Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Disturbing Findings in the Death of Debbie Collier

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Disturbing Findings in the Death of Debbie Collier · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Body Backs with Joseph Scott Morgan Debbie Collier. I can't
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: say that name without scratching my head a little bit,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: because arguably her death is one of the most bizarre
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: that certainly I've covered in the past I don't know,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: two years probably and now we have some answers, and
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: today we're going to talk about this update involving the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: death of this fifty nine year old office manager from Georgia.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body Backs. Wow.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Am I glad to have my buddy Dave mac with
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: me today. Dave is a crime reporter for Crime Online.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: This case, this is something that we've covered I don't
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: know for several months now, I think, and certainly it
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: left us all a bit fuddled. I think because just
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: in and of itself, the fact that her death was
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: so closely associated with a fire, it was in isolation,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: kind of a very remote area, and there was nothing
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: apparently stolen or missing from her. It was just this
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: kind of standalone event that's had a lot of people
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: really really asking a lot of questions. I don't know,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: do we actually have answers now? I think we have some.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: She's a fifty nine year old who worked as an
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: office manager for a real estate company in Athens, Georgia. Athens,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Georgia is outside of Atlanta. It's where the Georgia Bulldogs play,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: and that does come into play here. Okay, so from
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: a timeline of events, on September tenth, Debbie Collier sent
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: a Venmo payment to her daughter at three seventeen PM.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: That Venmo payment was for two three hundred and eighty
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: five dollars and it had a cryptic message, they are
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: not going to let me go love you. There is
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: a key to the house in the blue flower pot
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: by the door. It's set off alarm bells because her daughter,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Amanda was not expecting this payment. From all we can
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: find out, Debbie Collier had never sent a payment that
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: large through Venmo. That's what started all of this. Amanda
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: calls her dad, Debbie's husband. He's been parking cars for
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: the Georgia Bulldocks football game since nine o'clock that morning.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: He gets home around four and they start talking try
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: to figure out what happened. Around six o'clock, they call
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: nine one one. We don't know where she is, we
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: haven't seen her, and we have this crazy message. It
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: was the next day, September eleventh, investigators find her car.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: She had a rental van because her car hit was
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: in the shop. She'd been in a car wreck. She's
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: driving a rental van and they used the si XM
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: radio in that rental van the Habersham County Sheriff's office.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: They alerted deputies to the location of this Chrysler Pacifica
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: that she had rented, and boom, they were able to
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: find the vehicle. It's about an hour, about sixty miles
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: away from her home, in an area that she didn't
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: normally go. They find her car, and then they find
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: her body. It's down a ravine. She's holding on to
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: a small tree branch. She's dead. There is obviously been
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: a fire, and she's partially clothed the burn. If you remember, Joe,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: we were told the burning was on her stomach. Well,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the timeline of events, we know that she did stop
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: at a family dollar shore a couple of miles away
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: from where her body was found prior to her death, obviously,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and she bought some items. Those items were all found
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: at the location where her body was So from a
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: timeline standpoint, we know where she was. We know what
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: she was doing prior to her death. We don't know why,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: but we know what and where. So here we go.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: They've told us from the beginning, partially burned, partially clad.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: The burning is on her stomach. They released this autopsy
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  Speaker 1: report and Joe's got Morgan. I'm begging you to tell
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: us what it means, because I'm reading this and I'm
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: going somebody's lying super bizarre stuff. First off, let's go
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: back you had mentioned. You know, we've gotten several different
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: reports in regards to Miss Collier's death relative to the
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: status of the clothing. You know, clothing is something that
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: we'd look at. We begin to think about what was
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the status of the clothing. First off, were they clothed?
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: And the first thing that comes up when you think
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: about these things, and I'm not saying that this happened
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: in this case, but when you associate someone being absent clothing,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: particularly a lady, you're automatically thinking, well, there was some
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: kind of assault that had taken place, some kind of
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: potential sexual assault. When I hear this initially and they're saying, well,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: she was clothed, we've heard clothes, and we've heard partially clothed,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: and we've heard naked, and so you know, it's hard
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: to kind of make sense of that. Way I have
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: heard now was that there was some remnant of clothing
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: at least beneath her legs, possibly charred. That clothing remnant
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: that is there you begin to ask these questions first off,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: or these trousers that she had on, pants, jeans, whatever
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the case might be, and can they be tied back
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: to her. Many times, when you find a body that is, say,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: for instance, in a prone position where they're laying on
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: their belly, or you have an individual that's in a
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: soupon position where they're laying on their back and they
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: haven't been moved at all, and they're wearing clothing. The
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: clothing on the top side involving a fire will at
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: least completely or partially be burned away. But sometimes if
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: you look beneath them, those areas are protected from the
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: flame the heat, and you can have sometimes tags that
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: you can examine, you can match up sizes, all those
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: sorts of things. But there's something else that you look
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: for with clothing and fire, and this is significant in
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: this case. That is, when you collect this clothing and
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: it is associated with fire, we actually take clothing in
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: cases of our sun, that sort of thing, and it
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: doesn't just have to be clothed, it can be other items,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and we put them in these the only way I
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: can really describe them are these metallic paint cans. And
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: you say, wow, that's interesting. Yeah, So we use these
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: for evidence collection. And what happens is is that if
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: there is any accelerant and when I say accelerant, I'm
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: talking about lighter fluid, certainly gasoline, kerosene, any of these
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: types of elements, as the clothing begins to settle into
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the bottom of the can because of gravity, the fumes,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: if there's anything left, begins to rise to the top
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: of that can internally, and a big I don't know's
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: it's hard to kind of describe for folks, but just
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: understand that it looks like a gigantic needle is inserted
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: into the top of that can and the air within
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: the can is drawn off in the lab and then
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: once that air is drawn off, guess what they can do?
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: They begin to test it. And we know that the
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: vapors from an acceleroant, I mean, we've all smelled cass right,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: or maybe charcoal, light or fluid maybe kerosene has a
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: particular odor, right, so it's in a gaseous state, you
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: can smell it. That's something that can't be quantified. Smell
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: is we can qualify it, say gee, that smells like gas.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: But what we want our measurements. We want to get
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: a specific chemical identity. They're talking about that there was
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: a melted gas can in the immediate vicinity of her body.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: So I want to know if the gas that may
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: have been associated with that melted gas can, if there
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: was anything left from that is associated with any kind
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: of accelerant that may have been on her clothing, and
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: try to marry that up. That's one part of this
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: along the way, the evidentry issue that's separate from the
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: body itself, because you know, when you begin to look
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: at what they're saying, at least was revealed in this
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: autopsy report that was released by the State of Georgia,
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  Speaker 1: and this is very curious. They're saying that the burns
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that she has on the body. Remember you'd mentioned this day,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: you talked about how they had initially talked about how
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: she had burning on her abdomen, and that was kind
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: of it was kind of very limited at that moment time.
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  Speaker 1: But now they're talking they're using terms like leathery skin.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: That what they're driving at here. When they're talking about
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: leathery skin, they're talking about desiccated skin. Skin that's that
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  Speaker 1: is absent any kind of moisture. It's dried out, and
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: it's dried out as a result of being exposed to
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: intense heat. Also, we grade burns in degrees. We've all
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: heard about this first, second, third. You know that there's
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: even a fourth degree burning. You generally see it with
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: individuals that are deceased. They don't talk about fourth degree
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  Speaker 1: burning in here, but they do talk about second third.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: And guess where the concentration is, Well, it's her head
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: and her face and quite possibly the upper chest. So
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: what does that tell us, Well, it tells us that
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: there was a heavy concentration of some type of accelerant
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: or fuel source that was adjacent to that. Because listen,
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  Speaker 1: people know what it's like to actually touch a stove
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: or get burned as a result of running your hands
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: or a flame. You get burned, but it's not burning
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  Speaker 1: like when we think about something that is a continual,
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  Speaker 1: constant fuel source for fire. Human tissue cannot sustain that
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  Speaker 1: it just can't. You would have to have something else
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  Speaker 1: there that would lead to a third degree burned. This
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: is very intense, and you're starting to get down into
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: not just the epidermis, in the dermis. Now you're starting
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  Speaker 1: to get into potentially the subcue fat, which is that
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: layer just below the top layer of skin. Her hair
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  Speaker 1: is probably missing, her face as in tensely burned in
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  Speaker 1: her upper chest, so that means that more than likely
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  Speaker 1: the accelerant was on top of her body, the top
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: of her head maybe had run down her face at
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  Speaker 1: some point in time. I think the big question is
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  Speaker 1: is this something that she did to herself sitting there
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  Speaker 1: on the ground where she takes a container of gasoline
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  Speaker 1: and pours it on top of her head and then
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  Speaker 1: initiates the flame by striking a match or lighting a lighter,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: which is something they haven't talked about the presence of,
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  Speaker 1: or is this something that somebody else did to her?
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  Speaker 1: In cases that I worked, where I have people that
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: have been burned, and certainly relative to homicide, many times
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  Speaker 1: burning is used in order to cover up anything that
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  Speaker 1: is left behind. But is it actually used as a
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: means to bring about one's on death? Well, there are
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: cases out there like that. You know, this is generally
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: referred to as self immolation. But here's the key. Most
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  Speaker 1: of the time, when people self immolate, their doused in
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: gasoline or some type of other accelerant and they set
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: themselves on fire, you're going to have a product that
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: is produced relative to this burning. That's going to be
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: your own body, where you have hair and skin that's
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: initially burned, any clothing that's there, and any other item
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: that immediately surround the person. Say that they've put a
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: fuel source on top of them, like wood or something
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: like this to maintain the burning, and then they douse
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: themselves with an accelerant set themselves on fire, you would
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: find remnant of that. And Dave, she was found in
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: a wooded area, so we would expect when we open
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: up her body at autopsy that we would find particularly
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: in the trachea and that's our windpipe essentially, and into
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: our nose, in our mouth, into the windpipe, into the lungs,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you would expect to find evidence of debris. Dave, it
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: ain't there, brother, So does that mean that she was
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: burned after she died. That's a question that has not
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: been answered. They're ruling it as a suicide. They are
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: ruling it as a suicide. We have this kind of lining.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: If you just think about the interior of your mouth,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: you just kind of run your tongue around the interior
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: of your mouth. It's not too dissimilar from the same
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: surface that you have down into your airway. It's mucoid,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: very soft and fleshy, and you look for debris in
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: this area. But you also look for what they referred
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: to as an inflammatory response. And they're saying that there
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: is this area in her trachea that would be indicative
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: of inhalation of superheated gas. Okay, superheated gas. So when
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: people inhale and there's intense flame around them, remember we're
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: trying to uptake oxygen every single second of the day.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: That's what we do in order to survive. Even in
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the midst of a very intense fire. You're inhaling to
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: try to grab that oxen it's there. And what does
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: fire or seek out, Well, it seeks out oxygen as
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: fuel source. It thrives on oxygen. It's consuming all of
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: the oxygen in the environment. So was she literally inhaling
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the superheated gas that's being generated by the fire. The
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: problem is this, It could not have been sustainable, all right,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: It would not have been in a sustainable event. And
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: so they're talking about her inhaling superheated gas and that
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: that brought about her death. It brought about her death
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: that quickly after a certain amount of tom that event
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: is going to pass, and she would still continue to breed,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: you would think unless she went into some kind of
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: associated sudden cardiac event. I'm not talking about having a
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: heart attack, a mile cardial infarction, That's not what I'm
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: talking about. But you can get yourself into this position
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: where essentially your heart will stop as a result of
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: being exposed to this kind of trauma. Is that what
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: they're actually saying, because right now that's really the only
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: thing they have to hang their hand on. And let
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: me ask you this. Joe I mentioned in setting up
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the timeline that Debbie Collier had gone to a family
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: dollar store and made very specific purchases. Again, we're talking
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: sixty miles away from her house, and she's at a
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: family dollar store she doesn't normally go to. She buys
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: a blue tarp, red toebag, paper towels, a torch lighter,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: and a poncho. Those were the things she purchased at
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: the family dollar store, and all these items were found
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: in the area of her body and the fire. My
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: question is this. They've ruled it a suicide, and as
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, saying it was the inhalation of the superheated
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: gases thermal injuries. They've also mentioned other things. But I
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: poured gas in my ditch to burn leaves one time,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: and I had a whole bunch of leaves and I
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: poured too much gas. Okay, I let it soak in
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a minute. I didn't realize how stupid I was being.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: When I lit the leaves. It was an immediate explosion
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: and it knocked me down and shocked me. And had
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I been closer to the leaves, I would have been burned.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: If their theory of what happened is true, could it
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: have been that she was in some state of mind
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: where she bought these items. She has a gas can
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: that is also on the scene. As you mentioned, she
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: pours gas over something and leaning over, she doesn't realize
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the power that this gas is going to have on her,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and she lights it and does what happened to me
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: in my front yard. I guess that that's certainly a possibility. However,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I have to go back and state that you were
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: talking about third degree burned, so this would not have
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: been I think that probably you might expect to see
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: a second degree event visualized on the surface of her skin.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: You're starting to talk about third degree burning. That almost
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: implies that there was extended exposure to the flame in
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: order to achieve that level of trauma. And maybe that's
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: a residual effect of if she had been doused in
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: the flame and that there was an initial flash over
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: where she inhalated this superheated gas, the remnant of the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: accelerant would still have to burn off of her skin
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: at that point in time. Maybe that's an answer. I
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: don't know that there's really enough to hang your hat on,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: and we haven't seen the actual autopsy report because it
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: hasn't been made public at this point in time. However,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: there are individuals that are commenting on it in the press.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Obviously they've seen it. You think about this and you think, well,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: is there something else here? But according to one line
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: in the autopsy report, allegedly they're talking about what the
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: police saw, and the police are essentially opining that she
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: was there by herself and that's really and that that's
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: an indication to them at least that this was a suicide.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: So you're telling me that's you're going with that, and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: that's what you're going to hang your hat on. And
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: apparently that's the decision that was made by virtue of that.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: The medical examiner made that decision based upon what the
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: police did or didn't see at the scene. One other
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: thing that's important here to remember. At autopsy, there is
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: a test that is run. It's called a carboxy hemoglobin level,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: and you do it with a blood draw. What you're
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: looking for is the uptake of carbon in the system
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: and how it kind of gets into the bloodstream. This
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: gives an indication of protracted exposure because now you're beginning
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: to metabolize some of the stuff that's in the air
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: and floating around. And again when they inhale eco systemic
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: at that point in time, guess what carboxy hemoglobin level
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: was not going to say it was nil, but it was,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: according to them, apparently within normal ranges of what people
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: would have in them on a regular day. When we
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: have cases where people have been exposed to fire and
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: they're in homes say, for instance, where the home is
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: kind of collapsing around them they're struggling to get out.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Their carboxy hemoglobin level will in fact be elevated because
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: they're inhaling these noxious gases that are in the environment
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: in which they normally dwell, so that gives you an
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: idea of long term exposure. The absence of a significant
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: carboxy hemoglobin level in her blood would suggest that this
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: was a very quick event. One of the things that
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: they did find in her system, and this is not
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: completely unexpected, is that she had hydrocodone in her system
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: and she had been taking this I think, if I
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: remember correctly, as a result of some kind of back
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: pain that she had had for a protracted period of time.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: She was under medical care because chronic pain from a
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: back injury that she had lived with for a long time.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting because in November, when all of this
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: first came out about inhalation of superheated gases and thermal
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: injuries and hydrocodone intoxication, that was what we were told,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: and now that the autopsy has come out. This is
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: according to a source from Fox five in Atlanta, saying
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: although she had a prescription for the opioid pain killer.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: The hydrocodone levels in her system surpassed the expected amount
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: roughly four times over. We've also heard her report You
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: and I both heard the same report that they were
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: at therapeutic levels. That's a confusion there, But I don't
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: know how much that would come into play. If you've
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: got eighty percent of her body burned, second and third
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: degree burns, as you've just indicated, that would have killed her. Yeah,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: So which is it, I think is a big question
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: relative to these the levels of the hydrocodone. Wouldn't you
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: expect somebody to be burned after they were dead that
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: and doesn't this is there an indication that the burning
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: took place after death? That's hard to surmas based upon
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: the information that is coming in. If you're going to
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: have post mortem burning, that is, after death, you're not
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: going to have any evidence in the airway that they
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: have been inhaling anything. However, the one kind of bumping
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the road with that is they have this change in
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: the tissue surfaces of her trachea that gives an indication
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: that she was exposed to these superheated gases, and that's
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: how they're coming back to this point that it's exposure
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: two superheated gases and that she inhaled it for a
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: moment and it's brought about her death. And oh, by
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: the way, she's also got hydro code on on board
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and that's actually listed. It's like one of the contributing
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: factors here. So you kind of picked your poison here
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: along the way as to what you're going to call
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: this their default position on the manner of death, and
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: as we've talked about on bodybags, there's five of them
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: that you can choose from. Well, can we look at
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: this and say that it's an accident? I don't know.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, is it possible that she accidentally set this fire?
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: And what would be the purpose of her setting and
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: fire in this location? Is there evidence that this is
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: some type of natural event. Well, no, they're not saying
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: anything about that. We're not talking about, you know, heart
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: disease or something else that you associated in the natural world,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: that some kind of natural disease pathology. They're not discussing that.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: What they are saying is that she had hydrocat on
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: on board and she was exposed to superheated gases. That's
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: what they're going with as their cause of death, and
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: their default position in this case is going to be suicide.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: They're not arriving at any other conclusion other than she
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: doused herself apparently in gas and set herself on fire.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: She happened to have the substance in her system, and
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: all of those things playing together wound up in her death,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and they're going to rule this as a suicide and
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: they're going to close this case. Dave, we're not flippant
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: in talking about suicide. If you or somebody you know
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: is suffering through anything that leads you to think that
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: maybe it's time to just call an end to life
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: as it is, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: at one eight hundred two seven three talk. That's one
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: eight hundred two seventy three eight two five five. Sometimes
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: people will take a permanent fix for a temporary problem.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: In this particular case, Joe, where they've really a suicide
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: saying she took her own life, I have to question.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: She's holding on to a small thing coming out of
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the ground. Her body is found down aways from where
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: the fire was. She's holding that tree with her hand
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and she, now we're being told, burned. Over eighty percent
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: of her body. There are certain things that stick out
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: to me. And I'm just a journalist. Joe, you're a
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: professional at this. Does this sound or look like anything
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: you've ever heard would be a suicide? I have worked
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: cases of self emolation, but they got tell you, as
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: my granny would say, they're rare as hens teeth. It's
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: it's not something that you encounter, not like when you're
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: talking about suicides. You're talking about self inflicted gunshot wounds.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: You're talking about hangings. Every now and then you'll have
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: drug gods. You find more, believe it or not, self
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: inflicted gunshot wounds and hangings than you do drug odes.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: In my experience, in my little slice the bi self immolation,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: just thinking back right now over my career work in
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the corner of the medical examor over the course of
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: my career too, I think, and then peripherally with colleagues
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe in total, maybe four. So that that's what
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: makes this so bizarre for those of us that work
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: in forensics, when you hear that you have a case
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: like this of self immolation, I'll put it to you
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: this way. This case is the type of case that
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: you would go to a foreign at conference and you
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: would actually see papers presented on that's how significant this is.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I think one final thing when police are covering something
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: like this, Joe, I mean when you're saying that you
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: haven't seen that it's such a rare occurrence when police
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: officers are investigating something along these lines and release information
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: to the public. As we were told, at first, the
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: burning seemed to be minor and it was limited to
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: her stomach, and now we find out that it's eighty
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: percent of her body. Her face couldn't be identified. Do
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: police sometimes downplay what they've seen to the public to
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: spare the family or just because it's not fitting to
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: a certain degree, yeah, they will. I think most of
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the time when police are making decisions about what will
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: and will not be released, paramount among all things for
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: them is to not compromise the case. If they have
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: information that they would not like released to the general
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: public because they suspect that this is something there than
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: as advertised. That's generally what their goal is to keep
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: it from the general public. And our working premise, and
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: I know many people in our audience have heard this term,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: and I use it when I teach. Our working premise
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: is that all deaths, not some, not a few, but
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: all deaths are homicides until proven otherwise, and we have
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: to we have to be skeptical. We have to assume
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: that it is other than what we're seeing, because if
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: you if you don't cover all of your bases and
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: treat it with the same degree of care as you
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: would a homicide from the beginning, you're going to miss something.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: You know, and early on I think that in miss
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Collier's case, you know, they did, in fact treat it
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: as though it was a homicide. Certainly, I think because
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: it's so bizarre, it's such an outlier you find bodies
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: that are burned. Again, I go back to my earlier
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: supposition that you have this isolated event where you have
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: a body kind of lying out there in the woods
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: and let's face it, in in a very isolated area out
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: of you. Automatically you're going to think, well, wow, somebody
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: has brought her out here, they've doused her and gas,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: they've done something to her, and they're trying to cover
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: their tracks. But apparently based upon what the police concluded
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: from the scene, and now that we've got this autopsy report,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: based upon what the medical examiner as ruling says, they
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: don't think that it's a homicide. But we still don't know. No,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: we still don't. We don't know why she sent two thousand,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: three hundred and eighty five dollars by Venmo. We don't
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: know what the cryptic message meant. They're not going to
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: let me go. Some people have alluded to the fact
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: that she's got meds on board and that maybe that
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: had something to do with it. Really well, I mean,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: she's been taking this medication regularly. Was there any other
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: substance in her system? Was it combined with alcohol? I
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: don't know, because all they're talking about right now at
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: this point that we can see at the time that
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: this is being recorded is that she had hydre code
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: on board. And again the level is questionable. We have
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: some people saying that it's above normal therapeutic levels, and
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: we have other people saying that, well, it's well within
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: the parameters of survivability, if you will. So hard to say,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: but I do know this, out of all the cases
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: that we've covered on body backs, this is certainly one
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: more curious. If you or somebody you know is suffering
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: through anything that leads you to think that maybe it's
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: time to just calling into life as it is. Please
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at one eight hundred
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: two seven three talk. That's one eight hundred two seven
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: three eight two five five. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: this is body Backs