Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan:Trapped in a Suitcase - The Murder of Jorge Torres Jr.

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan:Trapped in a Suitcase - The Murder of Jorge Torres Jr. · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: You're listening to Body Bags on the Crime Online podcast Network.
0:05
Speaker 1: Subscribe to Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart,
0:11
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Body Bags with Joseph
0:24
Speaker 1: Scott Morgan. I love travel. That's something I've got to
0:35
Speaker 1: confess to you. I probably value now at this point
0:38
Speaker 1: in my life travel more than I do any kind
0:40
Speaker 1: of material possessions that I might have or have had
0:44
Speaker 1: at any one time in my life. My wife and
0:48
Speaker 1: I were ready to go to second's Notice, and as
0:52
Speaker 1: Tom has progressed, I carried less stuff with me. I
0:54
Speaker 1: find that I need less stuff. But with that said,
0:58
Speaker 1: I've got a got a particular bag. I like to use,
1:02
Speaker 1: a suitcase. It's generally the only thing I carry other
1:05
Speaker 1: than you know, maybe a book bag. And it took
1:09
Speaker 1: me some time to figure out which one I actually
1:11
Speaker 1: wanted for the purpose that I had to carry the
1:16
Speaker 1: stuff I needed. You know, Today on Bodybags, we're going
1:21
Speaker 1: to talk about a case that might be as troubling
1:25
Speaker 1: as anything that I have seen, a case involving a
1:30
Speaker 1: man who's closed up in a suitcase and loses his life.
1:37
Speaker 1: Today we're going to talk about the homicide of Horey
1:41
Speaker 1: Torre's junior. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body Bags. Wow.
1:54
Speaker 1: I watched a video recently that just chilled me to
1:59
Speaker 1: my apps lute core. I don't know in recent memory
2:02
Speaker 1: that I have seen anything like this, and it was
2:08
Speaker 1: I think at least the last throws of a man's
2:12
Speaker 1: life that died right before our eyes, or was in
2:17
Speaker 1: the middle of dying. Jackie Howard, my good friend, executive
2:22
Speaker 1: producer with Nancy Grace Crime Stories. Jackie, I don't know
2:25
Speaker 1: if you've seen this video. As my friend, I would
2:29
Speaker 1: prefer that you don't watch it, but I gotta tell
2:31
Speaker 1: you it is absolutely horrific. It is and unfortunately I
2:36
Speaker 1: have seen it, but I did cut it off. It
2:39
Speaker 1: was more than I really wanted to remember. It's one
2:43
Speaker 1: of those things you can't unsee or unhear. Jorge Torres,
2:48
Speaker 1: after a night of drinking with his girlfriend, was convinced
2:53
Speaker 1: that it would be funny to crawl inside a suitcase
2:57
Speaker 1: and be zipped inside, and that's what happened. Torres begged
3:04
Speaker 1: to be let out, but wasn't. His girlfriend recording it
3:08
Speaker 1: on her phone, laughing and Torres begging, crying out to
3:15
Speaker 1: be released, that he couldn't breathe, that he was having trouble.
3:19
Speaker 1: The girlfriend, Sarah Boone, went upstairs to bed, and the
3:24
Speaker 1: next morning woke up and Torres was still inside the
3:27
Speaker 1: suitcase and unresponsive. He died. What did he die? Up?
3:33
Speaker 1: Lack of oxygen? What is his cause of death? Yeah,
3:37
Speaker 1: in a words, it was lack of oxygen. But there's
3:41
Speaker 1: kind of a fine line, you know, when you begin
3:43
Speaker 1: to think about lack of auction. There's any number of
3:45
Speaker 1: ways that an individual can asphyxiate, and we certainly talked
3:49
Speaker 1: about quite a number of those over our episodes here
3:51
Speaker 1: on Bodybacks. You know, I think you know this is
3:55
Speaker 1: an asphyxial death. However, it's not in a classic sense
3:59
Speaker 1: where you begin to think about manual stringulation or ligature strangulation,
4:02
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. This is a unique type of
4:06
Speaker 1: death that is actually called positional asphyxia. And essentially what
4:12
Speaker 1: that means, I want everybody to kind of if you
4:16
Speaker 1: can take your arms and cross them across your chest
4:19
Speaker 1: and squeeze as tightly as you can and breathe in
4:24
Speaker 1: and breathe out, and continue to tighten every time you exhalate.
4:29
Speaker 1: That means the blow your air out, Tighten, tighten your
4:34
Speaker 1: arms across your chest even more every single time. And
4:39
Speaker 1: that is kind of what positional asphyxia is like. And
4:44
Speaker 1: the body or the decedent had to have been in
4:47
Speaker 1: a compromised position. And you know, we're talking about a suitcase.
4:51
Speaker 1: Everybody can imagine the dimensions of a larger suitcase. Remember,
4:54
Speaker 1: this is a grown man, so he has to fit within.
4:58
Speaker 1: It's a soft sided suit case that zips up, but
5:01
Speaker 1: still you have to fit within that space. And so
5:07
Speaker 1: every time he would breathe out, he would become more
5:11
Speaker 1: and more contracted in that space, particularly as he begins
5:14
Speaker 1: to panic. I don't know if you've ever had this
5:16
Speaker 1: happen when you were a small child, Jackie, but if
5:19
Speaker 1: you had older siblings or cousins and you guys were
5:22
Speaker 1: rough housing and you were kind of the person that
5:25
Speaker 1: was on the bottom on the floor, Yeah, like pickpile,
5:28
Speaker 1: you know they talk about a pickpile. And also if
5:30
Speaker 1: you if you have someone to get you in a
5:31
Speaker 1: bear hug, you know, and you begin to kind of
5:35
Speaker 1: have this chest compression that's going in. You're confined, and
5:38
Speaker 1: you can imagine the panic that sets in in this
5:42
Speaker 1: kind of circumstance. So, long story short, what they actually
5:46
Speaker 1: ruled his death as is asphyxia as a result of
5:50
Speaker 1: positional asphyxia. We've talked about positional asphyxiation related to hazing
5:57
Speaker 1: cases where for ernity, brothers have had a party and
6:03
Speaker 1: the pledges have been forced to drink a large amount
6:08
Speaker 1: of alcohol. They pass out or fall on the floor,
6:11
Speaker 1: and then they die from positional asphyxiation because they fall
6:18
Speaker 1: or slump over and then their lungs can't expand enough
6:25
Speaker 1: to breathe. So is that the same type of thing
6:28
Speaker 1: you're talking about here. Yeah, it's the same same principle.
6:31
Speaker 1: And generally there's some type of anebriation that is involved
6:36
Speaker 1: where an individual is either going to be anebriated or
6:40
Speaker 1: drunk on alcohol, or you might have drugs involved. And
6:42
Speaker 1: I got to tell you, over the course of my career,
6:46
Speaker 1: the most common that I encounter were actually heroin overdoses.
6:51
Speaker 1: And the reason is is that heroin has this sedative
6:56
Speaker 1: quality to it and it depresses the system. Alcohol to
7:00
Speaker 1: us as a system, but haroin in particular depressed as
7:03
Speaker 1: a system, and you become very drowsy, you know, and
7:07
Speaker 1: cases that I remember are people that would fix on
7:10
Speaker 1: a toilet, say, for instance, sit there and heat their
7:13
Speaker 1: you know, heat their bullets of heroin up drawed up
7:17
Speaker 1: and injected you know, into their arm where they have
7:20
Speaker 1: a tourniquet in place, and as they get drowsy, they
7:23
Speaker 1: fall off the toilet and slip between the toilet and
7:25
Speaker 1: the wall. Well, that's positional as fix it because first off,
7:29
Speaker 1: they're compromised at a toxicological perspective where they have this
7:34
Speaker 1: drug on board and they can't move and they're not
7:36
Speaker 1: aware that they need to move. And then just from
7:39
Speaker 1: a mechanical you know, like if you think about the
7:41
Speaker 1: autonomic nervous system that tells our hard to beat and
7:44
Speaker 1: all those things that we don't have to think about,
7:46
Speaker 1: the autonomic nervous system can't compensate for that. It can't
7:50
Speaker 1: tell you to breathe more rapidly or more shallow, or
7:54
Speaker 1: whatever the case might be. So you get in this
7:56
Speaker 1: compromised position, you can't uptake oxygen, and we know what happens.
8:00
Speaker 1: What happens is is that your brain begins to shut
8:02
Speaker 1: down because it's not receiving the volume of oxygen that
8:07
Speaker 1: is required. And what is the volume of oxygen that
8:10
Speaker 1: your brain requires. It has to be sufficient to the
8:14
Speaker 1: task at that particular time. The uptake of the oxygen
8:18
Speaker 1: has to it has to be counterbalanced with the amount
8:22
Speaker 1: of carbon dioxide that you have in your system, so
8:25
Speaker 1: you don't want to be for instance, there's this idea
8:28
Speaker 1: of rebreathing. For instance, if you're in a confined space,
8:32
Speaker 1: and I think that this may have happened to Hoorhey.
8:36
Speaker 1: When you're rebreathing, as you excelate, you're not blowing out oxygen, Okay,
8:40
Speaker 1: you're blowing out carbon dioxide. So there's an imbalance that
8:45
Speaker 1: occurs there, particularly if you're in a confined space like this.
8:49
Speaker 1: So your uptake of available air is primarily comprised of
8:54
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide, which is a waste product that's coming out
8:57
Speaker 1: of your body your rebreathing in that and so it
9:01
Speaker 1: gets out of balance with the oxygen and so the
9:03
Speaker 1: brain begins to scream because it's oxygen deprived. It is
9:08
Speaker 1: a case of oxygen deprivation. I gotta tell you there
9:12
Speaker 1: was a public service advertisement that used to come on,
9:16
Speaker 1: you know, way back when dinosaurs are on the Earth,
9:18
Speaker 1: and I was a little boy, and it really stuck
9:20
Speaker 1: with me, and I'm sure that some of our listeners
9:23
Speaker 1: have probably seen this, but there used to be a
9:26
Speaker 1: problem with kids playing hide and seek, and they would
9:30
Speaker 1: go and they would play hide and seek in vacant lots,
9:34
Speaker 1: and what they would do is crawling side of empty
9:38
Speaker 1: or indiscarded refrigerators and they would shut the door behind them.
9:42
Speaker 1: And you know, back then in those days, you had
9:45
Speaker 1: an exterior latch on the refrigerator, so you couldn't get out,
9:49
Speaker 1: and it's got this rubber gasket that seals it. So
9:52
Speaker 1: once all of that oxygen is gone in that tiny space.
9:57
Speaker 1: Remember the space within an area like a suitcase or
10:01
Speaker 1: refrigerator is not measured in square feet. It's measured in
10:06
Speaker 1: cubic inches, all right, So that's how much oxygen you have.
10:10
Speaker 1: It disappears very quickly as your body demands it, so
10:14
Speaker 1: that supply just is non existent essentially, So you're attempting
10:18
Speaker 1: to uptake something that's not there, and that that is
10:22
Speaker 1: there that you're bringing into your body is pure poison.
10:25
Speaker 1: What does the oxygen deprivation lack of oxygen due to
10:30
Speaker 1: your body. As you mentioned earlier, we've all either whether
10:33
Speaker 1: we're choking, playing with somebody and they've got to set
10:37
Speaker 1: a chokehold, and you're in a bad position and you
10:39
Speaker 1: can't breathe. We all know that panic about not being
10:43
Speaker 1: able to breathe, and you reference that earlier. But what
10:47
Speaker 1: does that lack of oxygen actually do to your body?
10:52
Speaker 1: It has to affect everything differently. I think that probably
10:57
Speaker 1: the most obvious response that you see if you're like,
11:01
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen anybody that's having like a panic
11:03
Speaker 1: attack where they can't control their breathing, they begin to
11:06
Speaker 1: shallow breathe, they get lightheaded, that sort of thing. Imagine
11:10
Speaker 1: that Tom's you know fifty if you're running out of auction.
11:14
Speaker 1: You know, with panic attacks, most of the time people
11:16
Speaker 1: are in a wide open space and they can breathe,
11:18
Speaker 1: there's auction available, but their mind has got them in
11:22
Speaker 1: such a state that they begin to panic and shallow breathe. Well,
11:27
Speaker 1: in the reality that Jorhe faced in this particular circumstance,
11:31
Speaker 1: he would have had this kind of primal response. Keep
11:34
Speaker 1: in mind, right above your kidneys, bilaterally, there are two glands,
11:39
Speaker 1: they're the adrenal glands, and they're sitting there and it's
11:42
Speaker 1: fight or flight, baby. And when that adrenaline starts to
11:46
Speaker 1: pump into your system. Your body is screaming out it
11:50
Speaker 1: needs to do something, It needs to do something superhuman
11:53
Speaker 1: in this particular instance. And the more you begin to panic,
11:57
Speaker 1: the more fuel you need. And if you think of
12:01
Speaker 1: oxygen as fuel, you're needing more and more of it
12:04
Speaker 1: in order to function and in order to increase strength, speed,
12:08
Speaker 1: all of those sorts of things. And can you imagine
12:11
Speaker 1: being inside of this thing and you can't get out,
12:15
Speaker 1: And he's fighting in this environment as best he can,
12:19
Speaker 1: struggling and with every turn of his body, with every
12:23
Speaker 1: shout because you can hear him, you know, on the videotape,
12:26
Speaker 1: every time he shouts out to his girlfriend, he's using
12:31
Speaker 1: available oxygen at that point in time, and he continues
12:34
Speaker 1: to shallow breathe. So the more shallow you breathe, the
12:38
Speaker 1: more oxygen you're burning through. At that point in time.
12:41
Speaker 1: There's probably going to be an associated terrible headache that
12:44
Speaker 1: comes along with this. Blood pressure is going to rise significantly,
12:49
Speaker 1: it's going to spike, and your lungs also will become
12:53
Speaker 1: markedly heavy. You'll have a fluid build up in your
12:56
Speaker 1: lungs as a response to this. So anything and everything
13:00
Speaker 1: that could go wrong in this particular circumstance from a
13:04
Speaker 1: physiological standpoint, goes wrong for your body if you have
13:09
Speaker 1: any chance of surviving. Let me tell you something. They'll
13:13
Speaker 1: have old black and white movies on television, or these
13:17
Speaker 1: film clips of people like Harry Houdini, you know, and
13:20
Speaker 1: they're they're bound up, or they're placed in a safe
13:23
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, and they they're attempting to get out.
13:26
Speaker 1: I can watch that and begin to panic. I don't
13:29
Speaker 1: like small spaces. And can you imagine if you don't
13:33
Speaker 1: like small spaces, suddenly finding yourself in this environment, and
13:37
Speaker 1: no matter what you do, how much you scream, how
13:39
Speaker 1: much you claw, you cannot free yourself from this prison
13:43
Speaker 1: as you found yourself in sudden But what does it
13:45
Speaker 1: actually do to your body? You touched a little bit
13:48
Speaker 1: on it? Your lungs get heavy. But we were talking
13:51
Speaker 1: about the brain. So when we have strangulation, we know
13:56
Speaker 1: that we get potiguie, we get blood vessels that burn.
14:00
Speaker 1: But when it's just lack of oxygen for what we're
14:04
Speaker 1: talking about here, does that do anything to the brain
14:08
Speaker 1: cells to shut it down? Yeah? It does, actually, and
14:12
Speaker 1: you will see there'll be sometimes you'll have a fluid
14:15
Speaker 1: build up with the brain to the brain will become
14:17
Speaker 1: more heavy, and sometimes it's not as appreciable as it
14:21
Speaker 1: is in the lungs, but you'll have this subsequent build up,
14:24
Speaker 1: a fluid congestion, if you will. And many times there
14:28
Speaker 1: have been cases of positional asphyxia as well, where you'll
14:32
Speaker 1: have PATIKII because the pressure is building up. You'll certainly
14:36
Speaker 1: see and here's something that many people might not know.
14:39
Speaker 1: We always talk about potichi over the mucous surfaces like
14:42
Speaker 1: in the eye, and you'll hear about it along the
14:45
Speaker 1: gum line too. We see it inside the lips and
14:48
Speaker 1: on the gum line itself. You know, relative to strangulation,
14:51
Speaker 1: do you know that you also get patiki on the
14:53
Speaker 1: surface of the lungs as well. There's so much pressure
14:56
Speaker 1: involved in this that you'll have these little vessels that
14:58
Speaker 1: will burst in what's called the interstitial tissue, and that's
15:03
Speaker 1: kind of the bit of tissue that is out away
15:06
Speaker 1: from the vessels. And because the vessels kind of leach
15:09
Speaker 1: out or they kind of burst, and then it spreads
15:12
Speaker 1: out into the interstitial tissue, you'll see those little focal
15:15
Speaker 1: areas of hemorrhage in there as well. So probably back
15:18
Speaker 1: to the brain. One of the things that you're going
15:20
Speaker 1: to see specifically is that there will be this congestion
15:23
Speaker 1: of the brain, and many times, Jackie, many times this
15:26
Speaker 1: will also lead to a seizure. Because the brain activity
15:30
Speaker 1: is so skewed at this point in time, the brain
15:33
Speaker 1: essentially goes into a shutdown itself and the individual will
15:38
Speaker 1: many times wind up having a fatal seizure. Do the
15:41
Speaker 1: brain cells explode or shrivel? I mean, I guess I'm
15:45
Speaker 1: trying to understand what it is about the lack of oxygen.
15:51
Speaker 1: I mean, we all know we have to have oxygen
15:53
Speaker 1: to survive, but how is it that the lack of
15:57
Speaker 1: oxygen just makes you die? I think that this is
16:01
Speaker 1: important to remember is that the brain, as we've touched
16:04
Speaker 1: on before, is the most vascular organ in the body.
16:07
Speaker 1: And what that means is that it has the most
16:10
Speaker 1: blood supply. Okay, so we have to ask ourselves this
16:14
Speaker 1: question why and hate why. But let's say, what is
16:19
Speaker 1: the purpose of this incredible blood supply that the brain has. Well,
16:25
Speaker 1: the answer to that question is the fact that it
16:27
Speaker 1: has a super demand for oxygen because of all of
16:30
Speaker 1: the functions that it carries out. So when you begin
16:35
Speaker 1: to think about why somebody would die as a result
16:39
Speaker 1: of say a seizure or the brain would get congested,
16:44
Speaker 1: just think about the fact that it is. In some people,
16:47
Speaker 1: some old timers, particularly relative to forensic pathology, they'll talk
16:51
Speaker 1: about strangulation of oxygen to the brain, and it's just
16:56
Speaker 1: kind of a euphemistic term that they're saying, and what
16:58
Speaker 1: they're meaning is that the brain itself has been depleted
17:03
Speaker 1: of oxygen many times and sometimes as well. And this
17:07
Speaker 1: is kind of fascinating from the standpoint of looking at
17:10
Speaker 1: the brain. What we refer to is grossly gross, not
17:13
Speaker 1: in the sense of, oh, that's gross, but grossly means
17:16
Speaker 1: with the unaided eye, like when you take a look
17:18
Speaker 1: at it after it's been removed at autopsy. The brain
17:22
Speaker 1: will be heavy because it's congested. But the other thing
17:25
Speaker 1: is is that it will have kind of a kind
17:29
Speaker 1: of a blanched appearance to it because of lack of
17:32
Speaker 1: oxygenated blood that has been going to it, So it'll
17:36
Speaker 1: have more of a pale appearance to it as opposed
17:39
Speaker 1: to the kind of healthy pink color that it has.
17:42
Speaker 1: You know, people talk about gray matter and white matter
17:44
Speaker 1: and all of that, and that is true. But the
17:48
Speaker 1: brain has kind of a pinkish hue to it, you know,
17:50
Speaker 1: when it's removed. And most of the time that's a
17:52
Speaker 1: sign of a healthy brain. But when you see one
17:54
Speaker 1: that has kind of got this kind of pale discoloration
17:57
Speaker 1: to it, it's one of the things that you have
17:59
Speaker 1: to think about relative of the oxygen supply. I'm an
18:19
Speaker 1: old army guy. The reason I was in the army
18:22
Speaker 1: is because I couldn't serve on a submarine. There is
18:26
Speaker 1: no way I think that that that service in particular
18:30
Speaker 1: is probably one of the bravest things anybody can do
18:33
Speaker 1: from my perspective, because it absolutely terrifies me. The idea
18:38
Speaker 1: of running out of oxygen. It sends a chill up
18:42
Speaker 1: and down my spine. And I have friends that were
18:44
Speaker 1: they like to call themselves sub mariners. That would never
18:47
Speaker 1: be for me, Jackie, well for me either. I was
18:51
Speaker 1: a lifeguard for many, many years, and you know, one
18:54
Speaker 1: of the things lifeguards like to do is work on
18:57
Speaker 1: how long they can hold their breath. But the idea
19:00
Speaker 1: of that I have caught myself while we're sitting here talking.
19:04
Speaker 1: I have called myself making a point to take deep
19:08
Speaker 1: breath simply because what you're saying to me is almost
19:12
Speaker 1: putting me into the panic mode that you were talking about.
19:16
Speaker 1: I mean, making myself consciously take deep breaths, so I
19:20
Speaker 1: can imagine if I really couldn't breathe, what kind of
19:24
Speaker 1: a panic I would be in. Don't worry about that.
19:26
Speaker 1: Your autonomic nervous system is going to take care of that.
19:29
Speaker 1: You're going to continue to breathe. We're gonna make it
19:31
Speaker 1: through this, I promise you. That's good to know. It's
19:34
Speaker 1: absolutely terrifying, and I can't emphasize that enough. And that's
19:38
Speaker 1: what grabbed me about this case and the reason I
19:40
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about it. It's not that often, I
19:43
Speaker 1: think in forensics that you come across something like this
19:46
Speaker 1: because it's so unique, it's so unusual. There have been
19:49
Speaker 1: cases over the years, I think, where people have famously
19:53
Speaker 1: been kidnapped, for instance, and you know they've been placed
19:56
Speaker 1: into a coffin alive, for instance, and kidnapper will say, listen,
20:01
Speaker 1: we'll tell you where the person is if you give
20:03
Speaker 1: us the money, and that sort of thing, and again,
20:06
Speaker 1: my blood pressure begins to go up at that point.
20:09
Speaker 1: It's absolutely terrifying. And I think that that's what struck
20:12
Speaker 1: me with this case. Because there's so much going on
20:14
Speaker 1: physiologically in the case of Hore Torres Junior, you begin
20:18
Speaker 1: to think about we know that he was essentially zipped
20:23
Speaker 1: up in this suitcase, but here's something interesting. And you know,
20:28
Speaker 1: we talked about oxygen deprivation, we talked about positional asphyxia.
20:32
Speaker 1: But here's something that I haven't mentioned yet. Contained within
20:37
Speaker 1: the suitcase where this man was held essentially by his
20:42
Speaker 1: girlfriend allegedly were other items. And the police have not
20:46
Speaker 1: released information yet regarding what those items were, but I'll
20:50
Speaker 1: put it to you this way. What they've said is
20:53
Speaker 1: that these other so called items that were found in
20:57
Speaker 1: the suitcase, these things were going to be donated, you know,
20:59
Speaker 1: like into Goodwill or Salvation Army or one of these places,
21:04
Speaker 1: and the suitcase was just kind of sitting there waiting
21:07
Speaker 1: to be hauled away. And the fact that he was
21:11
Speaker 1: placed in there, not just in this space that's obviously
21:15
Speaker 1: very tight and very contained, he was placed in there
21:17
Speaker 1: with other objects. So you've got a couple of things
21:20
Speaker 1: working here. First off, if you're trying to move your
21:24
Speaker 1: body into a position where maybe you can breathe a
21:28
Speaker 1: little bit better. That ability is going to be impeded
21:31
Speaker 1: greatly by whatever items that are in there. And just
21:35
Speaker 1: like I mentioned earlier relative to ice boxes and refrigerators
21:40
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing, those spaces are measured in
21:44
Speaker 1: cubic inches, very tiny spaces. Well, this space is as well.
21:48
Speaker 1: So for every item just do the math here for
21:52
Speaker 1: every item that you have contained in the same space
21:55
Speaker 1: with Jorge, that is going to be less of a
22:01
Speaker 1: space that oxygen can actually occupy. And just let that
22:06
Speaker 1: sink in just for a second, because now now you're
22:11
Speaker 1: talking about a condition called oxygen displacement, which means you
22:16
Speaker 1: have other things in the same space that are taking
22:19
Speaker 1: up space and the fact that it's so tight anyway,
22:23
Speaker 1: and he would have been struggling. I find that absolutely
22:26
Speaker 1: fascinating and dependent upon the level of rigidity of these items, say,
22:31
Speaker 1: for instances, say it's a couple of candlesticks or I
22:34
Speaker 1: don't know what's in there, a couple of candlesticks, maybe
22:36
Speaker 1: a few old toys. If these things are rigid, and
22:39
Speaker 1: can you imagine the pain that would be associated with that,
22:42
Speaker 1: in addition to trying to move and being in this
22:45
Speaker 1: already highly agitated state. It again adds another layer of
22:51
Speaker 1: terror to this. Well, let me add on to what
22:54
Speaker 1: you're talking about, Sarah Boon. Her body weight would have
23:01
Speaker 1: even further lessened his space to breathe in and his
23:06
Speaker 1: ability to breathe. Well, here we go. We've got another
23:09
Speaker 1: type of asphyxia to talk about now, because now, wow,
23:12
Speaker 1: how many are we up to? Now? Now you're we're
23:15
Speaker 1: talking about something called compression asphyxia. Compression and positional or
23:21
Speaker 1: not the same thing. No, it's not, it is not.
23:24
Speaker 1: People can say that it is, I suppose, but they're
23:28
Speaker 1: they're kind of delineated generally, if you think about positional asphyxia,
23:32
Speaker 1: most of the time folks will think about somebody that
23:37
Speaker 1: is in a contracted position and they're unable to kind
23:41
Speaker 1: of extend their body to the point where they can breathe. Say,
23:45
Speaker 1: for instance, like like mister Torres, if you're in a
23:49
Speaker 1: fetal position, which we would have to assume that he
23:52
Speaker 1: probably was, with his knees drawn up, his back curled
23:55
Speaker 1: almost in a tortoiselike you know, posture, arms tucked perhaps
24:00
Speaker 1: in front of him. That's a positional event, okay, and
24:04
Speaker 1: you can't extricate yourself from that. Now, that is different
24:11
Speaker 1: than compressionist fix Ill remember how I mentioned earlier, You know,
24:15
Speaker 1: when we're kids and we're playing around and whatnot, and
24:17
Speaker 1: wrestling and whatnot. If people are familiar and down here
24:21
Speaker 1: in the South, we use a term called pickpile, where
24:24
Speaker 1: if you're the smallest one, you're on the bottom, and
24:27
Speaker 1: you've got all of these people kind of stacking up
24:29
Speaker 1: on top of everybody's joking around except for the person
24:32
Speaker 1: on the bottom, of course, and you're panicking. Well, the
24:34
Speaker 1: more weight you apply, the less of an opportunity your
24:39
Speaker 1: chest has to expand. So let's just say, and this
24:43
Speaker 1: is kind of torturous when you think about it, Let's
24:46
Speaker 1: just say that for ten seconds, she allegedly goes over
24:51
Speaker 1: to the surface of the suitcase and sits on top
24:55
Speaker 1: of it, with mister Torres contained beneath her. As she's
24:59
Speaker 1: sitting there, and she's teasing him, she's taunting him perhaps,
25:03
Speaker 1: and all the while maybe she's bouncing up and down. Well,
25:06
Speaker 1: every time she moves down, you know, and gravity is
25:10
Speaker 1: going to draw her down or draw her weight down
25:12
Speaker 1: or on him. That's going to tighten that space. But
25:15
Speaker 1: then when she stands up let this sink in. When
25:18
Speaker 1: she stands up, his chest can re expand at that point, okay,
25:23
Speaker 1: and maybe he thinks that it's over. Maybe he thinks
25:26
Speaker 1: that he's about to get out, and all of a
25:28
Speaker 1: sudden he starts breathing in normally or as normally as
25:30
Speaker 1: he can the space, and then all of a sudden
25:32
Speaker 1: she sits back down and kind of this continuous, repetitious
25:36
Speaker 1: event like this, it kind of sneaks over into the
25:41
Speaker 1: area of torture, because this is something that you might see,
25:45
Speaker 1: for instance, in a situation, say with a torture event
25:49
Speaker 1: from the medieval times, where they're tightening some kind of
25:53
Speaker 1: encasement upon you. Famously, there was the fellow in the
25:57
Speaker 1: during the Salem witch trials that he famously said because
26:02
Speaker 1: he would not confess to being a witch, and they
26:04
Speaker 1: would pile stones on him to try to get him
26:06
Speaker 1: to confess. And the last words he ever uttered as
26:09
Speaker 1: they were putting more and more weight on him was
26:12
Speaker 1: he said, more weight because he would not confess. And
26:16
Speaker 1: so that is compressionistphyxia. The more weight that you have
26:19
Speaker 1: on you, the less you have as far as a
26:22
Speaker 1: capacity for your lungs to expand. And that again adds
26:26
Speaker 1: another layer to this that's absolutely horrific. How much does
26:30
Speaker 1: your size play into how much weight that you could
26:36
Speaker 1: hold in that you would still be able to breathe,
26:39
Speaker 1: that you'd still have room. When we breathe in there's
26:43
Speaker 1: two types of breathing. Whether people realize it or not,
26:46
Speaker 1: you have chest breathing and diaphragm breathing. When you're a
26:50
Speaker 1: singer or you're a public speaker, you breathe from the
26:53
Speaker 1: diaphragm because it gives you greater wind volume. When your
26:58
Speaker 1: lungs expand inside your chest, they don't have a lot
27:01
Speaker 1: of room, but there still is some room. So how
27:05
Speaker 1: much does your chest have to be compressed or unable
27:09
Speaker 1: to expand for this type of asphyxiation to happen. I
27:14
Speaker 1: think that it would take a pretty detailed study in
27:17
Speaker 1: order to come up with a specific number. But let's
27:21
Speaker 1: just kind of begin to factor it like this. You
27:24
Speaker 1: begin to think, you know, the larger the person you are.
27:27
Speaker 1: First off, a large person is not going to be
27:30
Speaker 1: able to fit inside of that suitcase. To begin with,
27:34
Speaker 1: I'm making no bones about it. I got a fifty
27:36
Speaker 1: inch chest and so there's no way I could fit
27:39
Speaker 1: inside of that suitcase. Okay, there's no way a smaller
27:44
Speaker 1: person might could. And a lot of it's going to
27:47
Speaker 1: have to deal with your muscle density, how much oxygen
27:52
Speaker 1: your muscles require, and how much muscle you have on you. Also,
27:57
Speaker 1: are you compromised at all physiologically. Let's say, for instance,
28:00
Speaker 1: that mister Torres was a smoker. For instance, his lung
28:04
Speaker 1: capacity is going to be diminished as a result of this,
28:07
Speaker 1: so he's he's not going to have the ability to
28:10
Speaker 1: respire like many people might. For instance. It would be
28:14
Speaker 1: very difficult to actually get an accurate measurement on that though.
28:19
Speaker 1: But when you begin to couple that with also this
28:23
Speaker 1: kind of specter that's lingering in the background. In this case,
28:26
Speaker 1: these people were both inebriated, they had both been drinking,
28:31
Speaker 1: and she admits that they had knocked off a bottle
28:35
Speaker 1: of chardonnay that night, and so alcohol is going to
28:38
Speaker 1: play a factor in this as well. Well, that was
28:40
Speaker 1: my next question, Joe, how much does alcohol play into this,
28:47
Speaker 1: impacting his ability to breathe? We know it is a depressant.
28:52
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, Jackie, it is a depressant. And obviously
28:56
Speaker 1: we've seen people that have been been drunk and they've
28:59
Speaker 1: become violent. You know, I've certainly witnessed the end result
29:02
Speaker 1: of that many times on cases i've worked. It doesn't
29:05
Speaker 1: necessarily make everybody go to sleep. I've got, you know,
29:08
Speaker 1: friends that will say, well, all it takes from me
29:10
Speaker 1: is one class of wine. I'm passed out in the corner.
29:13
Speaker 1: And I'll have other friends that will say, well, you know,
29:15
Speaker 1: don't don't put any tequila near me. I'm going to
29:18
Speaker 1: wind up ripping the place apart. But it is a depressant,
29:22
Speaker 1: and it does impact the lungs and your ability as
29:25
Speaker 1: a result of the impact of the alcohol to uptake oxygen,
29:29
Speaker 1: and it will compromise your ability to breathe. So when
29:32
Speaker 1: you couple that with this kind of compromised physical condition
29:37
Speaker 1: that you're in, and then you introduce this into your system,
29:42
Speaker 1: and right now, this is kind of what we're waiting
29:45
Speaker 1: on right now. But right now we don't know what
29:48
Speaker 1: his blood alcohol level is. And you know, I tried
29:52
Speaker 1: listening to this tape as as little as i as
29:55
Speaker 1: I possibly could, but I had to go back and
29:57
Speaker 1: listen to it, and you know, his voice, it's sounds
30:00
Speaker 1: very shaky and kind of slurred, not. I had to think, well,
30:05
Speaker 1: am I hearing this because he's running out of oxygen?
30:09
Speaker 1: Or am I hearing this because he's inebriated, or is
30:12
Speaker 1: it a combination of both. I think that it's probably
30:14
Speaker 1: a combination of both. But the combination of the alcohol
30:19
Speaker 1: along with compromised physical positioning in this case, it is
30:23
Speaker 1: absolutely a recipe for death. There are certain cases I
30:46
Speaker 1: remember from my time as an investigator where I did,
30:50
Speaker 1: in fact find bodies in suitcases. But most of the
30:55
Speaker 1: time when I found bodies in suitcases, they were not
30:58
Speaker 1: completely integrated. As a matter of fact, most of the
31:01
Speaker 1: time they had been dismembered. And in this particular case,
31:06
Speaker 1: I cannot imagine what the medical examiner investigator's reaction was
31:12
Speaker 1: when they showed up the scene and you've got a
31:13
Speaker 1: full grown man folded up inside of a suitcase. Because
31:20
Speaker 1: we had a full grown man inside a suitcase, he
31:23
Speaker 1: had some other injuries. What were those injuries and were
31:27
Speaker 1: they caused by him trying to get out of the
31:32
Speaker 1: suitcase since nobody was going to let him out. When
31:35
Speaker 1: I heard that he had injuries on his body, that
31:38
Speaker 1: was the first thing I'm thinking about, you know, because
31:40
Speaker 1: I've always got this, you know, going back to this
31:43
Speaker 1: idea of being closed spaces and how horrible this is.
31:47
Speaker 1: You begin to think about, you know, tales of people
31:50
Speaker 1: trying to scratch their way out of being buried alive
31:52
Speaker 1: in coffins and all that sort of thing. You'd see
31:54
Speaker 1: broken nails and nail marks everywhere. That's not what we're
31:59
Speaker 1: talking about here, That is not We have to go
32:02
Speaker 1: back and remember this is not like a hard sided suitcase.
32:08
Speaker 1: This is a soft suitcase. Okay, it's it's made out
32:11
Speaker 1: of fabric of some type, and it's some kind of
32:15
Speaker 1: man made woven fabric, manufactured fabric. And you begin to think, well,
32:22
Speaker 1: how did he get bruises on him? Because they're talking
32:25
Speaker 1: about and they use this term specifically, they say that
32:29
Speaker 1: he has sustained blunt force trauma. And anytime you hear that,
32:33
Speaker 1: you've got a couple of things that you can consider.
32:35
Speaker 1: Either these are defensive wounds where somebody's in a fight
32:39
Speaker 1: and they're throwing their hands up or trying to get
32:42
Speaker 1: somebody off of them. Maybe they've been struck by an
32:45
Speaker 1: item in that sense kind of in a defensive posture,
32:48
Speaker 1: or they're on the receiving end of being pummeled. Remember,
32:53
Speaker 1: he had been in there for some time. Who Lord
32:56
Speaker 1: only knows what else could have happened to him once
33:00
Speaker 1: he was in there. I don't think that you know
33:02
Speaker 1: the entirety of his encapsulation and seeing was videotape. Obviously
33:07
Speaker 1: it was. At a matter of fact, it cuts off
33:09
Speaker 1: very suddenly. He's got blunt force trauma. And it is
33:12
Speaker 1: within reason, it is within reason that he could have
33:16
Speaker 1: sustained blunt force trauma at the hand of someone literally
33:21
Speaker 1: pummeling him through this soft sided luggage. And you think
33:26
Speaker 1: about this man is begging for his life. You can
33:28
Speaker 1: hear him on the videotape. He's begging for his life.
33:32
Speaker 1: He's crying out, he's asking for mercy. He's referring to
33:36
Speaker 1: Miss Boone, continues to refer to Miss Boone as babe,
33:40
Speaker 1: a term of affection. Babe, please let me out. I
33:43
Speaker 1: can't breathe. I can't breathe. And he's actually verbalizing the
33:46
Speaker 1: fact that he cannot breathe. He has an awareness that
33:49
Speaker 1: he cannot breathe. Let that sink in just for a second.
33:53
Speaker 1: This guy knows he's running out of oxygen. Even in
33:56
Speaker 1: an inebriated state. He knows that he's running out of oxygen.
34:00
Speaker 1: But yet, you know, you can hear in the video
34:03
Speaker 1: which sounds like her, that she continues to taunt, and
34:08
Speaker 1: so you wonder, you know, well, how how did he
34:10
Speaker 1: come about the blunt force trauma? Was it again part
34:14
Speaker 1: and parcel of this kind of terrorizing him As he's
34:17
Speaker 1: encased inside of this soft sided bag, it is not
34:22
Speaker 1: beyond reason to think that you could either be punched
34:26
Speaker 1: through the bag or stomped on or bounced upon. And
34:29
Speaker 1: keep in mind, he's tightly pressed to the floor even
34:32
Speaker 1: though he's contained in his bag. If he has any
34:34
Speaker 1: space whatsoever, you might have maybe what's referred to as
34:38
Speaker 1: a coup or contract coup injury, where you have been
34:41
Speaker 1: struck in the head on one side and the energy
34:44
Speaker 1: kind of travels through the brain, that energy travels to
34:47
Speaker 1: the other side of the skull, and you might have
34:49
Speaker 1: a concurrent area of hemorrhage on the opposite side of
34:52
Speaker 1: the head from where you are actually struck. It's kind
34:55
Speaker 1: of a fascinating manifestation, but we don't know that at
34:58
Speaker 1: this point in time. But that kind of thing can
35:00
Speaker 1: happen in this environment. And so again it's going to
35:04
Speaker 1: be interesting to hear the forensic pathologists talk about this
35:07
Speaker 1: at trial is coming up in November. Sarah Moon at
35:10
Speaker 1: one point told police that Torres had been able to
35:14
Speaker 1: stick two fingers out of the suitcase, so she thought
35:18
Speaker 1: he'd have no problems getting himself free. And I was
35:21
Speaker 1: thinking myself that as many times as I've used zipper
35:24
Speaker 1: in clothes, they fail often. So wouldn't you think that
35:31
Speaker 1: it should have been or would have been easy to
35:34
Speaker 1: get out of the suitcase? Joe, Yeah, and there would
35:37
Speaker 1: be evidence of that. I would think if the zipper
35:40
Speaker 1: were in fact off of the track, they would closely
35:43
Speaker 1: examine that zipper and you know, see if it marrys
35:48
Speaker 1: up with the statement that you've given. The problem is,
35:50
Speaker 1: according to the police, is that she's given a number
35:53
Speaker 1: of statements and some of the stuff that she says
35:56
Speaker 1: contradicts previous statements. And so look, this is the bottom line,
36:02
Speaker 1: is that the science is going to win out. You
36:05
Speaker 1: know when they examine the suitcase. One of the things
36:07
Speaker 1: that they would have closely examined when they finally got
36:10
Speaker 1: the suitcase opened up is what condition was his body in?
36:15
Speaker 1: And you know, we've talked about injuries and all that
36:16
Speaker 1: sort of thing. But what I'm talking about is the
36:19
Speaker 1: changes after death. Our currency in medical legal death investigation
36:24
Speaker 1: is time. That is our currencies, as they say, it's
36:27
Speaker 1: the coin of rental. We try to match things up
36:30
Speaker 1: with timelines that we're given, or we try to create
36:34
Speaker 1: or not create. We try to assess a timeline based
36:37
Speaker 1: upon what the science is telling us, and so depended
36:40
Speaker 1: upon his level of rigidity in his body rigor mortis,
36:44
Speaker 1: the settling of blood puts vunerable avidity, and certainly his
36:47
Speaker 1: body temperature, that's going to tell us a lot. Now,
36:50
Speaker 1: I think the body temperature will probably be skewed because
36:53
Speaker 1: he's in this kind of contained, closed up area, So
36:56
Speaker 1: I don't know that you would necessarily get a true reading,
37:00
Speaker 1: but I think that the level of riger mortis is
37:03
Speaker 1: going to be key here. And you know how rigid
37:05
Speaker 1: he was at this particular time when they found him,
37:08
Speaker 1: Because here's kind of an interesting little aside they are saying.
37:13
Speaker 1: They are actually saying that they believe that mister Torres
37:16
Speaker 1: was in there for possibly eleven hours. We know from
37:21
Speaker 1: police reports that this couple had a history of domestic violence. Yeah,
37:26
Speaker 1: going back for some time, there have been visits by
37:30
Speaker 1: the authority out to that location as a result of
37:33
Speaker 1: fights that were going on at the residence. When you
37:36
Speaker 1: begin to put all of this together and you think
37:39
Speaker 1: about what's going to come out at trial relative to
37:42
Speaker 1: their history, I think that probably the prosecution more than
37:45
Speaker 1: likely we'll talk about this and if this is something
37:48
Speaker 1: else that can kind of be featured in this and
37:51
Speaker 1: defense might use this too. If remember, in any kind
37:54
Speaker 1: of domestic violence event, if someone has caused a bruise
37:59
Speaker 1: on someone or has drawn blood, guess what the police do.
38:04
Speaker 1: They take photographs of that, and it'll be interesting to
38:08
Speaker 1: see if those types of photographs exist from previous events,
38:11
Speaker 1: and if they are, if they're going to be admitted
38:13
Speaker 1: into court, and we'll be able to kind of see
38:17
Speaker 1: do a side by side comparison. Did she sustain any
38:20
Speaker 1: kind of injuries in the past, maybe at the hands
38:22
Speaker 1: of mister Torres, or conversely, did she have a history
38:25
Speaker 1: of striking him and maybe when they call the cops,
38:28
Speaker 1: cops like, you know, how'd you get that shiner? Man?
38:31
Speaker 1: You know, why is it? Did you have a bruise
38:32
Speaker 1: on your neck? And if those photos exist, and you'll
38:35
Speaker 1: see those in court as well, If in fact, they
38:38
Speaker 1: are admitted into evidence. Sarah Boone's trial, as you said Joe,
38:42
Speaker 1: is expected to get underway in November again. She has
38:46
Speaker 1: been charged with Torres' death. She has not been convicted.
38:51
Speaker 1: Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Joseph Scott Morgan and
39:01
Speaker 1: his body bags