Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Kidnapped, Beaten, Injected w Fentanyl, Dumped off Bridge - Who Killed Matthew Wh

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Kidnapped, Beaten, Injected w Fentanyl, Dumped off Bridge - Who Killed Matthew Wh · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:01
Speaker 1: Body bats with Joseph Scott Moore. When you're growing up
0:07
Speaker 1: and going into manhood. One of the things that at
0:10
Speaker 1: least I found myself doing through my I don't know,
0:15
Speaker 1: maturation process. It feels weird saying that connecting the word
0:21
Speaker 1: mature with me is it's a bit of a stretch. However,
0:27
Speaker 1: I would often ask myself, you know, just like mister
0:33
Speaker 1: Lebowski did in The Big Lebowski, Sir, what is a man?
0:39
Speaker 1: And I've thought about that, thought about that a lot.
0:41
Speaker 1: You know, what defines you as a man? And I
0:43
Speaker 1: think a lot of us think that being a man
0:46
Speaker 1: means that you have a certain amount of masculine power,
0:53
Speaker 1: that you can wield it at will, and that you
0:58
Speaker 1: have the ability to not only build, but to destroy.
1:03
Speaker 1: But you know, for me, it has always been the
1:07
Speaker 1: level of mercy and control I can give to others
1:11
Speaker 1: that I don't really know. Just think about that, just
1:15
Speaker 1: for a second. If you have the ability to literally
1:20
Speaker 1: crush someone that has some kind of deficit when compared
1:25
Speaker 1: to yourself, the measure of the man is to show mercy,
1:30
Speaker 1: to show grace, and maybe even give them hope. Today,
1:36
Speaker 1: we're going to discuss a case that might be one
1:38
Speaker 1: of the most sinister things I have come across in
1:40
Speaker 1: the news in sometime, and as I always say, that's
1:44
Speaker 1: saying a lot. But today we're there, my friends. Today
1:49
Speaker 1: I want to talk about a young man, a young
1:52
Speaker 1: man who has probably got some mental disabilities, that was
1:59
Speaker 1: at the mercy of not just one male notice I
2:02
Speaker 1: didn't say men, but two that chose to do one
2:07
Speaker 1: of the most horrific things that I've read about in
2:10
Speaker 1: sometime to this poor defenseless kid. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan,
2:19
Speaker 1: and this is bodybacks brother Dave. I was sickened by
2:26
Speaker 1: this when I read it. I use terms like plumbing
2:30
Speaker 1: the depths. You know that we can't take the measure
2:33
Speaker 1: of house of pravty has no basement. And I say
2:36
Speaker 1: those things all the time that wrote people get tired
2:39
Speaker 1: of hearing it. But I'm beginning to come up or
2:42
Speaker 1: I'm beginning to fail at coming up with other descriptors
2:45
Speaker 1: here other than right now, I think the only only
2:49
Speaker 1: word that really suffices is evil at this point in time.
2:53
Speaker 2: Here here is the Nightshell Gang, and this is what
2:55
Speaker 2: we're going to break down for you. Three males are
2:59
Speaker 2: charge with killing Matthew Wistman. Now Matthew was a man
3:05
Speaker 2: of he's twenty five. I had twenty four brother and
3:09
Speaker 2: he did graduate from high school in twenty eighteen. Matthew
3:13
Speaker 2: Wisman grew up to be a wonderful young man, very trusting.
3:18
Speaker 2: He trusted his cousins because they were his cousins. And
3:23
Speaker 2: even though they were mean to him. And when I
3:25
Speaker 2: say mean, I'm not just talking Joe about they played
3:28
Speaker 2: jokes on him and pryings on him, I'm talking about
3:30
Speaker 2: they were abusive towards him, physically, verbally, in any other
3:33
Speaker 2: way they possibly could. These cousins Alexander Wisman eighteen and
3:40
Speaker 2: Jeremy Absher twenty six. They're half brothers and first cousins
3:45
Speaker 2: of Matthew Wisman, the victim. The third man is a
3:50
Speaker 2: person named Stephen Gaddis. Stephen Gaddis is twenty eight, and
3:54
Speaker 2: he is not related to any of the other three.
3:59
Speaker 2: But Matthew Wissman went missing in April Joe but was
4:06
Speaker 2: not reported missing until July. That's part of the problem
4:11
Speaker 2: right off the bat. The other part of the problem
4:15
Speaker 2: is that during that time between April and July, there
4:18
Speaker 2: were a lot of stories being told about where he was.
4:22
Speaker 2: You know, where did Matthew go? Well, you know, he
4:26
Speaker 2: checked into the Water Street Rescue Mission in Lancaster. We're
4:29
Speaker 2: up in Pennsylvania, by the way, along the Pennsylvania Maryland
4:33
Speaker 2: border a lot of the time southern Pennsylvania. Someone dropped
4:36
Speaker 2: him off at a rehab facility in Philadelphia was another one.
4:39
Speaker 2: And then there was the third one. This third rumor
4:42
Speaker 2: that was circulating around was somebody jumped him and threw
4:46
Speaker 2: him off a cliff. Now, Joe, of all of the
4:51
Speaker 2: options here for rumors, option three was the closest to
4:55
Speaker 2: believe it or not. But it wasn't just someone. It
5:01
Speaker 2: was his two cousins and Steven Gaddis. What they did
5:07
Speaker 2: to Matthew Wisman is the stuff of nightmares and without reason. See,
5:13
Speaker 2: Matthew was aware of a drive by house shooting that
5:18
Speaker 2: took place. He knew that Stephen Gaddis did it, and
5:24
Speaker 2: police got Matthew Wisman to work with them, you know,
5:30
Speaker 2: to tell the truth Matthew. Now, Joe, I don't know
5:34
Speaker 2: the rules of law when it comes to this. I
5:36
Speaker 2: don't know if police can talk to somebody who is
5:42
Speaker 2: I don't know the rules, I guess, but Matthew Wisman
5:45
Speaker 2: at twenty four was working with police to solve this crime.
5:52
Speaker 2: You know, you shoot into a house, you shoot into
5:54
Speaker 2: an occified dwelling, you can kill somebody. It appams.
5:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I don't think there's any I don't think
6:01
Speaker 1: there's any legal proviso. If someone is an emancipated adult
6:08
Speaker 1: and you know that they've been deemed either by the
6:11
Speaker 1: state or you know, some medical facility that they can
6:15
Speaker 1: live independently, and there's nothing to say that he could
6:17
Speaker 1: not have lived independently. Yeah, uh he You know, look
6:22
Speaker 1: in in the public where there's nobody out there that
6:28
Speaker 1: is perfected. You know that you're going to come across
6:30
Speaker 1: on the street. Everybody has got some type of deficit. Okay,
6:34
Speaker 1: even the seemingly most healthy among us. All Right, it
6:38
Speaker 1: all depends on to what degree they are. Now, if
6:41
Speaker 1: the police were to take someone that they were, they'd
6:46
Speaker 1: have to be aware of it that they could leverage
6:48
Speaker 1: because of some kind of mental incapacity. I could see
6:51
Speaker 1: that there would be problems with that, but no, I
6:54
Speaker 1: don't think that it would. It would It would diminish,
7:02
Speaker 1: diminish their ability to cooperate and provide you know, provide
7:06
Speaker 1: legitimate information to them. I mean, we're talking about a
7:08
Speaker 1: shooting day, right, you know they're going to try to
7:10
Speaker 1: They're going to try You know, when you approach somebody
7:13
Speaker 1: on the street, if you're an investigator, it's not like
7:16
Speaker 1: there's been a battery of psychological tests and it's been
7:20
Speaker 1: done before you go in and say, maybe we have
7:21
Speaker 1: a conversation with you, right, you know, and you never
7:25
Speaker 1: know where those conversations are going to lead. Well, yeah,
7:27
Speaker 1: you know, somebody willfully gives up information. Man, that's a
7:30
Speaker 1: that's a nugget, dude.
7:32
Speaker 2: And Matthew did. And on his phone, Joe, there were
7:37
Speaker 2: text messages between Matthew and I'm assuming because they didn't
7:40
Speaker 2: say who, but I'm assuming it was the law enforcement
7:43
Speaker 2: of investigators, you know. And in these text messages, Matthew
7:47
Speaker 2: is sharing information. And it was those messages the idea
7:53
Speaker 2: that he was going to tell the truth that led
7:57
Speaker 2: to his demise. And I really, you know, you pointed
8:05
Speaker 2: out the depth of depravity, you know, and how far
8:07
Speaker 2: we go down. You got a twenty four year old man,
8:09
Speaker 2: Matthew Wisman, his cousins Alexander and At Wisman and Jeremy
8:14
Speaker 2: Absher and Stephen Gaddis, they're all together and they take
8:19
Speaker 2: Matthew's phone. Stephen Gaddis looks on the phone these text
8:23
Speaker 2: messages that Matthew is telling cops what happened, and that
8:27
Speaker 2: sets in action everything that we're going to tell you about.
8:30
Speaker 2: Now it begins with Matthew Wisman telling police the truth
8:35
Speaker 2: in text form. That's what's led to you.
8:38
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. So this goes back. Now, this goes back
8:41
Speaker 1: all the way to what is it January twenty fourth,
8:44
Speaker 1: the shooting took place in Maryland? Is that accurate? Yes?
8:48
Speaker 1: And he knew at that moment Tom that these or
8:51
Speaker 1: this one individual is connected to it. So this is
8:53
Speaker 1: not something that you know that, this is something that
8:57
Speaker 1: information he had held on to for some time. And
9:01
Speaker 1: you really wonder what's going on in the minds of
9:03
Speaker 1: individuals that, you know, is it festering in their brain
9:08
Speaker 1: the entire time because they're you know, you've got a
9:10
Speaker 1: perpetrator that has shot, has fired a weapon that is
9:13
Speaker 1: involved in a shooting, and is it festering, you know,
9:16
Speaker 1: is it festering right beneath the surface. But curious how
9:23
Speaker 1: the target you know for this is somebody it's not
9:26
Speaker 1: the most. It's not the strongest among us, right right,
9:29
Speaker 1: but it's the weakest, and they're probably seeing this young
9:33
Speaker 1: man as literally the weakest link. I really wonder how
9:38
Speaker 1: many other people were threatened along way that may have
9:40
Speaker 1: had knowledge of this. Dave.
9:42
Speaker 2: Oh wow, there's no telling based on what we know now,
9:46
Speaker 2: there's no telling. So you've got the shooting in January
9:49
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, you've got investigators in doing their thing,
9:53
Speaker 2: and here we are it's April, and they get they
9:57
Speaker 2: being the two cousins, and Gaddis get Matthew alone find
10:03
Speaker 2: out that he is telling police the truth that happens
10:06
Speaker 2: the first week of April. Okay, now, Joe.
10:09
Speaker 1: I think one of the big questions here, Dave, is
10:13
Speaker 1: if this poor young man is communicating on his phone
10:19
Speaker 1: and their text messages, how does one go about compelling
10:25
Speaker 1: said young man to open his phone and display what
10:30
Speaker 1: he has been talking about in confidence to the police.
10:34
Speaker 1: This is, in fact, where the story begins to take
10:38
Speaker 1: a very very brutal turn. You know, police investigators go
10:57
Speaker 1: to all kinds of links to take phones nowadays because
11:02
Speaker 1: they are you know, as well stated, they're crime scenes
11:07
Speaker 1: that exist in our pockets. I like to refer to
11:11
Speaker 1: to cell phones in that manner now, because they tell
11:13
Speaker 1: everything that we're doing, and they see everything, they hear everything,
11:20
Speaker 1: and they spend a lot of time. Cops spend a
11:22
Speaker 1: lot of time, you know, getting warrants and those sorts
11:24
Speaker 1: of things to get phones open. And how many of
11:27
Speaker 1: these cases have we covered over the years, you know,
11:31
Speaker 1: relative to you know, crime stories. You know that you
11:37
Speaker 1: and I both appear on where we're you know, we
11:40
Speaker 1: you know, it's almost like a race against the clock,
11:43
Speaker 1: you know, and they want to get to this data.
11:48
Speaker 1: But in this case, Dave, it would seem that no
11:52
Speaker 1: warrant was required because we're talking about police that are
11:55
Speaker 1: trying to elicit information. We're talking about really nefarious people
12:00
Speaker 1: here that are trying to extract information from this from
12:04
Speaker 1: this poor young man. Right.
12:05
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Matthew Wisman, our victim. He was at the
12:11
Speaker 2: East drun is it Drew Moore Township, Drummore? Yeah, okay,
12:16
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania. It's about sixty five miles out west of Philadelphia.
12:21
Speaker 2: That's where his cousins have been living. They're together On
12:23
Speaker 2: the night of April third, twenty twenty four, about three
12:26
Speaker 2: months after the shooting, into an occupied dwelling. Jeremy Absher
12:31
Speaker 2: and Stephen Gaddis get hold of Matthew's phone and they
12:34
Speaker 2: find a text message thread where Matthew Wisman indicates he's
12:39
Speaker 2: cooperating with police that are investigating Gaddis and the shooting
12:42
Speaker 2: of a house.
12:43
Speaker 1: Now.
12:44
Speaker 2: Pam Wisman is Matthew's mom, and she pointed out that
12:49
Speaker 2: Matthew has learning disability and even though he had been
12:52
Speaker 2: beaten mercilessly by his cousins in the past, he still
12:57
Speaker 2: trusted them. It's what my daughter had it calls goldfish,
13:01
Speaker 2: just being a goldfish being no matter what happens, blow
13:04
Speaker 2: it off, move on. If it's bad, just forget it
13:06
Speaker 2: and move on. That kind of thinking, and that's how
13:08
Speaker 2: Matthew went through life a lot. So on this night
13:12
Speaker 2: on April third, twenty twenty four, Stephen Gaddis and the
13:16
Speaker 2: two other men who are twenty five and seventeen at
13:18
Speaker 2: the time, drag Matthew Wissman into a bathroom and Joe
13:24
Speaker 2: they beat him senseless and then force him to take
13:30
Speaker 2: a shower to wash away any evidence have you ever
13:36
Speaker 2: heard of that.
13:38
Speaker 1: I've heard of victims being forced to take showers. Most
13:41
Speaker 1: of the time, though it's in relation to sexual sexual assaults.
13:47
Speaker 1: And you know, we could go down this road relative
13:49
Speaker 1: to individuals that sit there in very granular detail, telling
13:56
Speaker 1: the victims what areas of the body to wash, how
14:00
Speaker 1: to go about it, these sorts of things, taking their
14:02
Speaker 1: time to do it. However, in a standard beating, what
14:09
Speaker 1: we're going to do, wash off contusions, wash off abrasions.
14:14
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's that serves no purpose at the end.
14:22
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you could if he's bleeding profusely,
14:26
Speaker 1: which now, and I got to be honest with you,
14:28
Speaker 1: we will never know, you know, we we just want
14:31
Speaker 1: and we're going to tell you why in just second.
14:33
Speaker 1: But the lunacy of this unless unless there was some
14:40
Speaker 1: kind of other component involved here, And I go back
14:43
Speaker 1: to my earlier statement, because the only time I've ever
14:47
Speaker 1: heard about someone being forced to clean themselves at the
14:51
Speaker 1: hands of their attacker is in a sexual circumstance. Now,
14:56
Speaker 1: this gets really dark, darker if you can imagine, and
15:00
Speaker 1: it gets you know, that specter begins to raise its head,
15:03
Speaker 1: and I would think that that's a question investigators would ask,
15:08
Speaker 1: you know, what, you know, why would you require this
15:12
Speaker 1: young man to wash himself, because certainly, even you speaking
15:18
Speaker 1: to a suspect, even you understand that if you have
15:22
Speaker 1: bruises beneath your skin, it's not like you've written on
15:26
Speaker 1: your skin with a ballpoint pen. Dear heart, it's it
15:31
Speaker 1: doesn't it doesn't wash off. So what's your purpose in
15:35
Speaker 1: having him wash himself? I mean, are you thinking about
15:39
Speaker 1: becoming a DNA scientist? That's it, that's what you're doing.
15:42
Speaker 1: You're thinking contact DNA here? Aren't you touch DNA? Now?
15:46
Speaker 1: They're idiots, that's what they are. And so for whatever reason,
15:52
Speaker 1: they believe that by compelling the young man to wash
15:58
Speaker 1: himself that they're going to get rid of any kind
16:03
Speaker 1: of evidence there. I have a lot more questions just
16:06
Speaker 1: about this little piece of it, because I got to
16:08
Speaker 1: tell you, Dave, the cases I've covered, I've never heard
16:11
Speaker 1: of this so replause that it applause that there's something
16:16
Speaker 1: there's more depth here, or there's something else that's beneath
16:19
Speaker 1: the surface, if you will.
16:21
Speaker 2: That's what I was wondering. I was hoping you had
16:24
Speaker 2: a insight different than the only thing I'm thinking. But
16:28
Speaker 2: at any rate, they did this, and we know this
16:31
Speaker 2: because of the rest of the story. Gaddis after he
16:36
Speaker 2: takes the bath, after he's been beaten senseless. They then
16:42
Speaker 2: they all three take Matthew downstairs and they sit him
16:48
Speaker 2: at a table, and Gaddis leans down and tells Matthew whismin,
17:00
Speaker 2: how would you feel if it's your last supper? Sitting
17:07
Speaker 2: there looking at a meal in front of him, how'd
17:09
Speaker 2: you feel if it's your last supper? Matthew Wistman knew
17:13
Speaker 2: in that moment what was going to happen, because he
17:16
Speaker 2: started to weep.
17:19
Speaker 1: And excuse me, but just so that I understand, his
17:24
Speaker 1: own blood relatives are there, Yep, his person. They're bearing
17:29
Speaker 1: witness to this. Those that come from his own genetic
17:32
Speaker 1: pool are there. And let me here, here's one more
17:37
Speaker 1: if you like that one. They've probably been around this
17:41
Speaker 1: kid their entire life, like brothers. They know they understand
17:46
Speaker 1: his limits, if you will intellectually. But here you go,
17:51
Speaker 1: and here they are. You know, an absence of a
17:57
Speaker 1: bravery is glaring here. I think an absence of what
18:05
Speaker 1: it means to be a true man is here. Because
18:08
Speaker 1: you know, anybody can can go about killing those things
18:11
Speaker 1: that are defenseless, right it really, really, you know, takes
18:17
Speaker 1: someone that has the will, the free will to say no,
18:21
Speaker 1: I'm not going. Not only am I not going to participate,
18:24
Speaker 1: I'm not going to allow it to happen. But yet
18:26
Speaker 1: here we are and this this monster standing over this
18:31
Speaker 1: young man telling him this, and then he begins to weep,
18:36
Speaker 1: you know, and I think about that we're taping this
18:39
Speaker 1: literally during in the middle of Holy Week, and you know,
18:43
Speaker 1: I get to think, you know, it makes me think
18:44
Speaker 1: about the Last Supper, you know, and this kid understood,
18:49
Speaker 1: you know, what he was looking at. Let me tell
18:51
Speaker 1: you what else he understood. He understood that he knew
18:54
Speaker 1: this guy was already involved in a shooting, right he
18:57
Speaker 1: knows that this guy really has no boundaries. And boy
19:01
Speaker 1: did he ever find out that this is not the
19:06
Speaker 1: only degree to which he would go. It's not just
19:09
Speaker 1: a veil thread, is it? Dave? Oh Joe?
19:12
Speaker 2: After the Last Supper, Stephen Gaddis loads up two syringes
19:19
Speaker 2: with fencanyl and then the three men forced Wispman into
19:26
Speaker 2: a vehicle. Now, Joe, they inject him, I say they,
19:33
Speaker 2: but it's really Stephen Gaddis who injects Matthew Wisman with
19:38
Speaker 2: this lethal dose of fentanyl. He's already been beaten senseless. Remember,
19:44
Speaker 2: so he's got injuries, he's beaten to a pulp. He
19:48
Speaker 2: knows what's coming, he doesn't know how. But then he
19:50
Speaker 2: is injected. They hold him down, you know, on Stephen
19:54
Speaker 2: Gaddis's command, hold him down, pull up his shirt sleeve
19:58
Speaker 2: and jab needles into him him and shoot him full
20:01
Speaker 2: of fentanyl and then drag his body. They wait until
20:08
Speaker 2: he dies. He's got no pulse left. And by the way, Joe,
20:12
Speaker 2: is that when you know somebody's dead no pulse?
20:15
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, yeah, it's it's one of the seven
20:18
Speaker 1: cardinal signs of death. We've got seven of them, and
20:21
Speaker 1: that's at the top of the heat, lack of their pulseless,
20:25
Speaker 1: lack of respiration. I think I can go through the
20:28
Speaker 1: rest of them.
20:29
Speaker 2: But if you don't have repult, you can be brought back, right,
20:31
Speaker 2: I mean, if you well.
20:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you hear somebody that's that's standing there with
20:35
Speaker 1: a crash cart to make right and I think, but however,
20:39
Speaker 1: with fentanyl on board, it's a lost cause. You know,
20:43
Speaker 1: you can see the nose of the ship proverbally dipping
20:46
Speaker 1: beneath the surface. There's you know, check yourself here. All
20:50
Speaker 1: hope is lost at this point in time, there's no
20:52
Speaker 1: way you could actually bring them back from the edge.
20:56
Speaker 1: And and here's here's the thing, Dave. When you know,
20:59
Speaker 1: when when it is stated and the police have stated
21:02
Speaker 1: this that it was two syringes loaded up with fentanyl.
21:06
Speaker 1: That's very non specific, right, we don't know what the
21:10
Speaker 1: dosage was. But as you and I know, just with
21:14
Speaker 1: fentanyl alone, and this is obviously this has been put
21:17
Speaker 1: into some kind of liquid medium. Okay, we know that
21:25
Speaker 1: relative to lethal dosages of fentanyl. If you get you know,
21:30
Speaker 1: if you just take seven I think it's seven grains
21:33
Speaker 1: of salt, is it seven or six, that represents each
21:38
Speaker 1: one of those little grains represents in total a lethal
21:41
Speaker 1: dosage of fentanyl. That's how strong the stuff is. And
21:44
Speaker 1: this guy's got two syringes. Now we'll never actually know
21:47
Speaker 1: the actual dosage here, but you know, this is I
21:51
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know. Maybe they're rationalizing it in
21:53
Speaker 1: their brain that yeah, well we beat him up, so
21:56
Speaker 1: we're going to put him out of his misery. Oh
21:57
Speaker 1: and by the way, we're going to solve this problem
21:59
Speaker 1: that we have somebody that has a direct tie to
22:02
Speaker 1: the police. But out of all things, you could do.
22:06
Speaker 1: This would seem to be one of the glaring red
22:08
Speaker 1: flags that would put the police onto you, even with
22:13
Speaker 1: a heavier hand, because now your primary this is not
22:17
Speaker 1: like the movies, you know, where you think that, well,
22:21
Speaker 1: if we get rid of this guy that has rolled
22:23
Speaker 1: over on us to the cops, all of our problems
22:25
Speaker 1: are going to disappear. No, you've just called down hell
22:27
Speaker 1: upon you at that point in time, because now they're
22:31
Speaker 1: going to double their efforts because they know that this
22:33
Speaker 1: kid that they've whatever format, this quote unquote deal is
22:38
Speaker 1: whatever it takes. You know, they're going to now redouble
22:43
Speaker 1: what they were doing and they're going to put the pressure.
22:45
Speaker 1: So now it's not and it's not necessarily on the
22:48
Speaker 1: principle this goddess character. They're going to go after the
22:52
Speaker 1: two cousins now, and that's how they these all these
22:54
Speaker 1: things work. You know, we always hear Dave that one
22:57
Speaker 1: person can keep a secret, and that is that is
23:00
Speaker 1: God's honest truth. All Right, you get three, you get
23:04
Speaker 1: three people in a group, your chances are almost nil
23:08
Speaker 1: that you're going to be able to keep a secret
23:10
Speaker 1: like this, and particularly when it rises to the level
23:15
Speaker 1: of now an individual is not just involved in a
23:20
Speaker 1: shooting in Maryland. Okay, now they have involved themselves and
23:27
Speaker 1: sure enough homicide. And brother, it's not any kind of homicide.
23:32
Speaker 1: This is a torture homicide. This is a kidnapped homicide.
23:37
Speaker 1: This is a poison homicide that involves desecration of human
23:45
Speaker 1: remains and tampering with evidence. So after they inject this
24:08
Speaker 1: kid with what we believe were two boluses of fentanyl,
24:16
Speaker 1: remember they're saying that there were two syringes here, they
24:19
Speaker 1: inject this kid with this, and you know he would
24:22
Speaker 1: have slipped off pretty quickly into this almost Komoto state.
24:30
Speaker 1: They didn't take him out in a field and bear him,
24:35
Speaker 1: didn't drop him on the hospital ramp. They subjected him
24:39
Speaker 1: to nature. They went to a bridge, Dave, and this
24:42
Speaker 1: bridge goes over a creek, and this is in like
24:47
Speaker 1: far southeast Maryland and Pennsylvania, and push this young man's
24:55
Speaker 1: mortal remains over the edge of the bridge, hoping, I
24:59
Speaker 1: guess that no one would would ever find him, and
25:03
Speaker 1: deposited him there and then just got back in their
25:06
Speaker 1: car and drove off. Man.
25:08
Speaker 2: But now you mentioned something right before the break, Joe,
25:14
Speaker 2: and I kind of need to go back to it
25:16
Speaker 2: because I get you with conspiracy to commit murder, aggravated assault.
25:20
Speaker 2: We documented those kidnapping obviously, intimidation of a witness, because
25:25
Speaker 2: that's what started all of this. But did you say
25:28
Speaker 2: abuse of a corpse? Did you say something along those lines?
25:31
Speaker 1: I did, and I don't even know that those charges exist. However,
25:36
Speaker 1: in my mind, as an advocate for the dead, that
25:39
Speaker 1: you and I have taken this mantle on and we
25:40
Speaker 1: shall bear it for the length of the life of
25:43
Speaker 1: the show. These remains were desecrated. They were desecrated, they
25:51
Speaker 1: were abused because they are accepted things that we do
25:54
Speaker 1: that separate us from animals, the way we treat our dead,
25:58
Speaker 1: and this ain't one of them. Brother. You take this
26:02
Speaker 1: young man and you toss him over a guardrail on
26:06
Speaker 1: a bridge out in the middle of nowhere, and he subjected.
26:10
Speaker 1: He's got a mama back home. He's got a mama
26:14
Speaker 1: back home that loved him and had loved him since
26:18
Speaker 1: a moment he entered this world. And he had value.
26:22
Speaker 1: He had value. He had more value than three thugs
26:30
Speaker 1: that are just going to allow him to float his
26:33
Speaker 1: mortal remains float down this creek. Subjected to nature, to animals,
26:40
Speaker 1: to the blistering sun and have him decomposing there. That's
26:46
Speaker 1: just not the way it's done. It's not the way
26:48
Speaker 1: it's done an acceptable society. And I think that this
26:51
Speaker 1: really goes to the extent for me at least, you
26:56
Speaker 1: know you, death is a mirror. It's truly a mirror
27:00
Speaker 1: on our society. It shows the reflection of who we
27:03
Speaker 1: really are. And what I mean by that, the way
27:07
Speaker 1: we treat our dead, who are the least among us, okay,
27:13
Speaker 1: is a reflection of who we are as people. You know,
27:17
Speaker 1: they talk about that with prisoners and all that stuff.
27:19
Speaker 1: But when it gets down to it, and I know
27:21
Speaker 1: people will say off the cuff, well, the dead have
27:24
Speaker 1: no more problems. No, you're right, I guess they don't.
27:27
Speaker 1: We have a problem. We have a problem because we're
27:29
Speaker 1: incapable of honoring our dead, or certain groups of us are.
27:34
Speaker 1: And those individuals, to me, those are some of the
27:37
Speaker 1: most I don't know how to say it, they are
27:42
Speaker 1: some of the most rotten to the core individuals that
27:44
Speaker 1: you can possibly ever come across, because they'll go to
27:47
Speaker 1: any links just to save there on hide. And that's
27:51
Speaker 1: what this comes down to, is the ultimate in selfish behavior.
27:55
Speaker 1: And that's kind of an understatement any day.
27:58
Speaker 2: Well, they injected him with fentanel, caused his death and
28:02
Speaker 2: then throw his remains over the side of a bridge
28:05
Speaker 2: into the water and then gone like nothing happened. You know,
28:08
Speaker 2: that's he's So the thing is that Matthew Wistman goes missing. Okay,
28:14
Speaker 2: nobody knows where he is. Rumors start floating. As I
28:16
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, you know that he's been he's at a
28:19
Speaker 2: rescue mission, he's in rehab whatever, just things that are thrown
28:22
Speaker 2: out there. But finally his mother she's had her she's
28:26
Speaker 2: had her fill of excuses and stories about where her
28:30
Speaker 2: adult son is. And you know, when you're being told
28:33
Speaker 2: by cousins and you know, relatives where he is, you know,
28:36
Speaker 2: I think he's over here or there, you kind of
28:38
Speaker 2: believe it because you want to. But then at a
28:41
Speaker 2: certain point, a mama knows this is not normal. Three
28:44
Speaker 2: months is too long, and she no longer listening to
28:47
Speaker 2: the stories that are being told. She goes to the police.
28:50
Speaker 2: So already he's gone three months. We know he's in
28:53
Speaker 2: the creek, but she doesn't. Police begin the investigation, and
29:01
Speaker 2: I think they're able to get a good idea of
29:03
Speaker 2: what happened early on Joe based on who's involved here.
29:08
Speaker 2: You know, who were Matthew's friends, who are the people
29:11
Speaker 2: he hung out with. So police break them down and
29:18
Speaker 2: they find out what happened. They find out from Stephen Gaddis.
29:24
Speaker 2: He ends up over time telling the truth. But when
29:31
Speaker 2: the body of Matthew has found, it's August eighth. He's
29:39
Speaker 2: tossed into this creek in April. April. Third, Joe, what
29:45
Speaker 2: condition would a body be that had been injected with
29:51
Speaker 2: fentanel having been and I'm curious, does a beating before
29:56
Speaker 2: you before you die? Is that going to cause you
29:59
Speaker 2: to decomposed differently than if you were not beaten to
30:03
Speaker 2: a pulp before you.
30:04
Speaker 1: A excellent question. Yeah. The way it causes rapid development
30:11
Speaker 1: of decomposition is if there are any open wounds. Okay, okay,
30:16
Speaker 1: that's like it's like ringing the dinner bell, if you will,
30:20
Speaker 1: at a microbial level, and also at just from local fauna.
30:27
Speaker 1: And what I'm talking about is flies, because if you
30:30
Speaker 1: have open areas, like if you you know, and as
30:34
Speaker 1: we've talked about, I think we did a whole segment
30:36
Speaker 1: on we did an entire episode on blunt force trauma.
30:39
Speaker 1: If I haven't, we're going to. We did sont blunt
30:42
Speaker 1: force trauma. Crais laceration, So you're being beaten. That's more
30:45
Speaker 1: than likely the type of injury you're going to sustain
30:48
Speaker 1: that leads to an open woe. And if that's the case,
30:51
Speaker 1: then all the little nasties get into that open wound.
30:54
Speaker 1: The body is no longer intact okay, externally, and that
31:00
Speaker 1: can prompt early on set of decomposition, particularly in that
31:05
Speaker 1: specific area where the trauma took place. Okay. Now I
31:09
Speaker 1: don't know necessarily how far out that would extend, but
31:12
Speaker 1: it's going to increase probability. Now you have a body
31:17
Speaker 1: that's been placed in an aquatic environment. And by the way,
31:20
Speaker 1: this this body of water that that that he is
31:28
Speaker 1: placed into is actually called the kind of Wingo Creek
31:33
Speaker 1: And interestingly enough, it's not a very long creek and
31:36
Speaker 1: it rests entirely inside of Maryland. There's like a couple
31:40
Speaker 1: of little state roads across it. But guess what it
31:42
Speaker 1: dumps into. It dumps into this Susquehanna River, which is
31:45
Speaker 1: a major waterway, and you know, obviously that's that's going
31:50
Speaker 1: to be their their end game, you know, to get
31:53
Speaker 1: him into this major waterway, and that they would have
31:56
Speaker 1: been you know, fully aware of, you know, relative to
32:02
Speaker 1: relative to you know, having lived in that area, and
32:06
Speaker 1: of course you know the the Susquehanna actually feeds in
32:13
Speaker 1: to the Chesapeake, you know, and so then you get
32:16
Speaker 1: into that area. So you know, as crow flies, you're
32:20
Speaker 1: really not that far from Baltimore, you know, headed northbound, wow,
32:24
Speaker 1: you know, toward where this creek is. Maybe that was
32:27
Speaker 1: their end game. But along the way the body justin
32:32
Speaker 1: let's see, we're talking April, April, May, June, July, we're
32:36
Speaker 1: talking five months down range. The body is going to
32:40
Speaker 1: be in such a state that one of the big
32:44
Speaker 1: questions would be, I think, could you still appreciate the
32:46
Speaker 1: injuries that were perpetrated against him, you know in that
32:52
Speaker 1: house where he was beaten. Remember he's made to take
32:54
Speaker 1: the shower, all that sort of stuff. Maybe I would
33:00
Speaker 1: think it all depends on how over the top they
33:02
Speaker 1: were were their lacerations, which comes as a result of
33:07
Speaker 1: blunt force trauma potentially, but it's going to be very
33:12
Speaker 1: very difficult now if he sustained any kind of broken bones,
33:15
Speaker 1: Like did they kick him in the ribs, punch him
33:17
Speaker 1: in the ribs, Do they break his jaw, do they
33:18
Speaker 1: k not tooth out any of that kind of thing,
33:22
Speaker 1: Do they stomp on him anywhere? Yeah, you could still
33:25
Speaker 1: appreciate those breaks. Here's another thing, because you know the
33:28
Speaker 1: big obviously he did not die as a result of
33:32
Speaker 1: the of the beating, Okay, because what did they do?
33:35
Speaker 1: They said, well, after he was beaten, takes shower, right,
33:40
Speaker 1: whatever else went on, you know, adjacent to that beating.
33:46
Speaker 1: One of the things we'd look for with injections is
33:49
Speaker 1: something called NPWS, and nurses use this terminology all the time,
33:53
Speaker 1: and it's an abbreviation. We abbreviate a lot of things
33:55
Speaker 1: in medicine, So that stands for needle puncture wound. So
34:00
Speaker 1: if you're if you're jabbed with a needle, if it's fresh,
34:05
Speaker 1: we look and particularly with drug addicts that are injecting
34:08
Speaker 1: into their arms, we look for np w's by milking
34:12
Speaker 1: the arm. We start the very top by the shoulder
34:14
Speaker 1: and run our hand down very tightly down the length
34:16
Speaker 1: of the arm, and we look for little blood dots
34:19
Speaker 1: to appear. If there's a fresh np W, you're not
34:23
Speaker 1: going to have shot at that here you're you're you're
34:26
Speaker 1: not and even and even where we suspect these most
34:29
Speaker 1: of the time we'll do an incision into the nb
34:32
Speaker 1: W to see how far it extend.
34:36
Speaker 2: Now, I remember Thomas Nogucci talking about, you know, using
34:39
Speaker 2: that term the terminology to find the needle puncture wound
34:42
Speaker 2: on John Belushi.
34:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did, and he probably if I remember correctly.
34:49
Speaker 1: I wonder if he did it with Mari Lone Monroe
34:50
Speaker 1: as well, because he was that was when he was young,
34:53
Speaker 1: you know, and one of the things that people had
34:55
Speaker 1: talked about. I still think she was probably killed with
34:57
Speaker 1: the pository. But one thing you would look for also,
35:00
Speaker 1: you can do this with the ankles to uh, you know,
35:04
Speaker 1: just this is the same principle, you know, because people
35:07
Speaker 1: will inject in the ankles. Drug abusers will because you don't,
35:10
Speaker 1: you know, it's sound like you're going to see them
35:12
Speaker 1: if they're skin popping. I guess it'd be very hard
35:15
Speaker 1: to get a vein up, you know. But anyway, I'm digressing.
35:19
Speaker 1: It's just that's one of the things that we look for.
35:21
Speaker 1: And all this stuff is compromised now because we're five
35:24
Speaker 1: months down range, right and you've been subjected to summertime
35:28
Speaker 1: in an aquatic environment, and it's very very humid, and yes,
35:32
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania and Maryland get very very hot in summertime. Okay,
35:36
Speaker 1: So all of this is going on with the body,
35:38
Speaker 1: and the body is also bouncing off of rocks and
35:41
Speaker 1: anything else that's in the water. So it's being it's
35:43
Speaker 1: sustaining post mortem trauma. And so that's one that's one
35:50
Speaker 1: of the things that's at issue, you know, in this case.
35:53
Speaker 1: So you're heavily reliant upon eye witness testimony and if
35:58
Speaker 1: anyone is willing to cop to this, and Dave, I think,
36:01
Speaker 1: according to what you're saying, this individual did in fact
36:05
Speaker 1: roll over on this case studio.
36:07
Speaker 2: Thankfully, you know, I didn't think it would happen, but
36:10
Speaker 2: it did. Investigators just did a great job they were
36:12
Speaker 2: able to you know, mentioned earlier on who the suspects are. Okay,
36:17
Speaker 2: the suspects were two of Matthew Wisman's cousins, his first cousin,
36:21
Speaker 2: Alexander Wade Wisman eighteen years old, Jeremy Wayne Absuer. Another
36:27
Speaker 2: cousin at twenty six, Stephen gattis not related twenty eight.
36:31
Speaker 2: He seems to be the ringleader and once police, once
36:34
Speaker 2: they found his body police, meaning they were able to
36:39
Speaker 2: sit down and start the interview process and building a timeline.
36:43
Speaker 2: You know, where was Matthew They were able to determine
36:48
Speaker 2: by interviews with the suspects. Jeremy Absuer admits to certain
36:54
Speaker 2: details of what took place. During questioning to what happened
36:59
Speaker 2: to Matthew, Alexander Wisman confirmed that there was a plan
37:05
Speaker 2: to kill Matthew. The plan included using fentanyl and body disposal.
37:10
Speaker 2: Once they got those commitments from the two first cousins,
37:14
Speaker 2: they knew Gaddus. The investigators knew Gaddis was the key.
37:17
Speaker 2: They knew that without him none of this would have happened,
37:20
Speaker 2: and they ended up Joe again. Go back to April third,
37:26
Speaker 2: Matthew Wistman has given his last supper, beaten, be killed,
37:30
Speaker 2: tossed like nothing. His body is He's reported missing in July,
37:35
Speaker 2: body found in August. In October, they finally bring charges
37:39
Speaker 2: against all three suspects with murder, kidnapping, witness intimidation, and
37:43
Speaker 2: some other crimes that go along to it. And we've
37:47
Speaker 2: just now in the last days, gotten a guilty plea
37:54
Speaker 2: out of Stephen Gaddis Joe. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy
37:58
Speaker 2: to commit third degree murder, aggravated assault, kidnapping, and intimidation
38:03
Speaker 2: of a witness.
38:06
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know you know you in just a
38:11
Speaker 1: few minutes that we're talking about this young man's life.
38:13
Speaker 1: This is not some total of his life. And I'm
38:16
Speaker 1: talking about the victim. I don't care about the perpetrators. Yeah,
38:20
Speaker 1: this is not the sum total of his life. Somewhere
38:24
Speaker 1: along the way he brought joy. Somewhere along the way
38:29
Speaker 1: he brought happiness. Those are two different things. By the way,
38:35
Speaker 1: right now, I'm hoping that he is at peace as
38:42
Speaker 1: well as his mother. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this
38:50
Speaker 1: is Bodybacks