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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: From Manson Family Murders to Beheadings - Truth About Sharp Force In · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Quody diamonds, but Joseph's gotten more. It was a really
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: cold morning. Matter of fact, folks around town said that
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: there would be ice that day. It was the morning
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: of January the thirtieth, sixteen forty nine, and the Head
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: of State, the King of England, walked across the banqueting
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: floor in the main chamber at the Banqueting House, part
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: of Whitehall Palace in London, literally right down the road
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: from present day Parlament. It wasn't a normal strawl. He
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: was walking to a window, and outside of that window
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: there had been built a scaffold, and as he stepped
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: through the window, the cold wind cut through. He had
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: asked for extra clothing that morning so that the crowd
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: could not see him shivering, because he didn't want to
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: give the impression that he was afraid. For a moment,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: he looked out over the crowd. He knew that the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: crowd was so vast they'd never hear what he would
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: have to say. He looked at the two attendants and
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the executioner told them that he was not guilty of
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: the charges of which he had been found guilty of.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: And then he turned to the executioner and says when
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I kneel down and lay my head on the block,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I'm going to pray, and when I extend my arms,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: that will be your signal to swing the axe. In
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: that one moment, Europe changed. Europe changed because it was
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: viewed that all power derived from God through their sovereign.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: And as Charles's head rolled over the surface of that scaffold,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: the executioner, wearing a homemade mask and a wig, picked
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: it up, displayed it to the crowd, and then tossed
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: it to them. In that one moment, a simple tool
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: was used of a heading axe weighted on one side blunt,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: but on the other side a crescent shaped blade razor
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: sharp had cut through the neck of the Sovereign of England.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Today we're going to learn a bit more about sharp
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: force injuries and people die as a result of them
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: every day, not just my mid arcs. I'm Joseph Scott
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Morgan and this is Bodybags. I tried to find the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Banqueting House many times. I finally found it when I
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: was walking down the streets of London day because I'd
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: heard the story for years and years. A Man for
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: All Seasons. If you've ever seen that movie, Richard Harris
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and Let's see what's his name. Alec Guinnis played the
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: King powerful movie. There was another generation of it that
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: came out with Tim Roth playing the part of Oliver Cromwell.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Can't remember who the king was, but I'd heard about
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: it for years and years. I'd seen the movies and
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: it was a seminal time. But you know, Dave, over
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: a long period of time in Europe, heads were rolling
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: off everywhere, you know, all the way up you know,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: through the French Revolution, they became i think, dis settled
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: over the guillotine for a very short period of time
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: and then reinstituted it as a humane way of bringing
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: about death.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Okay, it seems like it's a pretty humane way, you know,
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: the guillotine. Okay, look, you know it's coming, Lay your
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: head down, pop, it's over.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And to me it does. I think it's
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the spectacle of it all. And as a matter of fact,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: if you go and search last guillotine execution in France,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: there is an image and it's real grainy that pops up.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: A photograph was taken in a courtyard of the last
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: guy to be executed by guillotine in the nineteen twenties. Wow,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: And yeah, you can see the length of his body
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: and he's like laying on a board because they you
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: have to kind of, you know, shimmy up this and
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: lay there. And I don't know if they you know,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: some images I've seen show them strapping you down to
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: this thing and whatnot. But yeah, the head would pop
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: right off and you've got this delivery of energy that
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: transfers from that back weighted blade to that fine thin
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: edge that has been honed down so that it's razor
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: sharp and it passes right through the tissue and the
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: bone and the musculature. But you know, that's that's an
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: example of what we would call an incized injury. It's
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: not a stab wound, obviously, and it's not a punctural wound,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: that's for sure. And sharp force injuries coming up in
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: a variety of of of styles. I guess you would say, uh,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: and you can you can arrive at them with any
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: number of instruments that are out there.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: But going back to the guillotine, because you know, we
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: did an entire episode on and putting people to death,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: you know, and I don't understand that I'm missing something here.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: You know, we have the putting them to sleep thing
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: with chemicals, right, and we've got people fighting over that.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: One's inhumane. And then we've got the gunshot where we
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: had the guys miss you know, I'm firing squad. It
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: seems like, I mean, really, was there ever a failure
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: where the guillotine didn't actually chop the dude's head off.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know about the guillotine, however, there were several
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: failures relative to what we'll refer to as long swords.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: If you go back in time, like during the time
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: of Elizabeth and I urge anybody if you've Buckingham Palace
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: is all cool and everything, but if you're going to
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: go to one royal spot in Great Britain in London,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: rather make sure that you go to the Tower of London.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Because you say the Tower of London, you think it's
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: a standalone tower. It's not. It's a palace. And in
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the courtyard there you know where the famous ravens are
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: that have had their wings clipped, and the beef eaters,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: the soldiers retired soldiers that walk around in those really cool,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: odd looking uniforms. It's still an active part of the
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: royal family. And that's where executions were taking place. As
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: a matter of fact, where they took place, I think,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: if memory serves me correctly, almost all of Henry the
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Eights wives were killed there, and including Anne Boleyn. Their bodies,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: as it turned out, were actually buried in the chapel
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: that's adjacent. We've been in the chapel and have seen
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: that area. And back then during that period of time,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: they used long swords and there was like a severe
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: punishment for an executioner that did not that did not
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: do their task, uh, to the point where it was
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: a death that was met quickly.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: And one one of the things that's interesting about blade
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: executions is that with axes, axes and blades in Great
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Britain in particular, those types of executions were considered to
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: be swift and painless, and they were held they were
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: they were set aside for those individuals that were of rank,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: that were nobility. The rest of everybody would be you know, uh,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: hung or drawn quartered and hung, which if you've ever
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: seen Brave Heart, there's a description of that. You can
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: see the ending scene with mel Gibson, you know, uh,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: being essentially cut into small pieces.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Not much of that movie was historically based, but that
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: part was actually true. Uh, So you know, it's been
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: an evolution. It's been an evolution of these events over
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: a long period of time. And going back to the
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: executions with long swords in Great Britain, Dave the they
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: didn't use during the time of Elizabeth and Henry Dais.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: They didn't use English swordsmen. They actually employed French swordsmen
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: that would come over and do the execution because they
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: were considered to be better at it.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Kind of crazy when you start thinking about being better
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: at being a swordsman for cutting up ahead. You know,
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: it seems like something my son, my grandson, Braylan would
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: probably be pretty good at it.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, wielding wielding that sword. I can't imagine
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: that it that it would be very fulfilling work. As
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: a matter of fact, with Charles first, Uh, they had
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to find somebody else to do it because you know,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: this idea that all power derived from God for the
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: head of state, no pun intended, and the executioners refused
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: to do it because they felt as though that the
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: individual that they would be killing was appointed by God,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: and so they There's been a lot of stories. No
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: one actually knows who the executioners were, but there was
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: an executioner and an assistant and they actually were paid
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: one hundred pounds in order to do this, and one
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: hundred pounds during that period of time was a monumental
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: fee to do this. But you have to understand whoever
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: decided to wield that sword did it, you know, under
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: penalty of pain that could come about at any moment
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: in time. They themselves could be killed by loyalists to
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the royal family. They would be known, their families would
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: be known for years and years to come. So kind
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: of an interesting, interesting turn. But for me, when I
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: began as a death investigator, I think that some of
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: the most fascinating cases that I ever worked, Dave came
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: about as a result of sharp force injuries. And not
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: all sharp force injuries are ruled as as homicides. You know,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: we think about sharp force, we think about individuals that
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: are being stabbed and cut and all these sorts of things.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: And yeah, there's tons of those. Knives in particular, are
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: easy to get your hands on, people can carry them,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: they're easily concealed. But for the most part, you know,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I had a lot of self inflicted injuries using knives
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: slashing of wrist, that sort of thing. I had one
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: guy that cut his throat with a straight razor to
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: take his own life. And then I've had tons of
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: accidental deaths that involved sharp force or penetrating injuries. I've
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: had people that have been run over by lawnmowers, had
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: their feet cut off, and bled to death. One case
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: in particular involved a guy that got caught up in
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: the prop of a boat. Until you have seen those
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: kinds of injuries, you can't really appreciate how horrific a
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: sharp force injury is, the way it literally, the mechanical
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: nature of it, the way it chews up a body.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And even if you had had with that guy with
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: a prop injury, even if you had had a team
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: of surgeons standing by, I don't think that his life
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: would have been salvagable. It's important to understand that with
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: sharp force injuries, you you come away with an appreciation
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: that probably in cases of homicides next to next to
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: firearms related deaths, Dave, I'd have to say that sharp
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: force injuries are the number two. They're number two when
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: it comes to committing murder. And again it goes it
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: goes to this idea you know that we've talked about
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: over you know, years now that many deaths are are
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: rooted in some kind of relational thing. And when you
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: have domestic events that occur in particular and you've got
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: a kitchen, they're looking for access an opportunity, and one
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: of the you know, kind of fallback positions is I'm
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: going to go get the kitchen knife and I'm going
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: to go to work, and that's what happens many times.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: Wow, you know, Joe.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: One of the things about using a knife that petrifies me,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: it's not would not be my go to weapon, is
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: because of the idea of slipping, you know, like and
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: we have this all the time in stories we cover
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: where the person using the knife, unless they're experienced with them,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: they cut themselves. And knowing how bloody scenes get when
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: you've got cuts going on, that'd be my one big
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: pay if you are not wearing gloves your hands slipping
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: on that knife.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, there's a the nature of blood for me,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: at least because I've had this happen in The Mork,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: you know, utilizing scalpels and even needles. I've cut myself
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: multiple times in The Mork over the yearly. Yeah, I've
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: stabbed myself with needles. I've you know, and terrifying, you
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: know when this happens, because I came of age during
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the height of the AIDS epidemic and you know, we
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: were always getting tested and those sorts of things, and
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: you know, it's quite terrifying. There's something about the nature
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: of blood though that people think blood is like really tacky,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and it is, you know, it gets real sticky, but
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: there's something it's almost a fat like quality, so that
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: whatever you're holding onto becomes almost lubricated with blood. It's
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: not like water. There's a different sense to it. And so, yeah,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: you're right on point. We have a lot of cases
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: where people will cut themselves as they're wielding some type
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: of sharp instrument, and of course they wind up commingling
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: their blood and you know, from a bigger picture of
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: their DNA with that of the victim. And that's one
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: of the reasons that if you have a suspect in
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: beatings and stabbings and that sort of thing, you're always
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: going to look at their hands to see if they
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: have injuries, if they're wearing, you know, some type of
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: bandage on your hand. G Man how'd you get that?
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: You know? Are you okay? Do you need a skitch
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: your medical help? No? No, no, no, it's it's just
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: a one. Hey, do you mind taking the bandage off
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: so we can see it? And you look at it.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: It ain't healing, it's fresh.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: And they've never gotten help for it, or they haven't
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: been given help for it because they haven't asked for
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: it because they're trying to disguise it.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: That would be O. J.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Simpson and his first discussion with police after arriving back
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: from Chicago less than twenty four hours after the death
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown. Simpson and hey, OJ, well,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: what you got going on there? On your finger?
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Left cut?
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, on his finger. I don't know if that's you know,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: just saying it just seemed obvious. But it was in
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: an odd place on the outside of the left hand.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: That's what I always seem to think that it would
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: have to be if you if you're trying to stab
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: some buddy or slice I guess you know what. It's
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: not a weapon I would choose to use, so I
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: can't really get a good handle on how it would
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: be used.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: No pun intended so no, and the left hand is
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: not an odd odd place because if you're if you're
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: trying to restrain somebody and holding them down with your
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: left hand and your right hand and you're wilding a knife,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: you know, there's that, you know, there's a high probability
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: you could nick yourself. And look, I mean even guys
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: that are Special Operations people that are trained in sharp
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: force are sharp force instrument use, you know, in a
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: combat situation there most of them, that's not their first choice.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, it's generally a last resort.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: They'd much rather be shooting people than trying to go
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: head to head with somebody with a knife. It's it's
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: you know, it's the the last resort that you're going
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: to reach down. You're going to have a knife at
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: your you know, at your hand to try to keep
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: keep people away. So I'm thinking about what's what's the uh? Uh?
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: What's the uh? Clinny the case out of Miami with
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: the only fans mid Yeah, Courtney Clinne. I heard a
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: U Special Operations guy talk one time many years ago.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Somebody had asked him a question about, uh, is there
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: any truth to people that are expert with knives and
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: throwing knives, and he said, why in the world would
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: you if that is your last weapon, why are you
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: going to take it and throw it at somebody? He's like,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: we're going to hold onto it and we're going to
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: carve you up. And and I think about her, you know,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: scoring that shot in the subclave, on that poor young man,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: and he bleeds out the odds of that happening are
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: slim and none, both in the sentence, and you know,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: it's just it's it's it's highly implausible. But you know,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: when we think about when we think about think about
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: sharp force injuries, here's kind of how we examine them
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: and the annotations that we make. First off, with sharp
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: force injuries, how do we define them, Well, they're going
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: to have clean edges. What does that mean, Morgan? Why
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: are you saying clean edges? Well, if you're hit with
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a baseball bat and it tears the skin, that's a laceration,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: and we're going to a whole nother lecture on blunt
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: force trauma. Clean edges implies that you've got a milled weapon,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: something that has got a mechanically created blade with an
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: edge on it, and when a slice is made if
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: you think about slicing something, if you look at whether
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: it's a package you're going to open at home with
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: a knife, or if you're cutting into a steak, if
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: you look at the edges, or as we refer to
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: the margins, the web of the injury, they're going to
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: be clean. You're not going to have interconnecting tissue there,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: so you've got this clean edge. That's one of the
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: first things we look for. Generally, there's no what we
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: refer to as ekamosis, which is a fancy term for
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: bruising around that area. So it's not like somebody has
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: been pounded on where if you pound somebody, you've got
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: that the blood that's leeching out into the interstitial tissue.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: You're gonna have cut and it will be bleeding, but
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: you're not going to have this big mass of hemorrhage
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: around there. The one exception, though, is if you if
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: you have somebody that's wielding a knife and generates a
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: stab one and it's got like a big hilt on
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: it with a handguard and they drive that into the body.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: I've seen the handguard generate a contusion or create echymosis,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: but that's really the only time you if you're going
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: to use a steak knife on somebody, you're not going
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: to see it all right. And then again going back
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: to the clean edges, there's not going to be any
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: tissue bridging, and that's what I was referring to, is
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: as kind of thin little lines of tissue that still
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: connect one side to the other. That's something you see
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: in lacerations and cuts or incized injuries are not lacerations.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: The medical community for years has you know, they'd love
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: to throw around the term, particularly an emergency or in
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the term lack, which is an abbreviation for laceration. They'll
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: call everything a lack, and that's not the truth. That's
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: an incised injury. Laceration is generated by blunt force trauma.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: So that's the way we basically look at them and
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: try to describe them. Now, so for us, there's three
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: groupings with with sharp force injuries. The first is going
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: to be a cut or an incised injury. Remember how
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I mentioned about the guy that cut his throat, you know,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: with a straight razor, Well, that's an incised injury. If
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: you've ever if you've ever been cutting something like using
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: a cutting board to cut up vegetables. Most of the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: time you're not going to stab yourself with a knife
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: that you're cutting with. You're actually going to in size
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: a finger, and so that's this kind of linear cut
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: that you get that can be really nasty. And then
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: I think third, we've got what are referred to as
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: penetrating injuries, and most of the time they're going to
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: be a puncture. Woe. Okay, so you can have somebody
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: it's not a bladed instrument, but if you think about
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: a piece of rebar, like a piece of iron, I've
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: had people are an impalement, for instance, that's a puncture
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: one I've had. I think probably one of the most
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: bizarre cases I've ever had was a young man. There
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: were five people riding in a car in New Orleans
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: and a guy was driving. They were in bucket seats
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: in the front seat. Guy was driving, his girlfriend was
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: in the front passenger. There were two girls sitting in
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the back seat and a dude sitting in the center
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: between the two women. And this guy was drunk that
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: was driving. The car ran off of the service road
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: running next to I ten and hit the chain link
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: fencing and the support post for the chain link fencing
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: began feeding through the car and it hit this guy
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: right in the center of his forehead. I remember we
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: had to go almost ten yards back with a seedtling
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: torch and cut out that core sample of his skin skull,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: brain and skull and skin and had a little patch
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: of hair. I'll never forget it had a little patch
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: of hair on it. It actually taken a core sample
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: out of his head. That's a puncture wound, and that's
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: that's how it would be, you know, be classified. So
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: those are the three.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you understand I'm going to have to see
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: that for myself. Do you bring that into court?
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: I want to see it.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Well, I think it was brought into court, and it's
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: certainly in a civil action because I think I think
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: that that insurance company was in fact suit. And we
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: spend a lot of time in medical examiner's offices. We
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: probably spent as probably more time in civil court giving
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: depositions and that sort of thing than we ever do
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: in criminal court because there's so much that arises in
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: insurance claims. Uh so, yeah, those are like, you know,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: kind of the three big categories. You know that that
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: we come up with stab wounds in particular are are
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: quite fascinating. And I've used this term before. I want
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: to throw it out to those that haven't heard me
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: say it when we're trying to identify by stab wounds.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I was taught by a friends that collage years ago
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: that was this kind of salty old fella, and he said,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: always look for the winking eye. And I've used that
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: term forever. And when you see a stab wound, you
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: know where the instrument is not in place, it's been withdrawn.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: When you look at a single edged weapon or the
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: injury that's left behind by a single edged weapon, it'll
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: come to a sharp point where the actual edge of
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the blade is and then it's more blunted on the
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: other side, because that's like the backstrap of the of
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: the knife, and if you look at it long enough,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: it looks like an eye that's squinting. And he always
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: told me, you know, look for the winking eye. And
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: when you roll up on a scene and you're trying
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: to examine a body and they've got I've had cases where,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: you know, people have had fifty and sixty stab wounds
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: all over the bodies. I think the most I've ever
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: had was well above two hundred on one person because
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: because once somebody get well, I certainly didn't count a lap, right, Yeah, yeah,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of overlap I didn't count them obviously
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: at the scene. But once the body is undressed and
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the body is washed at back at the morgue, right
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: before you're going to do the autops you have to
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: track all these wounds. So, you know, we would actually
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: use probes to insert into the injuries and photograph it
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: to give an idea of the literally the path of
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the wound. And they're they're fascinating to see, but you
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: you kind of get tired, you know, when you're having
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: to enumerate all these things. You you know, you see
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: in movies and whatnot, many times people being shot multiple
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: times shooting. Tracking wounds with firearms related desks is IS
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: can be tedious. However, stab wounds in particular, because it's
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: almost like when people get started stabbing, they don't want
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: to stop. They it's all. It almost reminds me of
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: my grandma's old Singer sewing machine. You know, the needle
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: that's going up and down, you know, and it's only
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the needle moves with this, it's all over the place
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: and they're randomized, and then you'll have stab wounds that
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: are blended within sized wounds, particularly if you've got an
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: event where someone is attempting to disfigure somebody, where they're
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: trying to mark up their face in some way. You
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: know the old adage, if I can't have you, no
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: one will have you. You know, you have people and
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: we've covered Oh, my lord, Dave, I don't know how
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: many cases of dismemberment just in the last two years.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: You know, where you've got bodies that are you know,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: you'll have you know, events where people will have ears removed,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: noses removed. Actually had a case, a drug case one
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: time where God had his testicles removed and placed on
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: the bed next to him, and you couldn't see it
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: when you arrived at the scene. All you saw were
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: these two ovoid shapes that were lying and had been
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: padded down so they didn't have a lot of blood.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: But when you pull the comforter back, the bed is
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: just like super saturated with blood underneath him, whereas testicles
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: had been removed. And that was that was in the
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: middle of a game war that that had happened. Never
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: seen anything like that. It's quite amazing. The one troubling
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: part of that was this There was an EMT that
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: was still at the scene, and he looked at us
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: as we're standing there, and he sees those two ovoid
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: objects laying on the bed and quietly says, are those
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: his eyes? And I remember saying to him, where does
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: your ambulance operate? Because I don't want to be anywhere
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: near you if you're going to.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Out thinking of his man, Joe, think about the meeting. Okay,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: all right, guys, got at it end with this other gang.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: We're going to take it to them after you've destroyed everything,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: after you've taken their money, after you have taken and
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: they're all dead before you leave. Here's your initiation. This
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: is the new guy. Here's what you're gonna do. You
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: know who comes up with this? And I have what
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: boggles my mind, Joe, is there a people who want
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: to be part of that? I think I'd like to
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: be in a gang. I think I'd really like to
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: be in a drug gang. That's that's what I want
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: to do. I think, you know what, it sounds like
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: a fun thing to do. Well, here, take a look
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: at this picture, because this is you in about six months.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Well, I got to tell you, you know, infamously, there's
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: there's the old and I've never seen one myself. I've
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: had people claim they've seen them from and again this
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: is reaching back into history here with the drug wars
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: that went on back in the eighties with the Colombian
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the infamous Colombian necktie where they would slice the underneath
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: of the chin and pull the tongue out through the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: base of the floor of of of the you know,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: the soft palette they would pull it down. That's actually
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: size in that area. Yeah, I think it's possible. No,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: because I mean, we remove tongues at autopsy all the time.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, if you're going to do
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: a thorough autopsy, tongue comes out. We used to refer
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: to it as tongues, tongue tongue to testicles. It's the
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: way we would refer to it. And that's particularly if
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: you're doing an on block dissection.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Two things that I think I would really like to
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: do with you, Yeah, One would be to get you
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: drunk and have you telling stories and report it all.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: And the other is to get you with a couple
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: of your favorite fellas and start sharing war stories. You
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: know that I can just record because I'm telling you
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: there's a TV show waiting to happen.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Well there is, and you know it's sometimes you have
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: to try to block all this stuff out of your mind,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: and you do want to particularly block out sharp force injuries,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: because I got to tell you, friends, out of all
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: of the injuries that you encounter in the field, sharp
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: force injuries stay with you forever and ever. We're all
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: about defining things in forensics, and the reason is is
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: that if you're involved in sciences, you have to have
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: an understanding of the data that you're trying to assess.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: And I know people think of data from the perspective
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: of maybe information systems computers, but no, I mean we
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: collect data too. We collect data in the field and
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: we collect data at autopsy. And so let me just
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: give you a brief rundown of injury characteristics, just so
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: you can frame this out in your brain, particularly if
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: you're watching some true crime story or you're hearing about
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: something on a podcast somewhere. Even though we'd appreciate if
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: you listen to body Bags, but we know that you
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: listen to other ones. So let's just kind of go
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: through these real quick cuts or in sized injuries tend
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: to be longer than deep. There's the old adage, I
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: think it might be from the Bard death by a
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: thousand cuts. And what he meant by that, or what
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: they meant by that, is that you can slice somebody
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: multiple times and it takes a longer period of time
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: for them to die. Okay, So death by a thousand cuts,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: and of course that's an alliteration to something else. But
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: then you have stab wounds, and stab wounds tend to
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: be deeper than long. So just because somebody is stabbed
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean that they're going to die if it's a
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: single stab wound, because there's no guarantee that you're going
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: to hit a vital organ, or that even if you
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: do hit a vital organ, that it's going to be
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: a terminal event. Okay, because there are people out there
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: that have had their lungs punctured and got on quite
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: well afterwards. And then we think about puncture wounds and
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: puncture wounds as a classification. The one thing you have
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: to keep in mind is that many times they very
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: well might imitate gunshot wounds, because most of the time
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: they're round circular defects in the body. And I know
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: I've referred to rebar a lot, and rebar is something
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: you saw on the streets a lot with the homeless,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: because they could take it, file down one end of it,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: make a shive or a shank out of it, like
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: it's used in prison, and wrap one side with duct
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: tape and carry it in there in their pocket. And
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I've had cases where people have been stabbed multiple times
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: with a piece of rebar and it looks just like
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: they sustained center mass gunshot onnes multiple times in the chest.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: And if you didn't know that it was something other
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: than as advertised, you might say, yeah, this is a
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: multiple gunshot one case. So that's kind of the brief rundown.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: But Dave, you know, we've had, actually, you know, I
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: wish I wish I had them at my fingertips right now,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: the number of of dismemberment cases we've actually covered. But
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: we actually did, I think a couple of years ago,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: we did a special, a special show on at crime.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: Con because we'd had so many stories.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: So many stories, and look, just because these people are
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: dismembered doesn't mean that that was their cause of death.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: And I think in most cases it was not. You know,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: you had people that were shooting individuals, you had people
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: that were suffocating or choking people out. Then yeah, and
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: then they're just trying to get rid of a body.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: But what we have covered in the past, I know,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: and one of my I you know, I don't know.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not one of these people that say, well, they're
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: all like my children. They're not. These episodes are not
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: what a ghastly family. Uh. But one of my favorite
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: episodes is our Julius Caesar episode.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: I love more in that episode than I mean in
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: a purely educational sense. I encourage everyone listening to that
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: because it wasn't that like one of the.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: First you know, it was the very first documented autopsy
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: and it was his private, private physician that had done it.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: And you know, Caesar was stabbed multiple times, I think
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: upwards of twenty if I'm not mistaken, when they all
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: kind of they loved, they used to love, to use
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: that term, when they all fell upon them with their
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: daggers and began to stabing. And you know, we learned
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: in that that there was probably an attempt to emasculating
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: emasculate him. They had many of those stab wounds that
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: he had sustained were in the groin area, which you know,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: if you're an emperor, that's one of the things that
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: you would try to do to try to demonstrate your robbing,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: robbing him of his manpower and of his pa and
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: and of his ability to rule effectively and being able
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: to track those wounds and understand what he went through,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: and he had an awareness. He actually cried out. And
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: of course you know there's the old and I think,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: uh Shakespeare made this popular, you know when he did
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: play Julius Caesar at two brute uh, you know YouTube
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: brutus and Bruce was like his his best friend. What
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: was really probably said was my child, why are you
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: doing this? And because he you know, for whatever reason,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: he didn't understand maybe you should have why you know
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: this was occurring. But you know, these go back forever
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: and ever. There have been, you know, cases of people
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: being stabbed and brutalized. I go back. We did an
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: episode on the King and the car Park with Richard
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: the Third, you know, where they discovered his body and
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: he had been brutalized after death, but he had sustained
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: a sharp force injury to the back of the skull.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: It was. As a matter of fact, it was probably
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: a Halbert that did it, which is kind of one
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: of these long pike looking things that's got a blade
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: on it and it's meant to you do it in
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: cavalry charges and you can slice whether it's kind of
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: a crescent shaped blade.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: It's a crazy looking weapon, is what it is.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: It's a nightmare, man.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: It's an absolute death. It's it's like death at the
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: end of a stick.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. And you know, they they shaved
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: off you know, essentially like the parietal and into the
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: occipital area of his of his skull, and it exposed
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: his brain, so you know, and that's that's something that
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: that was quite remarkable. But interestingly enough, you know, Dave
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: he had a puncture woe too, because when they had
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: him trust over a horse after death and they saw
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: evidence of this on his pelvis, on his pubis. I
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: think someone had taken There's a dagger that is used
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: in battle with helmeted soldiers back during the time, and
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: it's foresighted and they would take this thing and hold
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: it over ahead and drive it through because it would
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: actually penetrate armor. And some of the scientists believed that
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: this thing was done to desecrate his body. This puncture
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: wound was inserted, you know, between his legs as he
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: was trussed over this horse where they were going back
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: into town with his body. Who else had well, Sharon
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Tate for instance, Tate LaBianca murders, vicious killing, she stabbed
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: multiple times. She's pregnant and no, yeah, and no they
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: did not, you know, remove the baby the scene that
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: did not happen. But she's pleading for a life. Please,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: you know, don't don't kill me. I have a baby.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: And again, very brutal blood deposition all over that scene,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: which is something that you see consistently in sharp force
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: injury cases where you will have super saturated areas in
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: the floor all about the place where people have had
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: great harm done to them. And it can be even
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: you know, like I mentioned earlier, it can be even
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: slices in sized areas. Yeah, they're not deep, but you're
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: bleeding out because all of these vessels have been you know,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: have been compromised.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Let me ask you a question about the tape murder. Yeah,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: sharing Tate, okay, because you had a group of individuals.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: There wasn't just one on one, there were several there
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: was a bunch of people there that night. Yeah, but
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: you had a gun used on the kids sitting out
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: front when they when they first came out of text
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: watching and shoots one of the guys in the car,
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Stephen Parent I think it was his name anyway, Yeah,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: he gets shot. But then inside the house, you know,
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: it's knives and chasing down Voytech Praikowski to stab ing
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Abigail Folger. They chased her fifty yards and stabbed her
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: multiple times. I mean, just this constant hacking of people.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: Sharon Tate again, almost a tortured time, you know, of
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: killing of her, begging for the life of her unborn child.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Jay Sebring was there because he was still in love
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: with Sharon Tate even though she had married Roman Polanski.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: But then they tied a rope to the neck of
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: Sharon and dropped it over a beam and tied it
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: to Jay Sebring. A lot of it was for show.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: But are many times when a crime is taking place,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: don't they just stay with one method of destruction, meaning
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: a knife. There's not usually a blurring.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good question. Well, if you have multiple
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: if you have multiple actors bad actors at a scene
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: they might show up with whatever makes them feel comfortable.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Tex Watson preferred to have this revolver with him, you know,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: and he and if I remember correctly, he handed out
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: in eye. Remember what they said, and they even use
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: this quote. I think Tarantino lifted this for once upon
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: a time in Hollywood. Manson had told them to make
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: it look witchy is the term that they had used.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: And of course they famously wrote and I can't remember
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: was it pigs I think on the wall pigs and rise,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: you know which obviously we just have covered Jeffrey McDonald.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: I think I probably failed to mention this, but in
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: their home at Fort Bragg, the word pigs was written
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: in there too, again echoing the Manson murders that had taken.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: Which, by the way, there was an article in Esquire
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: magazine in Jeffrey McDonald's living room right next to the
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: counch he was sitting on that had been opened to
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: an article about the Manson family murders, and it mentioned
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: the word pig being written in blood. That was one
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: of the things that tied Jeffrey McDonald to that crime,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: where they were like, well, dude, wait a minute, you
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: know you've got it right from here.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that there's wild hits off running all over the place. Yeah,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: and that was still fear. And I think that, you know,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: the McDonald's case had occurred prior to them affecting an
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: arrest in the Tate Lobiyanca cases.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: It was for a lot of the info.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Actually McDonald was February seventeenth of nineteen seventy. You had
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: the Tate Lobyanca murders in August August sixty nine, but
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: the arrest came in October November. It was kind of
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: scattered before it all came together. The prosecution of that
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: case was much later. You know, it took time, so
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure the exact dates. I was a little kid,
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: but yeah, it was. It was enough that there was
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: information coming out, but copycat stuff was going on, and
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: that's where the whole McDonald thing got in.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: And you know, you think about, well, if you're going
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: to go in and commit a mass killing. By the way,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: they didn't know that they the Manson family. They didn't
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: know that the Polanski's were occupying that space. They thought
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: that it was still the beach boy guy, I think,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: the manager.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: And actually they thought it was Doris Day's.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Son doors Stay's son.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: That's right, Terry.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Melcher's home at Colo Drive. And Terry it was the
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: one who had actually had Charlie Manson come in and
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: play a song and went out and heard him because
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Manson had this idea that he was going to be
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: this big rock star, and Terry Melcher went out and
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: hurt him and went, no, I don't think so. But
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: Dennis Wilson had befriended him. And as a matter of fact,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: you know, the Beach Boys recorded a Manson song.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: Do you know that they did? I forgot they did.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: So you know, you've got this place out of all
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: the places, you know, they show up and these four
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: people are just there totally, you know, just hanging out
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: in This poor kid out in the car. He was
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: just a random kid with a trends of radio that
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: he was.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, trying to sell a radio to the kid to
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: live there. Just two guys doing guy stuff.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. But when you think about the Manson
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: I think probably the Manson killings were famously, for years,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: the most prominent when it came to sharp force injuries.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: People thinking about it because you know, they did that
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: ridiculous movie that was based on Bugelosi's Helter Skelter, which
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, he's full of it in the
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: first place, and then.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: The way he also wrote a book about Kennedy assassination
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: that says Oswald did it just so just yeah.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: I know, and again he's full of crap. But you know,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: in that movie, I think that they actually portrayed a
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: serving fork being inserted into the stomach and it infamously
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: bounces up and down, and it's some of the stuff
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: is absolutely ridiculous. Trust me, the scenes are horrific enough
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: when it comes to sharp force's injuries and you know
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: kind of what is revealed to you in these environments,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: and it is literally, you know, as old as time
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: when it comes to sharpforce's injuries because you don't know
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: what form they're going to come in, you don't know
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: what instrument might be used. In many ways, I think
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: that it's probably easier for us to ascertain firearms related
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: deaths and the origins of the projectiles than it is
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: relative to knives. So sharp force injuries, again some of
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: the most difficult cases to interpret. But it's something that
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: we do in the medical legal community every single day.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: It's something that we view and here's what we can
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: take away. We can get an idea of the relationship.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: And I don't mean like in a societal sense. I'm
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: talking about a physical relationship between the perpetrator and the victim.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: We understand that they were very close. We understand that
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: there can be transfer of evidence. We understand that it's
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: going to be very brutal, and generally the more stabs
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: or cuts that a victim has, the more passion comes
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: along with it. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: body Bags