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BONUS: Surf-Dad Killer Stabs Tots Dead With Spear Gun: Autopsy · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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  Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories with
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  Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. I'm executive producer Jackie Howard. The story of
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  Speaker 1: Matthew Coleman and his two children has horrified the country.
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  Speaker 1: Matthew Coleman, the founder of Love Water Surfing School, and
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  Speaker 1: his family were intending to go camping, but Coleman took
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  Speaker 1: his two children and left without his wife. He ignored
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  Speaker 1: text and calls from her. She had to use the
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  Speaker 1: find my Phone function on her laptop to find out
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  Speaker 1: where Matthew Coleman had taken his children. They were in
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  Speaker 1: Rosa Rita, Mexico. That's a beach town about sixteen miles
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  Speaker 1: south of the border city of Tijuana. The children's bodies
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  Speaker 1: were found by a farm worker at a ranch in
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  Speaker 1: Baja California. They had been dumped in the brush. The
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  Speaker 1: little girl, ten month old Rocks, He had been shot
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  Speaker 1: twelve times. The boy, two year old Kalio, had been
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  Speaker 1: shot seventeen times, and the weapon of choice was a
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  Speaker 1: spear phishing gun. Matthew told agents that he had been
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  Speaker 1: receiving signs and visions that his wife was possessed by
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  Speaker 1: serpent DNA and had passed it on to his children.
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  Speaker 1: They were going to grow up to be monsters, so
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  Speaker 1: he had to kill them. Joining me today is Joe
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  Speaker 1: Scott Morgan, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University and
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  Speaker 1: author of Blood Beneath My Feet. Joe, first, let's talk
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  Speaker 1: about the weapon and what that weapon would do to
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  Speaker 1: a body. He used a spear fishing gun. What are
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  Speaker 1: we actually talking about. I don't know that I have ever,
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  Speaker 1: and I mean ever encountered a case like this. The
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  Speaker 1: level of brutality this, it's I think the only term
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  Speaker 1: I could really use is probably barbaric um. Because here
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  Speaker 1: you have a father that hash has been around spear
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  Speaker 1: fishing for a while. You know, he ran the surf school,
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  Speaker 1: and when they promote the surf school, it's not just surfing,
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  Speaker 1: they actually talk about spear fishing in the advertisement, So
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  Speaker 1: that gives you an indication that he knows how these
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  Speaker 1: how this device is actually utilized, and what it can
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  Speaker 1: actually do. Spear fishing is used to. I mean, people
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  Speaker 1: go out and hunt sharks underwater with these things. Jackie
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  Speaker 1: and they they operate on one of two ways, and
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  Speaker 1: it's kind of kind of interesting, at least from from
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  Speaker 1: a utility standpoint, they You can either have them that
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  Speaker 1: operate off of a slingshot based platform where you pull
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  Speaker 1: back the big rubber bands and they hook and then
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  Speaker 1: they go onto the bub The bolt is actually what
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  Speaker 1: you would think about as the arrow, and it slides
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  Speaker 1: down a rail, you aim it at, pull the trigger
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  Speaker 1: and you aim it at what you're shooting at, and
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  Speaker 1: then the spear shoots out. It goes into the side
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  Speaker 1: of the target. And what is really barbaric about this
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  Speaker 1: is that it does have a point on it, but
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  Speaker 1: it's also got these little fins sometimes that will deploy
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  Speaker 1: on the side, so that when you aim this thing
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  Speaker 1: and fire it into the target, if you try to
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  Speaker 1: pull it out, it hangs up on these fins that
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  Speaker 1: are deployed, so they're kind of spring loaded. The fact
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  Speaker 1: that he utilized this particular weapon is absolutely gruesome. Now
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  Speaker 1: there is another kind that works on compressed air, but
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  Speaker 1: it takes a long time to pump this thing up.
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  Speaker 1: My suspicion is this is probably rubber band operated, but
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  Speaker 1: you know, when you think about the number of times
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  Speaker 1: that he shot these kids, and yeah, it takes a
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  Speaker 1: long period of time to reload this thing because you
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  Speaker 1: have to pull back the rubber band, reinsert the bold,
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  Speaker 1: then aim it and fire it. He shot them over
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  Speaker 1: and over and over and over again. And when you
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  Speaker 1: look at this, this would not have happened quickly. This
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  Speaker 1: would have taken I would say, at least going through
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  Speaker 1: loading process. It would have taken him probably roughly about
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  Speaker 1: probably about twelve to fifteen minutes just to shoot one
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  Speaker 1: of these kids over and over again because it cycles
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  Speaker 1: so slowly. Well, now, that's if he indeed used the
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  Speaker 1: gun every time. Wouldn't it seem more likely that he
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  Speaker 1: did this manually if he did it once. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: we're still waiting to find out some of this information.
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  Speaker 1: But if let's say he did it the first time
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  Speaker 1: expecting the child to die immediately and the child didn't,
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't do you think it would be more likely that
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  Speaker 1: at that point that he started manually stabbing the child
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  Speaker 1: to have been able to stab them that many times.
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  Speaker 1: You know, this thought has crossed my mind as well,
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  Speaker 1: and it is possible. It's certainly possible. One of the
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  Speaker 1: problems that you encounter with this, if you're stabbing someone
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  Speaker 1: with one of these spears or bolts, to take this
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  Speaker 1: bolt and drive it into the body of these children
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  Speaker 1: over and over and over again, would give you an
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  Speaker 1: indication that potentially the bolt would have become deformed over
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  Speaker 1: a period of time because the shaft is not quite
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  Speaker 1: resilient enough to take that kind of pressure. So, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it does give us pause, doesn't it, And it raises
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  Speaker 1: to a whole new level the level of horror if
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  Speaker 1: we begin to think about that he would slowly reload
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  Speaker 1: this thing every single time and then fire it into
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  Speaker 1: the body, as opposed to standing over the body and
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  Speaker 1: drive the bolt over and over again. One of the
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  Speaker 1: things they're going to be looking for in this particular case,
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  Speaker 1: or these cases, since we have two children, is how
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  Speaker 1: closely concentrated these injuries are. Remember, a spear fishing gun
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  Speaker 1: is not like shooting a rifle where you can put
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  Speaker 1: the round actually in target very very tightly. It doesn't
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  Speaker 1: have rifling. It doesn't even have like little feathers like
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  Speaker 1: you see with an arrow on the back end of it.
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  Speaker 1: It has nothing like that to kind of guide it.
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  Speaker 1: So when you fire the spear fishing gun at something
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  Speaker 1: at a target, it actually spreads out over a large
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  Speaker 1: over a large area. You won't consistently hit the same
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  Speaker 1: area every time. If you're firing at a great distance
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  Speaker 1: or even at an intermediate distance. So if you have
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  Speaker 1: this highly concentrated area of these defects in the body,
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  Speaker 1: there's a higher likelihood that he probably stood directly over
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  Speaker 1: the bodies as they're laying on the ground, driving this
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  Speaker 1: bolt in and out of the bodies. Following up on that, Joe,
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  Speaker 1: knowing the difficulties in being that precise, what is the
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  Speaker 1: likelihood that the child died with the first shot? I
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  Speaker 1: would say if he was able to kill either one
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  Speaker 1: of these children with the first shot, it would be
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  Speaker 1: a miracle shot. It's not something that is going to
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  Speaker 1: happen immediately. It's not going to have the same ballistic
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  Speaker 1: effect as a bullet on target. That's so highly destructive,
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  Speaker 1: and a lot of that destruction that you get with
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  Speaker 1: a bullet has to do with the displacement of energy
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  Speaker 1: or the force that's behind the bullet when it can
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  Speaker 1: disrupt all sorts of things. But there is very little
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  Speaker 1: kinetic force with an arrow as it penetrates the body,
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  Speaker 1: so you're not going to get as much tissue disruption,
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  Speaker 1: but it's very very painful. So that goes to the
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  Speaker 1: mode here. If he sensed that the child was not
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  Speaker 1: dying immediately, I'm sure he would fly into into rage
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  Speaker 1: and then continue to stab the body over and over
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  Speaker 1: until the child was rendered deceased. But did he did it?
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  Speaker 1: But he did it to the two children, It would
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  Speaker 1: seem as though that one of the children would have
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  Speaker 1: at least given him an indication as to the lack
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  Speaker 1: of lethality, if you will, of the weapon itself, that
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  Speaker 1: you would need to do this more exacting. So why
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  Speaker 1: do you continue to use this weapon that you're not
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  Speaker 1: actually killing them with in the immediate Why would this happen?
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  Speaker 1: Why are there so many injuries to the body. So
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  Speaker 1: I think that it goes beyond just the utilization of
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  Speaker 1: the spear fishing weapon as an actual tool of homicide.
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  Speaker 1: It goes to something deeper. It goes to something darker.
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  Speaker 1: Remember this guy actually believed that his children were inhabited
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  Speaker 1: or that they were infused with of all things, serpent DNA.
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  Speaker 1: If this guy is thinking like this, maybe he sees
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  Speaker 1: himself as killing a beast of some kind. Maybe he's
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  Speaker 1: going head to head with Satan. For all we know,
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  Speaker 1: who knows what's going on inside this guy's mind. But
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  Speaker 1: I can tell you this he absolutely destroyed, I mean
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  Speaker 1: destroyed these little babies lives and their bodies, Joe. If
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  Speaker 1: they were not killed by the first blow that was
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  Speaker 1: struck to them by their father, or is there a
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  Speaker 1: way to tell which of those blows actually killed them? Well, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you know, thinking about which one of these shots or
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  Speaker 1: strikes or penetrative events was actually the lethal blow, it
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  Speaker 1: can be kind of hard to determine that. Obviously, if
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  Speaker 1: you have a penetrating wound that goes directly into the heart,
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  Speaker 1: that's going to be what we might refer to as
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  Speaker 1: a kill shot. But you know, the thing about it, Jackie,
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  Speaker 1: is that some people actually survive, actually survive for a time,
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  Speaker 1: even after being struck in heart with a bullet. There
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  Speaker 1: is some level of survivability, and that's with a tremendous
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  Speaker 1: amount of kinetic energy. When you have a bolt like this,
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  Speaker 1: it's just being driven in there. There's a chance that
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  Speaker 1: they could have survived for a few minutes. The trick
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  Speaker 1: is trying to determine how much hemorrhage is existing around
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  Speaker 1: some of these wounds, and that's one of the things
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  Speaker 1: that we do in forensic pathology and death investigation is
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  Speaker 1: that if we have a specific amount of hemorrhage that's
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  Speaker 1: involving one particular wound, we can get an idea as
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  Speaker 1: to what position or in what sequence these wounds may
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  Speaker 1: have occurred in And I'll give you for instance, if
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  Speaker 1: you've got a tremendous amount of bleeding that is connected
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  Speaker 1: with a particular wound, that gives you an indication that
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  Speaker 1: the person survived that wound for a while because they
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  Speaker 1: bled and hemorrhaged into that specific area. Now, when you
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  Speaker 1: get into post mortem injuries, which are injuries that occur
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  Speaker 1: after death, you'll literally have a whole or as we
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  Speaker 1: refer to it as a defect, that goes into the
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  Speaker 1: body and there won't be any associated hemorrhage. That means
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  Speaker 1: that you're striking dead tissue at that point in time,
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  Speaker 1: there's no longer blood flow in that area. So when
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  Speaker 1: the forensic pathologist does the exam on these bodies, that's
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  Speaker 1: one of the things they're going to be keen in on.
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  Speaker 1: You know how many of these injuries occurred in life
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  Speaker 1: and how many of them occurred in death, Joe. Because
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  Speaker 1: the bodies were found so quickly, very little decomposition would
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  Speaker 1: have happened. Yet, you know, Jackie. I think that one
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  Speaker 1: of the things that we need to focus on here
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  Speaker 1: is how long what type of tom fram are we
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  Speaker 1: talking about it? You know, because remember the wife has
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  Speaker 1: been tracking this guy by the movement of his cellular device,
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  Speaker 1: and how much time had kind of elapsed since he
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  Speaker 1: took the kids, he went to Mexico, he committed this
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  Speaker 1: horrific act, and then the children were found by this
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  Speaker 1: worker out and how did this orchard, of all places,
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  Speaker 1: From what we understand, there's not a lot of what
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  Speaker 1: we refer to as decompositional artifact, and that's kind of
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  Speaker 1: fancy words were saying how long they had been dead,
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  Speaker 1: and we gauge that by, you know, what changes have
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  Speaker 1: taken in place in the body after death. The fact
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  Speaker 1: that the bodies appeared to be, for lack of a
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  Speaker 1: better term, fresh dead. That's actually good from an investigative standpoint,
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  Speaker 1: because it means we're not losing evidence, and that means
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  Speaker 1: that they got to this in very short order. So
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  Speaker 1: you're not talking about like a body that's found in
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  Speaker 1: an arid region where we might have skeletal remains, or
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  Speaker 1: oh God forbid, that a wild animal would come by
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  Speaker 1: and begin to disrupt the bodies. None of that apparently happened.
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  Speaker 1: These kids had died a very short period of time
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  Speaker 1: prior to their bodies being found, and that is good
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  Speaker 1: for the investigation. Following up on one thing that you
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  Speaker 1: mentioned a minute ago, we do know that Matthew Coleman
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  Speaker 1: is being held at an undisclosed federal prison and he
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  Speaker 1: is undergoing a psychological evaluation where a psychiatrist is working
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  Speaker 1: to determine whether or not Coleman is fit to stand trial.
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  Speaker 1: I'm executive producer Jackie Howard, and this is Crime Stories.