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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: An Act of Betrayal - The Cantrells and Their Fight for Justice · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Some of my fondest
0:20
Speaker 1: memories from childhood were getting to meet the older members
0:27
Speaker 1: of churches that I had attended. Young people always bored me.
0:32
Speaker 1: I found the older people to be quite interesting and
0:35
Speaker 1: they had a lot of stories. Now, every church varies,
0:38
Speaker 1: but most churches are rather generous. Many people you can
0:41
Speaker 1: find in these churches that will give you the shirt
0:43
Speaker 1: off their back if you're kind of down and out,
0:45
Speaker 1: and particularly if they perceive that you're doing good. I
0:50
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about a case today where
0:54
Speaker 1: it is the ultimate story involving a wolf in sheep's clothing,
1:00
Speaker 1: a wolf that descends upon a tiny little Methodist church
1:04
Speaker 1: in a tiny little town in Oklahoma and brings hell
1:08
Speaker 1: with him. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks, Dave.
1:18
Speaker 1: I don't know how you feel about it, but I
1:19
Speaker 1: think that one of the characteristics of having a decent church.
1:24
Speaker 1: No church is perfect, but having a decent church I
1:27
Speaker 1: think goes to generosity. People can pontificate all they want
1:31
Speaker 1: to and read scriptures and doing all that stuff, but
1:34
Speaker 1: if people can be generous to other people, I think,
1:38
Speaker 1: and kind and loving and not necessarily expecting anything in return.
1:42
Speaker 1: I think that's a sign of maybe hell in certain ways.
1:46
Speaker 2: What you think about that, love thy neighbor as you
1:49
Speaker 2: love yourself. That pretty much tells you everything. That's a directive.
1:53
Speaker 2: When the Lord tells you something, you better do it.
1:56
Speaker 2: And when he says love your neighbor, you love your neighbor.
1:59
Speaker 2: And neighbor is a for people that you don't know well,
2:02
Speaker 2: people you've just met. Being nice, being kind, thinking of
2:05
Speaker 2: the other person first. I agree that is the health
2:08
Speaker 2: of a church. It's amazing to me in this day
2:10
Speaker 2: and age where we have so many opportunities to share
2:15
Speaker 2: the gospel worldwide using the Internet, and it's just an
2:19
Speaker 2: amazing thing now. But Joe, ultimately, the church is not
2:23
Speaker 2: a building. It's the people and how the people interact
2:26
Speaker 2: with one another and new friends. And that's how a
2:30
Speaker 2: church actually is judged, is how they behave in their
2:33
Speaker 2: community with people. And that's why this story it centers
2:37
Speaker 2: around extending that right handed fellowship to somebody you just met.
2:41
Speaker 2: In this particular case, they met the devil on a bicycle.
2:45
Speaker 1: I think it's one of those things that you never
2:48
Speaker 1: know how evil is going to show up and that's
2:51
Speaker 1: what really struck me. One of the things that really
2:53
Speaker 1: struck me about this case, and it sounds cheesy, but
2:56
Speaker 1: it's like the devil road into town on a bicycle
2:58
Speaker 1: is what this comes down to. He shows up. And
3:03
Speaker 1: the thing about it is, when somebody's on a bicycle,
3:06
Speaker 1: you envisioned some kind of you know, the Devil's going
3:08
Speaker 1: to roll into town and he's going to be in
3:10
Speaker 1: like some evil looking mac truck or large truck with
3:15
Speaker 1: big tires on it, you know, and horns on the hood.
3:18
Speaker 1: This guy, because he's not the devil, he's a man
3:22
Speaker 1: that was very evil, shows up on a bicycle, and
3:25
Speaker 1: it almost when you're looking from an investigative perspective and
3:29
Speaker 1: you're looking through the eyes, you know, you're trying to
3:32
Speaker 1: look at the eyes of the people that are impacted
3:34
Speaker 1: by what this guy did. I don't know that there's
3:37
Speaker 1: any more passive mode of transportation other than going out
3:40
Speaker 1: for a stroll.
3:41
Speaker 2: Perhaps it's the first mode of transportation we actually have.
3:45
Speaker 2: And that's it's so funny. For most people, I include
3:48
Speaker 2: myself in this one. Our bike is one of the
3:51
Speaker 2: most important possessions we have as an early teenager, right
3:56
Speaker 2: before you can get your freedom in a car, you know,
3:59
Speaker 2: you get that first real freedom with a bike. Where
4:01
Speaker 2: yous Tell mom and dad, I'll be back in a
4:02
Speaker 2: couple hours. I'm going to go here or there, back
4:04
Speaker 2: in the day anyway. In this particular case, imagine it's
4:08
Speaker 2: a Saturday afternoon, beautiful day, and he shows up peddling along,
4:13
Speaker 2: and there's this church in the small town of Depew, Oklahoma,
4:18
Speaker 2: and it's a late day in September. A man riding
4:22
Speaker 2: a bicycle shows up and starts chatting with the guy
4:26
Speaker 2: mowing the yard. He tells him the man I'm talking about,
4:29
Speaker 2: Scott Isermer tells the man mowing the yard. Hey, I'm
4:32
Speaker 2: bicycling across country to raise money for victims of nine
4:35
Speaker 2: to eleven, which not that much of an uncommon thing.
4:39
Speaker 2: Back in September two thousand and two, one year after
4:42
Speaker 2: nine to eleven, a lot of people were raising money
4:45
Speaker 2: for different funds related to the nine to eleven event.
4:48
Speaker 2: I wouldn't raise the red flag over that if somebody
4:50
Speaker 2: told me they were doing it.
4:51
Speaker 1: No, and listen, I'm not saying that that evil doesn't
4:54
Speaker 1: happen in small towns. This town roughly has a population
4:59
Speaker 1: somewhere in between about four hundred and five hundred people.
5:03
Speaker 1: Everybody knows one another here, all right.
5:05
Speaker 2: All right, Well, the first person mister Isimer finds is
5:11
Speaker 2: retired school teacher John Wright. Again, it's a Saturday, and
5:14
Speaker 2: mister Wright's mowing the lawn at the Methodist church, getting
5:18
Speaker 2: ready for services the next morning. Now, the community has described,
5:21
Speaker 2: as you said, very small town. But you know where
5:23
Speaker 2: everybody leaves the front door on lock, leaves keys in
5:25
Speaker 2: the ignition. Just one of those pleasant places to live.
5:30
Speaker 2: And Ismer was a Scott Eismer was able to take
5:33
Speaker 2: advantage of that. He tells mister Wright, Hey, I'm doing
5:36
Speaker 2: this to Ray's money, you know, for nine to eleven,
5:38
Speaker 2: which you mind if I pitched a tent on the
5:40
Speaker 2: backyard here at the church overnight? And mister Wright says,
5:43
Speaker 2: I'll go you on better, son, Why don't you come
5:46
Speaker 2: on in and stay in the fellowship all night, sleeping
5:49
Speaker 2: there in the air conditioning. It'll feel good. And that's
5:51
Speaker 2: where they met. They being Scott Eimer and the entire
5:56
Speaker 2: community of Depew, Oklahoma, met on a fall day in
6:01
Speaker 2: two thousand and two. Now, mister Wright had a daughter
6:05
Speaker 2: and her name was Kathy Biggs. Mister Scott Isimer became
6:10
Speaker 2: romantically involved with Missus Biggs, and that romantic relationship led
6:16
Speaker 2: for Missus Biggs to file for divorce and she and
6:20
Speaker 2: Isenmer moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma and lived in an apartment there.
6:24
Speaker 2: Now this is fairly quickly. Scott Eismer, obviously he's a player,
6:29
Speaker 2: and he gets Catherine. They moved to Tulsa set up shop.
6:34
Speaker 2: Less than a year, the romance faded and Catherine Biggs
6:38
Speaker 2: moved back home to Depew, Oklahoma. And by the way,
6:41
Speaker 2: when she got home, she filed for protective order against
6:45
Speaker 2: Scott Isimer. So now we're a year past that encounter
6:48
Speaker 2: on the bicycle at the church, that first man that
6:51
Speaker 2: he met, mister Wright. He marries his daughter. A year
6:54
Speaker 2: goes by, and now miss Wright has a protective order
6:58
Speaker 2: against Isomer. Mister Isiomer now shows up in Tulsa, and
7:02
Speaker 2: or he spends time in the Tulsa County Jail for
7:05
Speaker 2: violation of the protective order. So this is not a
7:08
Speaker 2: man that has control of all of his emotional faculties.
7:11
Speaker 2: Is that a good way to phrase that?
7:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that it is. It's excellent anytime you
7:15
Speaker 1: have an event that winds up in a homicide, and
7:19
Speaker 1: in this case, a multiple homicide. You have to look
7:23
Speaker 1: back into the history of a subject to see because
7:26
Speaker 1: most of the time, and this is one of the
7:27
Speaker 1: things that really frustrates the public, me included, when you
7:31
Speaker 1: take the long view of it, you see it tracking forward,
7:34
Speaker 1: you can see that this is not going to end
7:37
Speaker 1: well because you've got preceding behaviors that come along with this,
7:41
Speaker 1: violent behaviors that indicate that if this person is not
7:45
Speaker 1: interdicted in some way, it's going to wind up in
7:51
Speaker 1: a real tragedy, and certainly it did in this particular case.
7:56
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, this little town of lesson
7:59
Speaker 1: five hundred people will be scarred forever endeavor. I don't
8:22
Speaker 1: know why. I'm still amazed after all these years that
8:25
Speaker 1: you see a circumstance where an individual is spending out
8:29
Speaker 1: of control and then all of a sudden it winds
8:31
Speaker 1: up in a complete and total train wreck for everybody
8:37
Speaker 1: that is involved around them. And it's interesting, isn't it.
8:42
Speaker 1: It's like, in the news media and whatnot, the perpetrator
8:45
Speaker 1: so many times Dave becomes the focus of the case
8:49
Speaker 1: and you really begin to forget about the victims. In
8:55
Speaker 1: a case, they become I guess, eccentric and the porpetrator
9:01
Speaker 1: is concentric to the story. And that's a real shame.
9:04
Speaker 1: And I think that that to a great degree after
9:07
Speaker 1: these number of years, has happened in this particular case.
9:12
Speaker 2: I agree with you. It does take you down a
9:13
Speaker 2: path that you don't want to go. I want to
9:15
Speaker 2: remember the people, the victims. But in this particular case,
9:18
Speaker 2: we have one man, Scott Isimer, and several victims. So
9:22
Speaker 2: let's start with Ismer. Quick review. Arrived on town on
9:26
Speaker 2: a bicycle, meets a man at the Methodist church who
9:29
Speaker 2: introduces him to his daughter. A romantic relationship ballooms. The
9:33
Speaker 2: pedals fall off the flower within a year, and Catherine
9:38
Speaker 2: Smith now finds herself back in the town of Depew,
9:43
Speaker 2: and she has a protection order against Scott Isimer. Isimer
9:48
Speaker 2: wants to see her again, and so he makes a plan.
9:52
Speaker 2: His plan is to stay across the street from her
9:55
Speaker 2: house and surveil it and basically lie and wait. That's
10:00
Speaker 2: a legal term, believe it or not, Lie and wait.
10:02
Speaker 2: That's exactly what Scott Eismer was doing. He waited until
10:06
Speaker 2: aj Cantrell and his wife Patsy left home. He sneaks
10:10
Speaker 2: into their home and watches right across the street. His
10:13
Speaker 2: ex girlfriend Catherine, her sixteen year old son, and by
10:16
Speaker 2: the way, her sixty three year old mother all live
10:18
Speaker 2: in this house. While Scott Eismer is watching the home,
10:21
Speaker 2: the Cantrell's come back home earlier than he thought. He
10:24
Speaker 2: thought he had more time, but they arrived back home.
10:27
Speaker 2: This is where evil takes place and Scott Eismer takes
10:33
Speaker 2: a four to ten shotgun he finds inside the Cantrell's
10:36
Speaker 2: home and as they walk in the house, he shoots
10:39
Speaker 2: and kills Patsy Cantrell with the shotgun and then uses
10:44
Speaker 2: the shotgun to beat A. J. Cantrell to death. Joe,
10:49
Speaker 2: they're seventy in their seventies.
10:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, mister Crantraill was seventy six.
10:54
Speaker 2: Day And I kind of imagined this that while Eismer
10:58
Speaker 2: was able to get one shot off off on missus
11:01
Speaker 2: Cantrell on Patsy, that mister Cantrell was on the attack
11:05
Speaker 2: right away and went right after. That's what I'm assuming here,
11:08
Speaker 2: because Eisenber was not able to get a shot off
11:11
Speaker 2: on mister Cantrell, but he beat him to death with
11:14
Speaker 2: a shotgun. So backing up, Joe, what kind of injuries
11:17
Speaker 2: are we looking at from a four to ten shotgun?
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Speaker 1: Well, first off, four ten it's not uncommon, but it's
11:23
Speaker 1: not when you think of shotguns, which are traditionally when
11:28
Speaker 1: we think of the word caliber or the size, it's
11:31
Speaker 1: the diameter of the bore. Shotguns are actually measured not
11:35
Speaker 1: in caliber but in gauges, and so the lower the
11:39
Speaker 1: number of the gauge, like you have traditionally like a
11:42
Speaker 1: twenty gauge, it'll skip traditionally to sixteen gauge, and then
11:47
Speaker 1: you have twelve gauge, which is very common, that's what
11:50
Speaker 1: the police carry, is what the military carries, and then
11:53
Speaker 1: you drop down to ten gauge. Actually, a ten gauge
11:58
Speaker 1: is something in the past that's been a said with an
12:00
Speaker 1: elephant gun because it'll fire, it can fire these very
12:04
Speaker 1: robust slugs, very lethal weapon. But then you have this
12:08
Speaker 1: outlier as far as a shotgun, and it's measured in
12:12
Speaker 1: zero point four to one zero, which is odd, and
12:16
Speaker 1: it's not a gauge. It's actually a caliber and it's
12:18
Speaker 1: the equivalent of a forty one caliber bullet. You've heard
12:22
Speaker 1: Dirty Harry for instance, forty four magnum most powerful handgun
12:26
Speaker 1: in the world, will blow your head clean off. But
12:28
Speaker 1: they have measured the bore of the four to ten
12:31
Speaker 1: shotgun as point four to one, and it can take slugs.
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Speaker 1: It'll fire slugs, and it'll also fire shot as well,
12:41
Speaker 1: like bird shot in this particular case, which are tiny.
12:44
Speaker 1: If people have never seen bird shot, it looks just
12:47
Speaker 1: like BB's now. The bbs that are contained within each
12:50
Speaker 1: one of these rounds can come in a variety of sizes,
12:55
Speaker 1: but suffice it to say there are a large number
12:59
Speaker 1: of bebes contain in each shell. And most of the
13:01
Speaker 1: time four to ten shotgun is utilized. Some people will
13:05
Speaker 1: refer to it as a varmint weapon. You can go,
13:08
Speaker 1: you can actually hunt rabbit with it. People use it.
13:12
Speaker 1: Young young kids are given four to ten shotguns because
13:15
Speaker 1: they don't have a lot of recoil to them. They'll
13:18
Speaker 1: use them to hunt squirrel with small game. People around
13:21
Speaker 1: farms use them to kill rats with for instance, or snakes.
13:25
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, there's a famous weapon that's referred to
13:28
Speaker 1: as a snake charmer. That's a single shot four to
13:31
Speaker 1: ten shotgun, but it operates just like a regular shotgun,
13:37
Speaker 1: and it's a smooth bore weapon. So when this thing
13:40
Speaker 1: is fired, and in this case, when miss Kentrell was
13:44
Speaker 1: actually shot, it launched a single volley of bebi's into her.
13:51
Speaker 1: And the way we like in her case in forensics,
13:54
Speaker 1: one of the ways that we would get an idea
13:57
Speaker 1: as to how far away this weapon was from her
14:01
Speaker 1: when it was discharged is that you would measure the
14:05
Speaker 1: circumference or the distribution of the bebes on the wound
14:10
Speaker 1: pattern as they entered the body. Most of the time
14:13
Speaker 1: we think about dispersal of gunshot residue, and you know,
14:17
Speaker 1: lots of times you'll get soot on wounds. We talk
14:19
Speaker 1: about that, and the broader the expanse of the soot,
14:23
Speaker 1: if you're talking about like a pistol shot, gives you
14:25
Speaker 1: an approximation of distance. But with bird shot like this,
14:30
Speaker 1: you get these all these little satellite wounds that are
14:34
Speaker 1: just slightly bigger than say the head of a pen,
14:38
Speaker 1: that penetrate the body. What's so devastating about it is
14:41
Speaker 1: that you get multiple of these ripping through the body.
14:45
Speaker 1: The wider the expanse, the further the distance is the
14:48
Speaker 1: muzzle target distances when the thing is discharged, and so
14:52
Speaker 1: each one of these little bebes tracks through the body
14:56
Speaker 1: on its own individual little trajectctory as it or wound
15:01
Speaker 1: track rather as it passes through the body, and it
15:04
Speaker 1: can Let's say, if you're four feet away from somebody
15:08
Speaker 1: and you aim center mass with this thing, it'll initially
15:11
Speaker 1: come out as like a cylinder in the air and
15:15
Speaker 1: travel and as it gets further and further away from
15:18
Speaker 1: the end of the muzzle, that cylinder begins to open up.
15:22
Speaker 1: And so now instead of having a point four to
15:25
Speaker 1: one cylinder size that's going down range, suddenly it has
15:30
Speaker 1: in caliber it's expanded out to maybe point six to
15:34
Speaker 1: oh so you're talking about zero point six oh inches,
15:37
Speaker 1: or it can expand out too point seventy. And so
15:40
Speaker 1: as in the further and further away, the broader this
15:43
Speaker 1: expanse gets, you can have one of these rounds that'll
15:47
Speaker 1: track and it'll clip, say the liver and maybe the spleen,
15:52
Speaker 1: the pancreas, the bowel, and these things are a nightmare
15:57
Speaker 1: for surgeons to have to work on if the person
15:59
Speaker 1: served and they make it to the hospital, because it's
16:03
Speaker 1: not like you just have a single bullet hole that's
16:06
Speaker 1: entered the body and tracked through. They have to find
16:09
Speaker 1: each one of these little tracks that are passing through
16:13
Speaker 1: the body. It's easily displayed on the external on the
16:16
Speaker 1: exterior of the body, you can appreciate it it comes.
16:19
Speaker 1: It'll actually distribute powder on the body as well, so
16:23
Speaker 1: you can get a pretty accurate reading for how far
16:26
Speaker 1: away with this weapon this shoulder fire and arm, because
16:30
Speaker 1: that's that's what it is. You fired from the shoulder.
16:32
Speaker 1: It's a long arm. You can turn this thing around.
16:34
Speaker 1: And I find that it's very interesting you made this
16:38
Speaker 1: assessment day when mister Cantrell had this awareness that his
16:43
Speaker 1: brecious bride, who he's probably spent a good deal of
16:47
Speaker 1: his life with, has been shot. Can you imagine he
16:50
Speaker 1: springs into action. This weapon that's a long arm can
16:54
Speaker 1: be used as a bludgeon, and that is in fact
16:57
Speaker 1: what occurred with this. He was about his head. He
17:01
Speaker 1: had five distinct lacerations to his head and those arise
17:08
Speaker 1: from blunt force trauma that he's going to be very
17:10
Speaker 1: jagged injuries.
17:11
Speaker 2: One thing to review very quickly in case you missed
17:15
Speaker 2: episode the other day where we actually talked about lacerations.
17:18
Speaker 2: Up until the other day, I thought laceration was a
17:20
Speaker 2: slicing wound. That is not what happened. Being bludgeoned is
17:25
Speaker 2: to be beaten, right, Yeah.
17:26
Speaker 1: It is, And it's when you begin to beat somebody
17:30
Speaker 1: down with this thing. Every time you strike, let's say
17:33
Speaker 1: you're being the victim or the target is being struck
17:37
Speaker 1: with the butt of the weapon that is transferring energy.
17:41
Speaker 1: The first strike, he may have been standing up, but
17:44
Speaker 1: after you struck with the force of this thing, he's
17:47
Speaker 1: going down to his knees and then you're in a
17:49
Speaker 1: dominant position over him and Dave. According to the medical examiner,
17:55
Speaker 1: this perpetrator beat seventy six year old mister Cantrell in
17:59
Speaker 1: the head to the point where his skull fracture. It
18:04
Speaker 1: is somewhat of a great feet fracture. A skull, the
18:07
Speaker 1: skull is very resilient. We think that skull fractures happen
18:11
Speaker 1: all the time. Well, our skull is very resilient, and
18:15
Speaker 1: so in order to introduce this kind of force into
18:18
Speaker 1: the environment, and he's probably striking the same location over
18:21
Speaker 1: and over, and so the structural is becoming weaker and
18:23
Speaker 1: weaker until it finally fractures.
18:25
Speaker 2: There are also different types of skull fractures. Correct, there's
18:29
Speaker 2: the linear, which is just a crack in the skull
18:32
Speaker 2: where the the bones are even but a crack, and
18:36
Speaker 2: then there's depressed right.
18:37
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, So we actually refer to the skull itself,
18:42
Speaker 1: the surface of the skull as what's referred to as
18:45
Speaker 1: the external table of the skull, and it's layered and
18:48
Speaker 1: it's a fascinating structure. You know, if you look at
18:51
Speaker 1: the bone of the skull on cross section, it's got
18:54
Speaker 1: a matrix that lies beneath the surface and it's I
18:59
Speaker 1: don't know that any engineer could create something that is
19:03
Speaker 1: as resilient as bone like this. In this particular case,
19:06
Speaker 1: the skull itself, it's created to absorb shocks. So you
19:11
Speaker 1: have the external table of skull, you have this kind
19:14
Speaker 1: of matrix that's in between it. It looks almost like
19:17
Speaker 1: a honeycomb. And then you have the internal surface of
19:20
Speaker 1: the skull that's smooth because it's adjacent to the brain,
19:24
Speaker 1: and so you have to make your way through that.
19:26
Speaker 1: And with a depressed skull fracture like you were mentioning,
19:30
Speaker 1: literally part of that external table gives way. So it's
19:35
Speaker 1: not just like it's fractured. It is the fact that
19:39
Speaker 1: now if it's depressed, and depressed means to be sunken
19:43
Speaker 1: in you're driving the bone into the brain, and that
19:48
Speaker 1: bone will fragment many times and send little splinters into
19:51
Speaker 1: the brain. And in this case, aj Cantrell died on
19:57
Speaker 1: that floor immediately adjacent to his wife Patsy, after she
20:00
Speaker 1: have been shot with the same weapon. I make a
20:21
Speaker 1: big deal out of learning from the dead, and I
20:25
Speaker 1: even use the term we allow the dead to speak
20:28
Speaker 1: in this particular case. What I'm meaning is that the
20:33
Speaker 1: injuries that you have on a body will give you
20:38
Speaker 1: an idea as to the dynamics of an event. This
20:43
Speaker 1: is the thing. No horror rider that is out there
20:46
Speaker 1: can right the injuries like a scientist can interpret them.
20:51
Speaker 1: And suddenly this thing springs to life in your mind
20:53
Speaker 1: when you begin to see the outline of the butt
20:56
Speaker 1: of a weapon. Because many times the butt of the
20:58
Speaker 1: weapon won't be textured, it'll have marks on it, and
21:01
Speaker 1: for every one of those strikes, you'll leave a mark
21:04
Speaker 1: behind to indicate that there was tremendous violence. Here, you
21:09
Speaker 1: see the streaking of blood. You see how the skin
21:12
Speaker 1: is ripped and torn as a result of as you mentioned, Dave,
21:16
Speaker 1: this laceration that arises from blunt force trauma, and then
21:20
Speaker 1: you see the other attempts that were made to strike
21:24
Speaker 1: these abrasions where maybe mister Cantrell, in his fighting back,
21:28
Speaker 1: he turns his head and he just kind of the
21:31
Speaker 1: butt of the weapon just kind of scrapes across the skin.
21:34
Speaker 1: Then he realigns and the next thing you know, he's
21:36
Speaker 1: hit full force. But this is done over and over
21:39
Speaker 1: and over again. It makes me think, Dave, there, his
21:42
Speaker 1: wife is laying on the floor, don't know if she's
21:46
Speaker 1: dead yet, but her life is seeping out, and all
21:49
Speaker 1: he can think about in that instant is to get
21:52
Speaker 1: over to her and render aid. And that just was
21:55
Speaker 1: not to be in this case.
21:56
Speaker 2: You're right, Joe. When I go back over this, I'm
22:00
Speaker 2: thinking of You're living in a small town, a community
22:04
Speaker 2: that leaves the front door unlocked and the keys the
22:07
Speaker 2: ignition without fear, and now the worst possible thing has
22:12
Speaker 2: happened in your castle, the one place you're the This
22:16
Speaker 2: is your home, and this invader has now attacked in
22:20
Speaker 2: such a horrible way. Your spouse is shot, you're getting beat.
22:24
Speaker 2: I don't know at what point mister Cantrell was not
22:27
Speaker 2: alert to what was going on. I'm hoping it was
22:30
Speaker 2: fairly quickly, because the first hit on that gun to
22:34
Speaker 2: his head could have rendered him. It could have knocked
22:38
Speaker 2: him out right. I mean, he could have been unconscious.
22:40
Speaker 1: It could have. And I got to interject something here
22:42
Speaker 1: real quick, because this is a question that I could
22:45
Speaker 1: asked or was always asked by family members, and you
22:49
Speaker 1: bring it up right here, and I think that it's
22:51
Speaker 1: it's certainly important. People always want to know if their
22:54
Speaker 1: loved ones suffered. Just let that just kind of resonate
22:58
Speaker 1: just for a second. Would have that question asked to
23:01
Speaker 1: me all the time, did they suffer? Because people want
23:05
Speaker 1: to know what the status of this person that they
23:08
Speaker 1: had loved throughout their life was. And early on in
23:11
Speaker 1: my career I would say, no, they didn't suffer. But
23:14
Speaker 1: you know, as time went by, I couldn't. I was
23:17
Speaker 1: not capable of dishonesty any longer. I would simply say,
23:21
Speaker 1: I don't know. In this case, I would hope that
23:24
Speaker 1: he lost consciousness, but he had an awareness, and it
23:27
Speaker 1: was painful. It was very painful. And I think also
23:31
Speaker 1: the wife's death was very painful because she had an awareness.
23:33
Speaker 1: I don't think that she initially died immediately.
23:36
Speaker 2: I understand why people ask that, and I think that
23:39
Speaker 2: in reality, we're asking you to tell us that our
23:42
Speaker 2: loved one didn't suffer and that it was all a
23:44
Speaker 2: big surprise shock and they had no idea.
23:46
Speaker 1: But you're right.
23:47
Speaker 2: The truth needs to have its day because you have
23:50
Speaker 2: real world consequences, and sometimes you need to face these
23:53
Speaker 2: consequences based on knowing what really transpired. So after he
23:58
Speaker 2: kills the til, after he shoots Patsy Cantrell and then
24:02
Speaker 2: beats Aj to death, mister Cantrell, Isismer goes across the street.
24:06
Speaker 2: His original target was his ex girlfriend Catherine, not necessarily
24:11
Speaker 2: her son or her mother. And again, remember this is
24:14
Speaker 2: the family. The first person that Eimer met when he
24:18
Speaker 2: arrived into Pew, Oklahoma was mister Wright, the head of
24:22
Speaker 2: this household, mowing the yard at the Methodist church. And
24:25
Speaker 2: mister Wright invited Eimer into their church and into their family.
24:30
Speaker 2: And here we are a year later. Eismer has just
24:34
Speaker 2: shot Patsy Cantrell and then bludgeoned her husband, Aj Cantrell.
24:40
Speaker 2: He's now across the street, and what does he do?
24:43
Speaker 2: He at tacks.
24:44
Speaker 1: He still got this weapon in his hand. Now walking
24:46
Speaker 1: out in public with a long arm like this across
24:48
Speaker 1: the street.
24:49
Speaker 2: And you know where I lived, that wouldn't be the
24:51
Speaker 2: most uncommon thing. But if I saw somebody walking across
24:55
Speaker 2: the street with a gun with a shotgun, I would
24:57
Speaker 2: know who the person is and probably know the type
25:01
Speaker 2: of gun.
25:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, you probably would. And the four to ten is
25:04
Speaker 1: something that is it is small enough that I think
25:07
Speaker 1: that many people could mistake it, perhaps if you're at
25:11
Speaker 1: a distance, not up close, but if you're at a distance,
25:13
Speaker 1: you could mistake it for perhaps a twenty two caliber rifle,
25:16
Speaker 1: which again is a varmot weapon essentially. And he's walking
25:20
Speaker 1: across the street, and Dave, here's an interesting point when
25:23
Speaker 1: we've talked about Lacart's principle on the show, the transfer
25:26
Speaker 1: of evidence. Every contact leaves a trace. Dave, when he
25:29
Speaker 1: is exiting their home, he's transporting VISV that gun, and
25:34
Speaker 1: probably himself. He's transporting biological evidence from that scene that
25:39
Speaker 1: he has attached to his person and to this weapon.
25:42
Speaker 1: Remember this weapon was used as a bludgeon. So when
25:45
Speaker 1: he enters that home across the street, he brings that
25:49
Speaker 1: with him.
25:50
Speaker 2: Now he goes into the home he shoots the sixteen
25:53
Speaker 2: year old boy, He attacks sixty three year old mother
25:57
Speaker 2: and Catherine all of the fan. His ex girlfriend, Catherine
26:01
Speaker 2: Smith is attacked as well. Now they all survive. The
26:05
Speaker 2: all three of those survive. He right now has just
26:08
Speaker 2: killed the Cantrells. But now he's got to get out
26:10
Speaker 2: of town. And this starts a thirty seven day manhunt
26:14
Speaker 2: where Isimer is hiding out in the woods and everything else.
26:18
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking a small community like this, and this
26:20
Speaker 2: guy's able to elude capture by sleeping in the woods
26:23
Speaker 2: and stuff. That's just pretty odd and remarkable of hisself.
26:28
Speaker 2: But he eventually was caught after he kidnapped a couple
26:31
Speaker 2: out of in Tulsa, gets him to drive to Texas
26:34
Speaker 2: and this man had a couple that he kidnapped. He
26:38
Speaker 2: carjacked this man in the car. He's a doctor, doctor Peeples.
26:41
Speaker 2: He actually had a pistol stashed in this van. And
26:45
Speaker 2: they get at a certain place and mister doctor Peebles
26:48
Speaker 2: is able to shoot Isimer four or five times with
26:52
Speaker 2: the handgun and thus ends the reign of terror by
26:56
Speaker 2: Scott Isimer.
26:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know what I got to tell you, doctor,
27:00
Speaker 1: People's we kind of briefly mentioned the manhunt day when
27:04
Speaker 1: this manhunt occurred looking for Ozmer, did you know that
27:07
Speaker 1: this was at the time, it was the longest man
27:11
Speaker 1: hunt in the history of state of Oklahoma that they
27:15
Speaker 1: were looking for this guy. So my thought is is
27:18
Speaker 1: that doctor Peoples, he had an awareness. He knew, you know,
27:22
Speaker 1: to go back to our analogy earlier, he knew that
27:25
Speaker 1: the devil had taken hold at this point in time
27:28
Speaker 1: that he was physically rioting, and I'm sure he's thinking,
27:31
Speaker 1: he knows what's happened over into Pew and so he
27:34
Speaker 1: knows that if he does not act quickly, he and
27:37
Speaker 1: his wife are going to wind up the same as
27:39
Speaker 1: the Cantrells did.
27:41
Speaker 2: Good point. I did not think about that, Joe, But
27:43
Speaker 2: you're right, and that to have the presence of mind
27:46
Speaker 2: doctor Peeples and his protecting himself and his wife, they
27:51
Speaker 2: actually I'm not saying they allowed themselves to be kidnapped,
27:54
Speaker 2: but they played it just right. Where you got to
27:58
Speaker 2: remember Isamer is already a killer, and he's been on
28:01
Speaker 2: the run, and he's willing to do anything. Yet doctor
28:05
Speaker 2: People is able to get him settled down enough that
28:09
Speaker 2: doctor Peepless able to pull the gun and turn it
28:11
Speaker 2: on him and actually shoot Scott Ismer. That's the amazing
28:15
Speaker 2: thing to me is that he had the presence of mind.
28:17
Speaker 2: He got this guy the coolest jets long enough for
28:20
Speaker 2: doctor Peebles to gain the upper hand.
28:22
Speaker 1: Ismer is out fleeing and eluding during this period of time.
28:28
Speaker 1: I think one of the big questions is what happened
28:30
Speaker 1: to that four to ten shotgun. And as it turned out,
28:33
Speaker 1: he had taken it and thrown it out in the woods.
28:36
Speaker 1: And when the Oklahoma authorities finally caught up with him
28:41
Speaker 1: and he was eventually caught down I believe in Paris,
28:45
Speaker 1: Texas is where he had wound up. They brought him
28:49
Speaker 1: back to Oklahoma, and the Oklahoma authorities were They were like,
28:52
Speaker 1: all right, well, you're being charged with this. Do you
28:54
Speaker 1: want to speak to us? He says, yeah, I'll even
28:56
Speaker 1: take you to where the weapon is. And it initially
28:59
Speaker 1: when went out to the scene where he said it was,
29:03
Speaker 1: they didn't find it on the first day. But the
29:06
Speaker 1: second day they they did in fact find it and
29:09
Speaker 1: it was lying along a creek bank. And here's one
29:11
Speaker 1: of the chilling things. When they found that weapon, it
29:14
Speaker 1: had an unfired round in it, so it still had
29:16
Speaker 1: a chambered round that he could have used. But here's
29:21
Speaker 1: the thing about long arms like that. If you're carrying
29:23
Speaker 1: those around, there's no way to secret this weapon, particularly
29:27
Speaker 1: if you're on foot. It's at that point he's probably
29:30
Speaker 1: made this decision that he is going to kidnap somebody else,
29:34
Speaker 1: and he I guess he figures, you know, he's looking
29:37
Speaker 1: for an elderly target perhaps, and he can take them
29:40
Speaker 1: down and he can get control of them and then
29:44
Speaker 1: kind of leapfrog into the next phase of his journey.
29:47
Speaker 1: But he left that weapon behind because he knew that
29:50
Speaker 1: it would draw attention. Here's the thing that I think
29:53
Speaker 1: would be critical here. This weapon had laid out there
29:57
Speaker 1: for weeks upon weeks, and it creates a problem forensically
30:02
Speaker 1: sometimes that if it's not handled correctly, you might not
30:05
Speaker 1: be able to pick up on some of the ballistic
30:07
Speaker 1: evidence that's left behind. And with shotguns, of course, are
30:10
Speaker 1: smooth bore, it becomes particularly complicated. But here's the thing
30:15
Speaker 1: in this case, we're not to be concerned if Scott
30:20
Speaker 1: Eimer is going to recavoc any longer. I don't think
30:25
Speaker 1: that the folks into Pew are going to have to
30:28
Speaker 1: worry if he is going to come back and do harm.
30:31
Speaker 1: Scott James Eimer was executed on Thursday January twelfth, twenty
30:37
Speaker 1: twenty three. He was pronounced dead twenty fifteen. AM. I'm
30:45
Speaker 1: Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks