:51
Speaker 1: clipped on either one of the victims, you might have
25:56
Speaker 1: arterial spray. So that means if you clip an artery
25:59
Speaker 1: as the heart is pumping, blood will be not just
26:03
Speaker 1: gushing out, it'll be spraying out onto the individual. You
26:07
Speaker 1: can't escape that that's going to be happening. So you
26:09
Speaker 1: might have if the perpetrators in a dominant position, not
26:13
Speaker 1: only be going to have blood up and down their arms,
26:16
Speaker 1: think about the area beneath their neck, think about the
26:19
Speaker 1: area over their chest. Maybe they've got clothing on, it's
26:22
Speaker 1: going to be covered in this area, almost like they've
26:25
Speaker 1: been painted with blood all over them. So how much
26:28
Speaker 1: blood are we actually talk about here, Joe, You're you're
26:30
Speaker 1: saying nicking and artery. How much blood are we talking about? Well,
26:34
Speaker 1: you got to think Jackie that Missus Genness's body and
26:38
Speaker 1: and and the dog's body are not going to be
26:41
Speaker 1: completely drained of blood, and there will still be blood there. Now,
26:45
Speaker 1: I can't tell you the volume of blood that that
26:48
Speaker 1: a dog a dog has, but I can tell you
26:51
Speaker 1: what the human being we're looking at potentially somewhere in
26:54
Speaker 1: the neighborhood about two gallons. That's that's the totality of
26:57
Speaker 1: blood that a human being has on board. You have
27:01
Speaker 1: to think that at least probably I don't know, half
27:04
Speaker 1: gallon of blood would have been spilled. If you've got
27:07
Speaker 1: and it's not just one artery, Jackie, You've got multiple
27:10
Speaker 1: arteries that are probably being clipped. I mean, let's face it,
27:14
Speaker 1: we both both of the caroated arteries were clipped in
27:19
Speaker 1: this case. And the fact also the fact that you
27:22
Speaker 1: have to go into remember what I said earlier about
27:25
Speaker 1: the lung being punctured and the chest is being filling
27:29
Speaker 1: up with blood. That's we think while the heart is beating.
27:33
Speaker 1: One of the things that happens with that is that
27:36
Speaker 1: you have what's referred to as regurgitation of blood if
27:40
Speaker 1: a lung gets clipped, so you have an individual that's
27:42
Speaker 1: actually forcing blood out of their airway. It's just a
27:46
Speaker 1: natural response to try to clear the airway. So they're
27:48
Speaker 1: coughing and they're spraying blood out, so you would have
27:52
Speaker 1: to account for that as well. It's it would be
27:54
Speaker 1: hard to do the calculus simply, you know, trying to
27:58
Speaker 1: think about how much blood would be at the scene,
28:00
Speaker 1: but I can tell you it would be a substantial amount.
28:27
Speaker 1: Jackie is horrible. As these injuries are that we're describing
28:31
Speaker 1: right now, there's one piece of this that we still
28:35
Speaker 1: have yet to cover, and it's it might be to
28:38
Speaker 1: many of our listeners, one of the most shocking things
28:41
Speaker 1: that many of us have ever heard. It is, Joe,
28:44
Speaker 1: we have learned through the forensic information and the autopsy
28:48
Speaker 1: that Miss Janie's body was extremely mutilated. You talked about
28:53
Speaker 1: the damage that had been done to her face, but
28:55
Speaker 1: we know that her body was mutilated and carved letter
29:00
Speaker 1: or carved into this woman's abdomen. Joe, Yeah, and I've
29:05
Speaker 1: had cases that are kind of similar to this, but
29:08
Speaker 1: I don't think anything that's this over the top. There
29:11
Speaker 1: were letters carved into into her body. I want to
29:17
Speaker 1: back up just for a second and also make note
29:20
Speaker 1: of the fact that not only were letters carved into
29:23
Speaker 1: her body. Remember how I talked about that there was
29:26
Speaker 1: great facial disfiguration. In addition to that, her left breast,
29:32
Speaker 1: the nipple of her left breast has been severely disfigured
29:38
Speaker 1: as well sliced, if you will, down to the subcutaneous
29:43
Speaker 1: fat area. So that's that's again a full thickness injury.
29:47
Speaker 1: And you know, I hate the word why, but as
29:51
Speaker 1: an investigator sometimes you have to go there with that.
29:53
Speaker 1: You have to understand, try to understand why specifically would
29:57
Speaker 1: you target that particular area of the body. And you know,
30:01
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty obvious. You know, many people will
30:03
Speaker 1: say that there is a sexual connotation there, that there
30:06
Speaker 1: is an attempt to disfigure an individual when you attack
30:10
Speaker 1: their their sexual being if you will. And in this case,
30:15
Speaker 1: her breast was essentially mutilated. But if that was not
30:20
Speaker 1: bad enough, Miss Janis also had the letters F, A,
30:27
Speaker 1: T carved into her lower chest and into her abdomen.
30:34
Speaker 1: This injury is extensive. The letters F and A are
30:40
Speaker 1: essentially to the right of the mid line, which is
30:45
Speaker 1: the middle of the body just and they kind of
30:47
Speaker 1: involved the mid line as well. Someone took the time
30:51
Speaker 1: to take the tip of that knife, remember the knife
30:54
Speaker 1: that we've talked about extensively that I believe is kind
30:57
Speaker 1: of robust, it's kind of sturdy. And take the tip
31:00
Speaker 1: of that knife and go down just shove an inch
31:05
Speaker 1: for the letters F and A, dragging that tip through
31:08
Speaker 1: the tissue down to the bone, if you will, and
31:13
Speaker 1: kind of laying out these letters side by side. But
31:16
Speaker 1: then as you cross over the middle line you get
31:19
Speaker 1: to the letter T. They took more time with this, Jackie.
31:24
Speaker 1: This the incised area that involved the letter T went
31:30
Speaker 1: down even deeper, almost like they were taking more time,
31:35
Speaker 1: you know, to kind of put their stamp on this.
31:37
Speaker 1: In finality, can you imagine taking that knife and dragging
31:41
Speaker 1: it across to do the crossbar on the T and
31:44
Speaker 1: then down and these these letters are several inches in
31:47
Speaker 1: length and width. And again it goes to this factor
31:51
Speaker 1: of time. Who, who, in their right mind, and I
31:54
Speaker 1: think that that's a valid question here, right mind would
31:58
Speaker 1: have taken the time to do something so grotesque to
32:02
Speaker 1: this young woman in this environment where they could, you know,
32:05
Speaker 1: just plainly be seen. And then it's kind of the
32:11
Speaker 1: in final with her body. If I just want folks
32:15
Speaker 1: to really picture this so that you can understand what
32:18
Speaker 1: has happened if you will go You know, everybody has
32:21
Speaker 1: a sternom. It's that solid flat bone that's right in
32:23
Speaker 1: the center of your chest. If you'll go to the
32:25
Speaker 1: base of your sternom, there's a little area down there
32:28
Speaker 1: that's called the xyphoid process. It's a kind of a
32:30
Speaker 1: little cartilaginous body, it kind of it's the terminus. If
32:34
Speaker 1: you will of your of your breastbone, move from there
32:36
Speaker 1: all the way down to your pubic bone. Missus Janis
32:42
Speaker 1: was actually sliced from that point at the zyphoid all
32:48
Speaker 1: the way down to her pubis. And this injury went
32:52
Speaker 1: so deep, Jackie, that loops of her intestines or bowels
32:58
Speaker 1: were actually hanging out. And again this is really hard
33:02
Speaker 1: to hear, I know, but in the report of the
33:08
Speaker 1: forensic pathologists, the pathologists actually noted that there was hemorrhage
33:12
Speaker 1: in the bowel. That gives you an indication. She might
33:16
Speaker 1: not have had an awareness of it, but her heart
33:20
Speaker 1: was beating. Remember, we're not necessarily going to hemorrhage if
33:23
Speaker 1: our heart is not beating, and so that's that really
33:27
Speaker 1: paints this horrible picture of what this young woman went through.
33:31
Speaker 1: So are you telling me, Joe that she was still
33:34
Speaker 1: alive when this happened. Yeah, I think. I think that
33:37
Speaker 1: we can look back on a lot of these injuries
33:38
Speaker 1: and say that she had at least some kind of
33:41
Speaker 1: level of awareness of what was happening. A lot of
33:43
Speaker 1: these injuries that have been noted over the course of
33:47
Speaker 1: her body have areas of hemorrhage, and some of these
33:50
Speaker 1: things are going to be postmortem. The physician doesn't go
33:53
Speaker 1: into great detail. But the detail that this individual does
33:58
Speaker 1: go into relative to these injuries, is there any number
34:01
Speaker 1: of them where there was in fact hemorrhage involving uh?
34:06
Speaker 1: These insults or injuries. Remember, let's think back to what
34:10
Speaker 1: I said about the hemorrhage in the neck relative to
34:12
Speaker 1: these these muscles, uh that are adjacent to the to
34:16
Speaker 1: the cervical spawn uh, these skeletal support muscles. And then
34:21
Speaker 1: the pathologist makes note of this, these hemorrhagic areas in
34:25
Speaker 1: the bowel. I mean, can any of us a matter?
34:27
Speaker 1: I mean, these are areas that you get into that
34:31
Speaker 1: when when you're undergoing surgery. Uh, you're you're under you're
34:37
Speaker 1: you have anesthesia that's being applied to you, so that
34:40
Speaker 1: there is no awareness whatsoever with her. With miss Janis,
34:45
Speaker 1: she would have had she would have had an awareness
34:48
Speaker 1: of what was being done to her at least for
34:50
Speaker 1: some time. We can only hope that mercifully, maybe she
34:54
Speaker 1: lost consciousness, and I think that she probably did. But
34:57
Speaker 1: in the meantime, uh, she was just utterly and totally
35:02
Speaker 1: ripped to shreds. In this case, we know with the
35:05
Speaker 1: injuries that she sustained, there was particular mutilation, damage to
35:11
Speaker 1: the tattoo area on her back, to her breast, to
35:14
Speaker 1: her face. I know you're not a psychologist, Joe, but
35:18
Speaker 1: you've been studying forensics for a very long time. Does
35:22
Speaker 1: this say to us that this was much as much
35:26
Speaker 1: as a psychological a tortuous attack as it was just
35:30
Speaker 1: a physical frenzy. Yeah? This goes deep, deep down into psychopathology,
35:36
Speaker 1: because when you when you try to I mean, let's
35:39
Speaker 1: face it, when we meet friends and loved ones, the
35:42
Speaker 1: first thing we noticed about them are going to be
35:44
Speaker 1: their faces, right, It's that it's that identifier that we
35:47
Speaker 1: have as human beings, would look into their eyes, we
35:50
Speaker 1: speak to them. What was destroyed on her, well, her
35:52
Speaker 1: eyelids were sliced, her mouth was cut open, down to
35:56
Speaker 1: the fatty layer and then you're going to mutilate a breast.
36:01
Speaker 1: These things are specific identifiers that you identify or humanity
36:06
Speaker 1: right who we are as people. The tattoo is significant
36:10
Speaker 1: because that's something that she would have had to have
36:13
Speaker 1: paid someone, and after she had picked this design out
36:17
Speaker 1: that was unique to her, that she that she loved
36:21
Speaker 1: that she I mean, she loved it to the point
36:23
Speaker 1: where she's walking around with it every day. Why would
36:25
Speaker 1: you go to the point to try to destroy that? Well,
36:28
Speaker 1: you know, I submit, And again, like you said, I'm
36:31
Speaker 1: no psychologist, but I've been around a lot of cases
36:34
Speaker 1: where people have been ripped to shreds. And when you
36:36
Speaker 1: go after their specific identity, when you try to rob
36:40
Speaker 1: them of their individual person, that says a lot about
36:43
Speaker 1: the perpetrator. I think the question that we have to
36:45
Speaker 1: ask is how would you even begin to measure this
36:48
Speaker 1: level of rage and I think to a great degree
36:52
Speaker 1: hatred in order to just absolutely ripped this young woman
36:56
Speaker 1: to shreds. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body
37:03
Speaker 1: Backs