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Body Bags: The Corn Rake Murder · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Farming is a difficult
0:20
Speaker 1: way of life and no other type of farming is
0:24
Speaker 1: as hard as hog farming. I'm sun up to sundown
0:28
Speaker 1: and sometimes in the middle of the night you have
0:32
Speaker 1: to tend to the hogs that you're going to bring
0:34
Speaker 1: to market. That was life that the Mullus family lived
0:39
Speaker 1: in Iowa. It was the life that they lived and
0:43
Speaker 1: it resulted in the death of Amy Mollis. Today we're
0:48
Speaker 1: going to talk about her homicide. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan
0:54
Speaker 1: and this is Bodydown with Me Today is my good
1:01
Speaker 1: friend Jackie Howard, executive producer of crime Stories. Would Nancy Grace, Jackie,
1:08
Speaker 1: what can you tell us about this case out of Iowa.
1:10
Speaker 1: Amy Mullis was a thirty nine year old farmer's wife
1:13
Speaker 1: and she was found impaled on a corn rake in
1:17
Speaker 1: the shed on her family farm. Her thirteen year old son, Tristan,
1:22
Speaker 1: had been sent into the shed by his father and
1:25
Speaker 1: the husband, Todd Mullis, and the thirteen year old found
1:29
Speaker 1: Amy Mullis impaled on a corn rake. Again in the shed,
1:34
Speaker 1: Tristan scraamed for his father and when Todd arrived, he
1:37
Speaker 1: removed the rake from her back, put her his wife,
1:41
Speaker 1: Amy Mullis, into the truck, and started racing for the
1:44
Speaker 1: hospital and called nine one one. Once she was at
1:48
Speaker 1: the hospital, Amy Mullis could not be revived. The question then,
1:53
Speaker 1: as the autopsy was done, was this an accident or murder?
1:58
Speaker 1: So we're gonna unfold this case, but let's talk about
2:01
Speaker 1: a couple of things right off the bat First, what
2:04
Speaker 1: is being impaled? It's not something that you commonly come
2:08
Speaker 1: across in everyday conversation, though, is that you know, we
2:12
Speaker 1: think about when people die as a result of what
2:16
Speaker 1: we refer to in forensics as sharp force injuries. That
2:19
Speaker 1: generally involves something like stabbing, which means an instrument that
2:24
Speaker 1: is an edged weapon, you know, like a knife single edge,
2:29
Speaker 1: or maybe you have a knife that is a double
2:31
Speaker 1: edged knife. Commonly, that's what we think of, but this
2:35
Speaker 1: is something completely different. Impalement many times, and not every time,
2:40
Speaker 1: but many times, it has almost an accidental connotation to it,
2:45
Speaker 1: and it generally means that someone falls back on a
2:49
Speaker 1: penetrating object or falls onto a penetrating object. And we
2:53
Speaker 1: heard this term coming up over and over again, particularly
2:57
Speaker 1: early on with with this particular case over the years
3:03
Speaker 1: and the months that this thing kind of ground through
3:05
Speaker 1: the court system. But this is what's kind of interesting
3:10
Speaker 1: about impalement. Impalement, you know, as I said, generally implies
3:15
Speaker 1: many times an accidental event. You know, I've worked cases
3:19
Speaker 1: where I've had car accidents where people have been impaled
3:22
Speaker 1: on pieces of metal, for instance, inside of vehicles. I've
3:25
Speaker 1: had people that have taken great falls off of buildings
3:28
Speaker 1: and this sort of thing and have been impaled on
3:31
Speaker 1: an object. But impalement actually goes back in our history
3:35
Speaker 1: for hundreds and hundreds of years. It's actually a form
3:39
Speaker 1: of torture, and it was actually a form of execution.
3:41
Speaker 1: People would be impaled and generally on a stake of
3:44
Speaker 1: some kind or a metal rode. But in this particular
3:47
Speaker 1: case that the implement that we're talking about is kind
3:51
Speaker 1: of interesting. Jackie's it's called a corn raak, which you know,
3:56
Speaker 1: many people might not be familiar with. It is an
3:59
Speaker 1: usual instrument. But if you think about a pitchfork, most
4:04
Speaker 1: people are or have an image in their mind of
4:07
Speaker 1: what a pitchfork is, if nothing else, from the famous
4:11
Speaker 1: painting of the man and woman standing holding a pitchfork
4:14
Speaker 1: in front of their house. So, a pitchfork is a
4:18
Speaker 1: metal utensil on a usually a wooden handle that's lengthy
4:23
Speaker 1: that's used to help make it easier to move product
4:28
Speaker 1: or produce of some kind. So what kind of an
4:33
Speaker 1: injury are we going to see with a corn rake?
4:36
Speaker 1: It is a four tined instrument, which means it has
4:40
Speaker 1: four prongs. Pick it up from there, Joe, Yeah, you know, Jackie,
4:45
Speaker 1: it's a unique instrument. You know, you were talking about pitchforks,
4:49
Speaker 1: and pitchforks if our listeners will just kind of think
4:52
Speaker 1: about the same action that goes into say, shoveling something,
4:56
Speaker 1: you can kind of marry that up with an image
4:58
Speaker 1: of somebody using a pitchfork, But a corn rake is
5:02
Speaker 1: something that is completely different. And keep in mind the
5:08
Speaker 1: Mullus family, they were hog farmers. A matter of fact,
5:10
Speaker 1: this property they have is vast and they've got these
5:13
Speaker 1: two gigantic sheds that are on the property. Call them
5:17
Speaker 1: shed implies that it's some kind of tiny little dwell
5:20
Speaker 1: and it's not. It's there's the size of what you
5:22
Speaker 1: would think of commercial chicken houses, I think, and there's
5:26
Speaker 1: two of them. And within these sheds they raised they
5:30
Speaker 1: raised hogs, and of course they would start out with
5:32
Speaker 1: piglets and you know, raise them up from a young age.
5:35
Speaker 1: And of course what is it that hogs famously eat. Well,
5:38
Speaker 1: some people might say everything, But in this particular case,
5:42
Speaker 1: you know, you you feed them corn, and many times
5:44
Speaker 1: the corn it's still whole corn. This corn is still
5:47
Speaker 1: on the cob. And so when you're using a corn rake,
5:53
Speaker 1: you contain the corn cobs, say, for instance, in a crib.
5:57
Speaker 1: You've heard people have heard this term a corn and
6:01
Speaker 1: in order to get the corn out of the crib,
6:03
Speaker 1: you have to rake it out, just like you use
6:06
Speaker 1: a rake to rake leaves. Only these four times are
6:10
Speaker 1: bent on this corn rake at about a ninety degree angle,
6:14
Speaker 1: and they're they're kind of sharp, very pointed on the end,
6:17
Speaker 1: and they're ghastly. You know, these things are ghastly when
6:20
Speaker 1: you look at them, because they're roughly about it looks
6:23
Speaker 1: to be about five six maybe seven inches in length,
6:27
Speaker 1: and then the times the distance between each one is
6:30
Speaker 1: about two to three inches, so it looks like a
6:34
Speaker 1: gigantic claw, if you'll just imagine it like that. And
6:37
Speaker 1: certainly the penetrative ability of one of these times could
6:42
Speaker 1: send it deep deep within the body. And you know,
6:46
Speaker 1: when I've viewed this corn rake on several occasions. It
6:51
Speaker 1: was admitted into evidence in the subsequent trial, and it
6:55
Speaker 1: is I've used the term I think ghastly before, but
6:58
Speaker 1: you have to when you take a look at it
7:00
Speaker 1: and see this thing, and it's it's old, it's been
7:03
Speaker 1: used for a long long time. It does have a
7:05
Speaker 1: wooden handle, and it's it's weathered in appearance, and even
7:10
Speaker 1: the times of this implement are rusty, and in a
7:14
Speaker 1: couple of the crime scene images you can still see
7:17
Speaker 1: where blood has tracked down a couple of these times
7:20
Speaker 1: and still remain there even when the cops got there
7:22
Speaker 1: to take photos at the scene. Just to clarify one
7:25
Speaker 1: point for our listeners, Joe, when you say corn crib,
7:29
Speaker 1: you are actually talking about a barn. This is not
7:32
Speaker 1: like a little manger there was something that hogs eat
7:35
Speaker 1: out of. You're actually talking about a barn. Yeah. Yeah,
7:38
Speaker 1: and generally in a large storage area where if you
7:42
Speaker 1: can and you know, you have to think about this.
7:44
Speaker 1: This is this is a full on industrial operation that
7:48
Speaker 1: you've had that you have here. It's like I said
7:50
Speaker 1: in my opening, this is a twenty four or seven job.
7:52
Speaker 1: And so when you're gonna feed this many hogs, and
7:57
Speaker 1: keep in mind they eat constantly, they would deliver corn,
8:01
Speaker 1: say for instance, or feed in the back of a
8:04
Speaker 1: large truck and essentially dump it into the storage area
8:08
Speaker 1: where it would be kept. And then you would take
8:11
Speaker 1: this corn rake literally. Remember I talked about how it
8:15
Speaker 1: acts like a claw, grab the feed and draw it
8:18
Speaker 1: out like that. So this is an implement that had
8:22
Speaker 1: been used for a long time. I suspect that there
8:24
Speaker 1: was probably in an operation this size, there was probably
8:27
Speaker 1: more than one there on that property, Joe, And looking
8:30
Speaker 1: at the injuries that would have resulted, Let's just say
8:33
Speaker 1: you fall on a corn rake or a pitchfork, those
8:37
Speaker 1: injuries are going to be a little bit different because
8:39
Speaker 1: of the slant of the times. Now, we again do
8:43
Speaker 1: know that the times are metal, and they can be
8:46
Speaker 1: anywhere from four to six or seven inches long. So,
8:49
Speaker 1: given the shape of this instrument and what it is
8:53
Speaker 1: used for and the length of those tines, what kind
8:57
Speaker 1: of injuries or punctures could we expect. It's not long
9:01
Speaker 1: enough to go all the way through the body, But
9:04
Speaker 1: what can we expect in that type of an injury. Well,
9:07
Speaker 1: there's a couple of things that we're going to look for.
9:09
Speaker 1: And the more you know at autopsy, you know, when
9:11
Speaker 1: you're examining these kind of wounds, and much like much
9:14
Speaker 1: like a bullet wound, you know, we think about the
9:17
Speaker 1: angle of travel or the you know, the essentially the
9:21
Speaker 1: trajectory of the round as it passes through the body.
9:25
Speaker 1: It's no different here, Jackie. We do many times the
9:28
Speaker 1: same thing. For instance, would stab wounds, we examine and
9:32
Speaker 1: trace actually the direction of travel of an object as
9:36
Speaker 1: it passes through the body. So when when we're looking
9:40
Speaker 1: at a body that has been impaled, like Amy Modus's
9:44
Speaker 1: body would would be It's not uncommon for us, say,
9:48
Speaker 1: for instance, to take a dowel rode, a very thin
9:52
Speaker 1: wooden rod for instance, and place it into the defect
9:56
Speaker 1: and just imagine this, and sometimes there'll be multicolored and
10:00
Speaker 1: you run this rod, this dowal rod, into the wound itself,
10:05
Speaker 1: and you can, if you take the photo just right,
10:08
Speaker 1: you can get an idea of the angle of injury.
10:11
Speaker 1: And you you document those those dowal rods as they're
10:15
Speaker 1: coming out. We take a picture of these rods in place,
10:20
Speaker 1: so that when we go to court with a case
10:23
Speaker 1: like this, we can demonstrate this photographically and it's it's
10:28
Speaker 1: quite striking when you see it. Now. For us when
10:30
Speaker 1: we're trying to figure out what happened at the scene,
10:33
Speaker 1: it gives us an idea of the relationship between the victim,
10:38
Speaker 1: the object that's used, and of course in this case
10:40
Speaker 1: it's it's this corner rate and then of course the
10:43
Speaker 1: potential perpetrator in a particular case. You know, how were
10:47
Speaker 1: they oriented to the individual when when this particular event
10:52
Speaker 1: took place, and right you are when you're talking about
10:56
Speaker 1: how deep these times can penetrate into a body, And
11:01
Speaker 1: just to give you an idea, when the forensic pathologists
11:06
Speaker 1: did the examination on Amy Mulus's body, shield pined at
11:12
Speaker 1: that particular time that these times entered through what's referred
11:16
Speaker 1: to as an intercostal space. And I'd like everybody that's
11:19
Speaker 1: listening right now to find just touch your ribs on
11:22
Speaker 1: the side and the kind of meaty portion that's in
11:25
Speaker 1: between each one of your ribs. That's an intercostal space.
11:28
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's muscle that it passes through. It
11:31
Speaker 1: passes through the muscle, the rib the muscle. Okay, then
11:36
Speaker 1: it goes through along then it goes through a liver,
11:41
Speaker 1: and then it goes through the diaphragm. Now just think
11:43
Speaker 1: about that, all of that involvement, and not only when
11:48
Speaker 1: that implement is tracking through all of those major bodies
11:53
Speaker 1: of the deceased, it's also tracking through all of those
11:56
Speaker 1: little vessels. And there's tons and tons of these micro
12:00
Speaker 1: vessels that are existent within our body. Joe, how long
12:06
Speaker 1: would the times have to be to immediately hit a
12:10
Speaker 1: vital organ in the body. Not too desperately long. And
12:15
Speaker 1: let's keep in mind these injuries that Amy Mullis sustained.
12:20
Speaker 1: And I do say that these are injuries, not injury,
12:24
Speaker 1: singular injuries plural. It can potentially be a shallow, a
12:32
Speaker 1: shallow track that it's going through, but it doesn't take
12:35
Speaker 1: too much depth to essentially pierce the back of the
12:39
Speaker 1: lung and then drive through the dome, the diaphragm dome
12:46
Speaker 1: that's just beneath the lung and into the top of
12:48
Speaker 1: the liver. Those things are actually located very very close
12:52
Speaker 1: to one another, so it's not that it goes as
12:55
Speaker 1: much deep as you're headed towards the front of the body.
12:58
Speaker 1: But even a shallow strike like that as it's tracking downward,
13:01
Speaker 1: and that's the important part here. As it's tracking downward,
13:05
Speaker 1: can clip all of those organs, and of course you
13:07
Speaker 1: clip all of the vessels that are associated with it.
13:10
Speaker 1: So if Amy Mollis's lung was clipped, her lungs would
13:15
Speaker 1: have immediately began filling with blood, making it difficult for
13:18
Speaker 1: her to breathe. Yeah. Yeah, what you're going to have is,
13:21
Speaker 1: first off, if you think about your chest, your chest
13:24
Speaker 1: is obviously because without saying but I'll say it anyway,
13:27
Speaker 1: it's a sealed area. So people develop what's referred to
13:32
Speaker 1: as a pneumothorax. So when you penetrate that kind of
13:35
Speaker 1: sealed area, you're allowing the air to come out and
13:39
Speaker 1: come in, and it compromises anyway, the ability of the
13:43
Speaker 1: lungs to take up oxygen and release oxygen. And then
13:49
Speaker 1: on top of that, you're insulting the lung by puncturing it.
13:53
Speaker 1: So you've got this kind of twofold event that's going on.
13:56
Speaker 1: You've really got a problem here. Whenever you injure the
14:01
Speaker 1: chest like this, you're not just opening up this space
14:05
Speaker 1: around the lung, which is actually called the plural space,
14:09
Speaker 1: but you're going into the lung itself, which contains a
14:13
Speaker 1: lot of vessels. Those vessels are clipped, so right you
14:17
Speaker 1: are when you talk about this kind of indwelling hemorrhage
14:20
Speaker 1: that's going on within the lung tissue what's called the
14:22
Speaker 1: interstitial tissue. But on top of that, on top of that,
14:29
Speaker 1: all of those little micro vessels that you've clipped passing
14:31
Speaker 1: through that intercostal space on the back of this individual,
14:36
Speaker 1: that blood is now diving into that open area around
14:41
Speaker 1: the lung where it should just be air. In that space,
14:43
Speaker 1: now it's filling up with fluid as well. So you've
14:46
Speaker 1: got a lot to deal with. If you're, say, for instance,
14:50
Speaker 1: a person that's a trauma surgeon or a trauma er
14:53
Speaker 1: nurse and this sort of thing where you're trying to
14:55
Speaker 1: save this person's life, you're having to put out multiple
14:58
Speaker 1: fires at the same time. You know, the Mollushawg Farm,
15:24
Speaker 1: It's this vast property and had all these these newer
15:29
Speaker 1: buildings on it, but there was one little building that
15:31
Speaker 1: was there. It's been termed the red shed that's out
15:35
Speaker 1: there on this property. And I can't even begin to
15:38
Speaker 1: imagine the horror of thirteen year old Tristan when he
15:40
Speaker 1: walked through the door and he found his mother laying
15:43
Speaker 1: there on the floor under sponsor Jackie. It would have
15:45
Speaker 1: been terrifying, I'm sure, especially for a teenager, and again
15:49
Speaker 1: he screamed for his father. Todd came in, found his
15:53
Speaker 1: wife and Joe. He pulled the rake out of her back.
15:58
Speaker 1: She was again impact with this rake still sticking in
16:02
Speaker 1: her back, and he pulled it out to take her
16:06
Speaker 1: to the hospital. If I'm understanding my Red Cross training,
16:10
Speaker 1: anytime that you are impaled with something, you're supposed to
16:15
Speaker 1: leave it in. Why. Yeah. Absolutely. If Amy Mullis was
16:20
Speaker 1: to have any shot at life after this event, it
16:24
Speaker 1: vanished when that rake was removed. Of course, at that
16:28
Speaker 1: point in time, we don't really know what the status
16:30
Speaker 1: was of her breathing and heart rate and all that
16:34
Speaker 1: sword thing when Todd Mullis came upon her body. But
16:36
Speaker 1: I do know that if you want a survivable event
16:41
Speaker 1: with an impalement with an indwelling object, that you have
16:44
Speaker 1: to leave it in. The reason is is that all
16:46
Speaker 1: those micro vessels that I mentioned just a moment ago
16:50
Speaker 1: are essentially, at least for the moment sealed, they're sealed off.
16:54
Speaker 1: They're not going to begin to really leak out at
16:57
Speaker 1: that point in time. But the moment you put your
16:59
Speaker 1: hand to that object and you withdraw it from the body,
17:03
Speaker 1: you open the floodgates. Literally. It's it's you have this
17:07
Speaker 1: huge dump of blood that goes into that plural space
17:10
Speaker 1: around the lung and any other organs that may have
17:13
Speaker 1: been penetrated. And what we do know is that, you know,
17:16
Speaker 1: the lung and the diaphragm, which has its own blood
17:20
Speaker 1: supply it's a muscle, and the liver we're all impacted
17:26
Speaker 1: by this injury, you know. And you can't forget about
17:28
Speaker 1: the liver here. The liver is very very vascular. A
17:31
Speaker 1: matter of fact, probably next to next to the brain.
17:34
Speaker 1: It's probably the most vascular organ in the body. That
17:37
Speaker 1: means that it requires a tremendous amount of blood flow.
17:40
Speaker 1: So you've got all kinds of little vessels that are
17:43
Speaker 1: in dwelling in there. And once that that corn raake
17:47
Speaker 1: was removed, suddenly at that moment time you had this
17:50
Speaker 1: flood of blood that was just filling her up inside.
17:55
Speaker 1: I find it kind of interesting that Todd Mullis described
17:59
Speaker 1: himself in one way as a quote unquote doer. You know,
18:02
Speaker 1: I'm I'm implied. I'm a man of action, you know,
18:05
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to do everything that I can't
18:08
Speaker 1: save my wife's life. And at that moment, tom uh
18:13
Speaker 1: he robbed her of any opportunity to live. Beyond that point,
18:16
Speaker 1: would it have been that Amy Mullus bled to death
18:22
Speaker 1: or that she drowned as we were talking about, with
18:25
Speaker 1: her lungs and body filling up with blood or is
18:28
Speaker 1: there a distinction there. It's more of a combination, you know,
18:33
Speaker 1: when you begin to look at you know the totality
18:36
Speaker 1: of these injuries, because they are extensive. Let's just take
18:41
Speaker 1: the lung for instance. It can no longer inflate, all right,
18:45
Speaker 1: it can't take on air, it can't expire, it can't
18:48
Speaker 1: push air out at that point in time. And going
18:51
Speaker 1: to that point, you've got a die forragim it's a
18:56
Speaker 1: big this big muscle which helps us with inhalation and
19:01
Speaker 1: exhalation as well. Well. It's compromised now too, isn't it.
19:04
Speaker 1: So it's not going to be able to perform. And
19:06
Speaker 1: then the liver, I think in this case it is
19:09
Speaker 1: probably secondary to the diaphragm and the lungs. Yeah, the
19:14
Speaker 1: liver is critical and you're bleeding out from that area.
19:16
Speaker 1: But in the immediate, in the acute sense, the fact
19:21
Speaker 1: that this lung has been damaged so desperately, the diaphragm
19:25
Speaker 1: has essentially been pinned down so that it can't rise
19:28
Speaker 1: and fall. Remember, it's got a metal object that's been
19:30
Speaker 1: driven through it. It's not going to be able to
19:33
Speaker 1: operate effectively. And so that coupled with this flood of
19:38
Speaker 1: blood internally, it's just a hellish combination here. And of
19:43
Speaker 1: course it's a recipe for death. As we mentioned before,
19:46
Speaker 1: doctor Kelly Cruz, who performed the autopsy on Amy's body,
19:50
Speaker 1: said the cause of death was sharp force injuries of
19:54
Speaker 1: the Torso so explained to me, actually what that means.
19:58
Speaker 1: I know you've gone over it a little bit before,
20:00
Speaker 1: But if I was a corner and I saw this
20:04
Speaker 1: listed cause of death, sharp force injuries of the torso,
20:08
Speaker 1: what does that actually tell me? Well, in this particular case,
20:13
Speaker 1: what she's drawing attention to specifically is you know, I
20:17
Speaker 1: think most people are gonna say sharp force injuries. You're
20:19
Speaker 1: talking about a knife or a machette, or even a
20:22
Speaker 1: sword in some cases, a hatchet where somebody's been hacked
20:25
Speaker 1: to death but she's saying short, sharp force injuries. And
20:29
Speaker 1: this goes to an actual description of this corn rak,
20:32
Speaker 1: and at an elemental level, it goes to the individual
20:34
Speaker 1: times Jackie, these times I encourage anybody here, don't believe
20:39
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, go look it up. You can see.
20:42
Speaker 1: You can see images of this corn rak all over
20:44
Speaker 1: the web. They've got very very sharp points there. They're
20:50
Speaker 1: in a delta shape. It comes to a point just
20:52
Speaker 1: like an arrow, essentially, and there's four of these things.
20:56
Speaker 1: And so when she's saying it, saying sharp force injury,
20:59
Speaker 1: these are being driven through her. And I guess the
21:02
Speaker 1: closest thing I could really compare it to like a spike,
21:05
Speaker 1: only four of them at the same time, with of
21:07
Speaker 1: course a smaller diameter, but like a spike nonetheless. And
21:11
Speaker 1: so these penetrative injuries that are driving forth or clipping
21:16
Speaker 1: all of these vessels and then doing great damage to
21:19
Speaker 1: all of these organs. At the same time, we know
21:21
Speaker 1: that Amy Mullis had had a medical procedure a few
21:25
Speaker 1: days before. The family members said that she had been
21:29
Speaker 1: dizzy a few days before. How did this play into
21:34
Speaker 1: her death or did it? You know? When I heard
21:39
Speaker 1: that they had put this idea for that she had
21:42
Speaker 1: had a medical procedure just a few days prior to you.
21:46
Speaker 1: You begin to try to factor all of this in
21:49
Speaker 1: relative to well, how does this impact impact these wounds
21:54
Speaker 1: that she may have had on her body. And I
21:56
Speaker 1: think one of the one of the narratives that was
21:59
Speaker 1: put forward by both Todd Mullis and of course Tristan
22:03
Speaker 1: had mentioned this too, is that Amy had complained of
22:07
Speaker 1: feeling dizzy and it was at that point in time
22:09
Speaker 1: that Mullis Todd Mullis had told had told her, you
22:14
Speaker 1: need to go into the house and rest, and this
22:18
Speaker 1: was as a result of this procedure she had undergone. However,
22:21
Speaker 1: I gotta say, Jackie, with how extensive these injuries were
22:26
Speaker 1: that she sustained, I don't care what your medical procedure
22:31
Speaker 1: was that you had had just a few days prior
22:33
Speaker 1: to this. These are without a team of cardiothoracic surgeons
22:38
Speaker 1: right there, and and the fact that this instrument had
22:42
Speaker 1: been removed from her, this injury would not have been
22:45
Speaker 1: survivable by the most healthy amoments. Now, you know, we
23:08
Speaker 1: talked about this corneraking relative to the kind of injuries
23:12
Speaker 1: that can generate and that's not the only interesting issue
23:17
Speaker 1: relative to this implement because I gotta tell you, as
23:21
Speaker 1: the forensic pathologists began to test file on the stand,
23:24
Speaker 1: we found out some pretty interesting information about the tracks
23:27
Speaker 1: of these wounds and also the number of them we
23:30
Speaker 1: did Joe, and that was part of what led to
23:33
Speaker 1: Todd Mullin's arrest for the murder of his wife. Joe,
23:37
Speaker 1: the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on Amy's body
23:43
Speaker 1: pointed out that there were six let me say that
23:46
Speaker 1: one more time, at least six punctured wounds in Amy's
23:52
Speaker 1: upper body. Yeah, isn't that something? And how many times
23:55
Speaker 1: do we have? Let me see mass hard but I
23:58
Speaker 1: think it was four. We had four times on this
24:02
Speaker 1: corn rate that they have admitted into evidence. And I'm sorry,
24:06
Speaker 1: a four time corn rate cannot make or generate six
24:10
Speaker 1: injuries in one blow. So it takes us down this
24:14
Speaker 1: trail here relative to the physical evidence that we have
24:18
Speaker 1: in what we're observing into morgue. You know, after the
24:22
Speaker 1: wounds have been cleaned up, everything that's been removed that
24:27
Speaker 1: might impede our ability to truly observe this these injuries
24:32
Speaker 1: as they should be observed and document them. After all
24:35
Speaker 1: that's been cleared away, we can actually appreciate that there
24:38
Speaker 1: are six different what we refer to as punk Tate injuries.
24:43
Speaker 1: That's a term that's used by forensic mythologists, punk tate
24:47
Speaker 1: injuries that essentially means puncture wounds that go through the
24:50
Speaker 1: body are into the body. And when doctor Cruz really
24:56
Speaker 1: really did a great job on the stand when she's
24:59
Speaker 1: described and these because the one thing she really brought
25:02
Speaker 1: out Jackie in this case was the fact that she
25:05
Speaker 1: could appreciate the fact that not only was miss Mullet
25:10
Speaker 1: struck once with this corn right, but apparently the corn
25:17
Speaker 1: rate based upon remember how we talked about trajectory earlier,
25:21
Speaker 1: in the path of these tides, it had been removed,
25:25
Speaker 1: the individual that wielded this instrument, readjusted their body in
25:29
Speaker 1: relation to Amy's body and struck again because you had
25:34
Speaker 1: two separate angles that these times are traveling through the
25:37
Speaker 1: body at now. You cannot physically sustain these kinds of
25:44
Speaker 1: injuries by simply falling on this corn rak one time.
25:48
Speaker 1: And I am not buying it that she suddenly got up,
25:54
Speaker 1: removed the corn rake and then laid it on the
25:57
Speaker 1: ground and then fell on it a second time. That's
26:00
Speaker 1: empirically impossible. You can't do that, certainly, judging by the
26:06
Speaker 1: nature of these injuries that she had sustained. And you know,
26:10
Speaker 1: I got to say kudos to the investigators on this
26:12
Speaker 1: case because they did something that many times you people
26:17
Speaker 1: fail to do, or it happens by accident when Amy
26:22
Speaker 1: Molliss's body or when she arrived at the emergency room.
26:26
Speaker 1: One of the things that takes place in an emergency room,
26:29
Speaker 1: particularly in trauma cases, is the emergency room staff is
26:34
Speaker 1: not there to preserve forensic evidence. Everybody needs to understand
26:37
Speaker 1: that they're there to do what they're there to save lives,
26:40
Speaker 1: and God bless them for doing that. So the one
26:43
Speaker 1: thing that they do is they whip out the scissors, right,
26:46
Speaker 1: and they start cutting clothes away. Unfortunately, in this case,
26:49
Speaker 1: they cut up the front of Amy Molliss's shirts that
26:54
Speaker 1: she had on too. Well, she had one shirt like
26:57
Speaker 1: a T shirt and then she had a sweatshirt on
26:59
Speaker 1: top of that. But they saved them, and that's important.
27:03
Speaker 1: It's very important because the corner for that county actually
27:08
Speaker 1: collected those items at the emergency room and brought those
27:12
Speaker 1: to the morgue. So that when doctor Cruz did her
27:15
Speaker 1: initial examination at autopsy, she was able to lay each
27:19
Speaker 1: one of these items of clothing out and closely examine
27:24
Speaker 1: them and make note of the little defects which are
27:27
Speaker 1: the punt tight holes that passed through the fabric, and
27:30
Speaker 1: try to match those up actually with the injuries to
27:34
Speaker 1: the flesh itself. And not only does she have one
27:38
Speaker 1: example of this, she's got two because we've got we
27:40
Speaker 1: have layered clothing at this point in time. So now
27:43
Speaker 1: just imagine you've got multiple punt tate injuries, not just
27:49
Speaker 1: to the flesh, but you've got it to a T
27:51
Speaker 1: shirt and you've got it to an overlying sweatshirt as well.
27:55
Speaker 1: And she was able to take images of these with scale,
27:59
Speaker 1: which means that you take a ruler and you place
28:01
Speaker 1: it adjacent to these openings in the clothing and over
28:04
Speaker 1: the wounds himself, and it gives you an idea of
28:06
Speaker 1: the depth. That gives you an idea of the breadth
28:09
Speaker 1: of these injuries. And so the people that are on
28:11
Speaker 1: the stand when they're looking at these things, they understand, oh, okay,
28:14
Speaker 1: the relationship between the corn rake and the distance between
28:19
Speaker 1: those times, and the relationship between that and the injuries
28:24
Speaker 1: on the body. They can see that it kind of
28:25
Speaker 1: marries up. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do this.
28:29
Speaker 1: It's very it's very logical as it's laid out, and
28:33
Speaker 1: doctor Cruz did a fine job of this. The clothing
28:36
Speaker 1: wasn't all that was saved for forensic examination, No, it wasn't.
28:41
Speaker 1: And we have to bear this in mind. Remember Amy
28:46
Speaker 1: Mollis's body was transported to the hospital by Todd Mollis.
28:51
Speaker 1: She's gone through all of these life saving measures where
28:55
Speaker 1: they've attempted to bring her back when when they got
29:00
Speaker 1: their hands on her at the emergency room, her clothing
29:02
Speaker 1: has been cut away at this point. And oh, by
29:04
Speaker 1: the way, the infamous corn rake, it was pulled out
29:08
Speaker 1: of everybody and it was left there at the scene.
29:10
Speaker 1: So as the police began to process this scene out there,
29:14
Speaker 1: and what they would have done is taken overall photographs
29:17
Speaker 1: of that corn rake in that little red shed in there.
29:20
Speaker 1: They would have taken it overall photos so that you
29:24
Speaker 1: could see the position of the rake itself in relation
29:28
Speaker 1: to all of the walls around there, any kind of
29:29
Speaker 1: blood droplets that are on the ground, the initial position
29:33
Speaker 1: in which they observed the rate. Remember, you're not supposed
29:36
Speaker 1: to touch it out there, you just leave it in
29:37
Speaker 1: place and take photos. But after they did that, Jackie,
29:40
Speaker 1: they collected this thing up and they brought it to
29:43
Speaker 1: the medical examiner's office so that the forensic pathologists could
29:47
Speaker 1: actually examine the instrumentality that was used. Now, you know,
29:52
Speaker 1: having worked in medical examiner's offices and Corners offices my
29:56
Speaker 1: entire career, this is one of the the greatest bits
30:01
Speaker 1: of assistance that we can receive from a crime scene,
30:04
Speaker 1: because you know, we're not always fortunate enough as medical
30:08
Speaker 1: legal personnel to go out to a scene, particularly if
30:11
Speaker 1: there's not a body there. So it's very abstract. Remember,
30:16
Speaker 1: the forensic pathologists was not out at the scene. She's
30:19
Speaker 1: taking in all of this information that's coming into her
30:23
Speaker 1: from the police and the emergency room staff and all
30:25
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. So the fact that they would
30:28
Speaker 1: bring this evidence into doctor Cruz's autopsy suite and allow
30:31
Speaker 1: her to examine not just the clothing and not just
30:35
Speaker 1: the body, but actually the implement that was used is priceless,
30:40
Speaker 1: Absolutely priceless. Okay, but what does that actually do for
30:43
Speaker 1: the forensic pathologist, Joe. I mean, you've got Obviously they've
30:47
Speaker 1: got to match things up. How do they do that?
30:50
Speaker 1: What does having this rake offer them that they normally
30:54
Speaker 1: wouldn't have. Well, you know, in forensic science we talk
30:57
Speaker 1: about things that are within the scientific realm of possibility. Okay,
31:02
Speaker 1: you know what's real and what's not. Is this even
31:05
Speaker 1: a possibility? And so you know, first off, the physician,
31:11
Speaker 1: I can only imagine she probably would have taken that
31:15
Speaker 1: corn rake and held it up on edge. Remember, this
31:18
Speaker 1: thing is at a ninety degree angle, is kind of
31:20
Speaker 1: odd in its shape, and she would have considered that
31:23
Speaker 1: by holding it over the injuries themselves to see is
31:27
Speaker 1: it possible that this implement could have generated these wounds?
31:32
Speaker 1: And it would have taken some time for her to
31:34
Speaker 1: have done this. In the autopsy suite, it probably a
31:38
Speaker 1: couple of hours. There would have been a lot of
31:40
Speaker 1: measurements that would have been taken place, and she would
31:43
Speaker 1: have considered this based upon the physical injuries that she's
31:48
Speaker 1: observing on Amy Mollis's back and then comparing that to
31:54
Speaker 1: the dimensions of the corn rake. Remember you're thinking about
31:57
Speaker 1: these times being maybe two to three inches in width.
31:59
Speaker 1: That means the distance that they are apart. And then
32:02
Speaker 1: the overall length of this thing and holding it in
32:06
Speaker 1: her hand, she can get an idea. It's very tactile.
32:10
Speaker 1: She gets an idea of the weight of this thing
32:12
Speaker 1: and what would it have taken. You know, And I,
32:15
Speaker 1: you know, when I consider this and I think about
32:17
Speaker 1: what happened to Amy Mullis, this is an event, at
32:22
Speaker 1: least in my to my way of thinking, that she
32:25
Speaker 1: was probably not driven down onto this thing as much
32:28
Speaker 1: as it was driven into her maybe as she was
32:31
Speaker 1: laying on her front or on the anterior aspect of
32:34
Speaker 1: her body and it was driven down into her back.
32:38
Speaker 1: Some of this can be evidence now. I think it was.
32:40
Speaker 1: One of the things that doctor Cruz the Friends of
32:43
Speaker 1: Pathologists brought out is that on the left aspect of
32:47
Speaker 1: Amy Mollis's face, along her left jawline, there was a
32:53
Speaker 1: severely abraided area almost consistent, almost consistent would say, her
33:00
Speaker 1: the left side of her head being driven into the ground,
33:04
Speaker 1: pressure being applied, almost as if she is being held
33:08
Speaker 1: in place as this is going on. Todd Mullis was
33:11
Speaker 1: a big man. He was a powerful man. There was
33:14
Speaker 1: also evidence, and I think this is kind of interesting
33:16
Speaker 1: as well as abrasions and contusions on the backs of
33:22
Speaker 1: Amy Mollis's hands and arms, So that gives you an
33:24
Speaker 1: idea that she had an awareness that she was maybe
33:28
Speaker 1: making an attempt to fight back in these ghastly sets
33:30
Speaker 1: of circumstances. What we found out during Todd Mollis's trial
33:35
Speaker 1: is that Amy Mullis was having an affair. And one
33:40
Speaker 1: of the things that Todd answered questions about when he
33:44
Speaker 1: took the stand was his Google searches on his iPad,
33:48
Speaker 1: which included phrases such as killing unfaithful women, what happened
33:52
Speaker 1: to cheating spouses in historic Aztec tribes? And did ancient
33:58
Speaker 1: cultures kill alls? Now, I know you're not a computer
34:02
Speaker 1: forensics person, Joe, but how did all of this information
34:07
Speaker 1: gathered together to come into Todd's conviction for murders. It's
34:13
Speaker 1: a perfect combination of physical evidence and circumstantial evidence, I mean,
34:17
Speaker 1: and it's for those in the forensic world, those of
34:22
Speaker 1: us that go out and gather evidence, whether it be
34:24
Speaker 1: digital evidence like on a phone or a computer or
34:29
Speaker 1: some other type of device, or if it is actually
34:32
Speaker 1: examining a body that's been just just traumatized beyond anything
34:39
Speaker 1: that someone can possibly imagine. It's the totality of all
34:43
Speaker 1: of that data coming together. So what and it's all dependent.
34:48
Speaker 1: None of that stuff works. And I want to say
34:50
Speaker 1: this plainly, none of that stuff works unless you have
34:52
Speaker 1: a good prosecutor. Because it's not the forensic pathologists, you know, job,
34:58
Speaker 1: it's not the digital forensics person's job to develop a
35:03
Speaker 1: narrative and tell the tale of what actually happened. That
35:07
Speaker 1: that's the responsibility of the prosecutor. They have to be
35:10
Speaker 1: sharp enough to take all of this data that we
35:14
Speaker 1: put together in our world, this big umbrella that we fall,
35:17
Speaker 1: you know, fall beneath in forensics, take all of that data,
35:21
Speaker 1: be sharp enough to take it and tell the tale
35:23
Speaker 1: of what actually happened. You know, remember there was in
35:27
Speaker 1: the end, you know, Todd Mullis wound up in jail.
35:30
Speaker 1: But in the end there were two witnesses to this
35:33
Speaker 1: actual event, and you know, Todd Mullis was one of them,
35:36
Speaker 1: and the other witnesses dead. Now, Todd Mullis was convicted
35:40
Speaker 1: for the murder of his wife and sentenced to life
35:44
Speaker 1: in prison. However, he still claims that he did not
35:49
Speaker 1: murder his wife. You sit back and you think about
35:53
Speaker 1: this farm that had you know, that had existed for
35:56
Speaker 1: years and years and years, and though I'm sure a
35:58
Speaker 1: little smelly because it was a dog farm, it's a
36:02
Speaker 1: Bucolic area, beautiful area of our country, and I don't
36:05
Speaker 1: think that anybody in that community will soon forget how
36:08
Speaker 1: brutal and horrible Amy Molliss's death was. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan,
36:20
Speaker 1: and this, this body backs