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Body Bags: Dead on a Bali Vacation · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:09
Speaker 1: Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Morgan. It's a given that any
0:23
Speaker 1: mother daughter relationship is going to have good days and
0:27
Speaker 1: bad days, ups and downs throughout their life together. But
0:31
Speaker 1: what would drive a daughter dinner to an agreement the
0:36
Speaker 1: young man that she has supposedly fallen in love with
0:39
Speaker 1: fly down to Bali, a sixteen hour flight from LA
0:45
Speaker 1: have that young man enter into a hotel room, pick
0:49
Speaker 1: up a large decorative bowl and beat that young woman's
0:54
Speaker 1: mother into a bolivion. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this
1:00
Speaker 1: his body backs back with me again today is my
1:06
Speaker 1: good friend Jackie Howard, Executive producer of Crime Stories with
1:12
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. Jackie, what do we have on this case?
1:15
Speaker 1: As you said, Joe Heather Mack was serving a sentence
1:18
Speaker 1: involley for her part in the death of her mother.
1:22
Speaker 1: Mac was prosecuted and convicted in Indonesia over the twenty
1:26
Speaker 1: fourteen killing of Sheila von Weiss Mac at the Saint
1:29
Speaker 1: Regi's Molly Resort. After serving seven of her ten years sentence,
1:33
Speaker 1: she was expelled from the country. Upon her release, she
1:37
Speaker 1: was sent back to the US along with her daughter.
1:41
Speaker 1: Mac was pregnant at the time of this murder, Heather
1:44
Speaker 1: Mac and her daughter landed at an airport in Chicago,
1:47
Speaker 1: at O'Hare International, and at that moment she was arrested
1:51
Speaker 1: by the FBI on charges of conspiracy to kill in
1:55
Speaker 1: a foreign country, conspiracy to commit a foreign murder of
1:59
Speaker 1: a US now, and obstruction. Now, Heathermack has pleaded not
2:04
Speaker 1: guilty to all of those charges. But Joe, as you
2:07
Speaker 1: mentioned going in, the relationship between Heathermack and her mother
2:11
Speaker 1: was contentious to say the least. We do know that
2:16
Speaker 1: in her younger days, the relationship between Heather and her
2:19
Speaker 1: mother was very volatile. Police were called to their home
2:23
Speaker 1: more than eighty times. In fact, we know that according
2:28
Speaker 1: to statements made to the police, Sheila would say that
2:31
Speaker 1: Heather would hit her and bite her. She even pushed
2:34
Speaker 1: her in the bathroom so hard one time that Sheila
2:38
Speaker 1: fell and broke her arm. What kind of damage is
2:42
Speaker 1: that gonna do, Joe? Are injuries like that bumps and bruises?
2:47
Speaker 1: Are they going to leave any lasting images? Obviously to
2:49
Speaker 1: broken bone? Would you know? Over a period of time,
2:52
Speaker 1: people are subjected to ongoing abuse. And make no mistake,
2:56
Speaker 1: this is ongoing abuse, is familial abuse. It does just
3:00
Speaker 1: have to be between a husband or a wife, or
3:04
Speaker 1: you know, a child and a parent. It can it
3:08
Speaker 1: doesn't just have to be between a parent and a
3:10
Speaker 1: young child. Actually the reverse can happen. You can have
3:14
Speaker 1: older children that will abuse their parents. And you know,
3:18
Speaker 1: in cases like this, where people are sustaining ongoing trauma
3:23
Speaker 1: throughout their life, you'll have external scars that occur, say,
3:26
Speaker 1: for instance, if they've been lacerated on the head somehow,
3:30
Speaker 1: where they've got these blunt force traumas they've bumped into
3:33
Speaker 1: things like the toilet, maybe the side of the tub
3:36
Speaker 1: or even a table, or if they've been struck by something,
3:39
Speaker 1: and you know, you begin to think about also these
3:43
Speaker 1: fractures that the mother had sustained in her life. You know,
3:46
Speaker 1: I've seen any number of cases over the years with
3:48
Speaker 1: ongoing abuse where you take an X ray of a
3:52
Speaker 1: body and you can actually see it present these old,
3:55
Speaker 1: healed fractures, and they'll they'll get these kind of nodular
3:59
Speaker 1: appearances to them, particularly if they go unreported, Jackie, if
4:04
Speaker 1: if the family doesn't want to make a scene about it,
4:06
Speaker 1: if they don't want to talk about it relative to
4:09
Speaker 1: any of the authorities, sometimes they'll just allow these things
4:13
Speaker 1: to heal on their own, and no one says anything else.
4:16
Speaker 1: And here's the problem. If it happens once, it'll happen
4:20
Speaker 1: over and over and over again. And generally the level
4:25
Speaker 1: of trauma increases with each one of these events because
4:30
Speaker 1: the attacker feels very, very comfortable in doing this. It's
4:33
Speaker 1: not just about hurling verbal assaults on someone. You start
4:37
Speaker 1: to get into these physical, physical confrontations, and the attacker
4:44
Speaker 1: always gains the upper hand because you know what, They
4:46
Speaker 1: know that their victim is fearful of them. You're absolutely right, Joe.
4:50
Speaker 1: We do know that she Lavon Wi Smack had told
4:54
Speaker 1: friends and family that in the past she had been
4:56
Speaker 1: afraid of her daughter, and this trip to Bolly was
5:00
Speaker 1: an attempt to renew their relationship. The mother and daughter
5:05
Speaker 1: had been having trouble because she the mother, did not
5:07
Speaker 1: approve of the current relationship that Mac was in. She
5:11
Speaker 1: was dating Tommy Schaeffer. Now, what Sheila von Wissmac did
5:14
Speaker 1: not know was that Heather had used her mother's credit
5:18
Speaker 1: card to buy Tommy an airplane ticket through Bali, a
5:23
Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollars purchase. Just ten hours after he arrived.
5:29
Speaker 1: Sheila von wiss Mac was dead. So he was seen
5:33
Speaker 1: on the video camera coming into the room with the
5:37
Speaker 1: decorative bowl that you were mentioning tucked up under his shirt.
5:41
Speaker 1: So right away we see that something is planned, Joe.
5:46
Speaker 1: You know, Jackie, it is planned. But you know, one
5:48
Speaker 1: of the things I was thinking about in this case,
5:49
Speaker 1: and I've seen it in a few other cases over
5:52
Speaker 1: the course of my career, is that sometimes the weapons
5:56
Speaker 1: that a perpetrator chooses, or what we referred to as
5:59
Speaker 1: weapons of convenience or weapons of opportunity. You've got a
6:03
Speaker 1: young man that, as you had mentioned, had made this
6:06
Speaker 1: lengthy flight, very expensive flight down there to boy and
6:11
Speaker 1: at some point in time we know that Heather got
6:15
Speaker 1: in contact with this kid while he was in the
6:18
Speaker 1: hotel and said, bring something heavy. What does that mean, Well,
6:24
Speaker 1: it can be implied at least that you're looking for
6:27
Speaker 1: an object to use to bludgeon somebody with. And so
6:31
Speaker 1: that our listeners understand what this means. When we hear
6:34
Speaker 1: about a term of bludgeoning, most of the time, that
6:37
Speaker 1: means that it's a heavy object that someone picks up
6:39
Speaker 1: and utilizes for the express purpose of beating someone, inflicting
6:45
Speaker 1: what we refer to as blunt force trauma. And in
6:48
Speaker 1: this case, boy, did the mother ever sustain extensive trauma?
6:53
Speaker 1: And I can get into that, but what's very important
6:55
Speaker 1: here is that the object itself, it's not like a
6:59
Speaker 1: cereal bowl. Okay, think of a bowl that has been
7:03
Speaker 1: identified as a decorative ball. This bowl is probably not inexpensive.
7:09
Speaker 1: It's something that is owned by the hotel. It's high quality.
7:13
Speaker 1: And guess what the glass surface on this thing is
7:17
Speaker 1: probably inches, not an inch, but probably inches thick, particularly
7:21
Speaker 1: down at the dome of it. So if someone is
7:23
Speaker 1: going to use a bowl in order to beat someone with,
7:27
Speaker 1: just imagine gripping the lip of the bowl, okay, and
7:31
Speaker 1: you're going to turn it over almost like you're holding
7:33
Speaker 1: a helmet in your hand, only the dome of the
7:35
Speaker 1: helmet is going to be that's going to be the
7:39
Speaker 1: business end. That's the end that's actually going to make
7:41
Speaker 1: contact with the tissue with the bone, and it's going
7:45
Speaker 1: to be driven into this individual's body. So, Joe, does
7:49
Speaker 1: it take necessarily a heavy object to do something like
7:53
Speaker 1: this or is it the force that the person that's
7:58
Speaker 1: using it is wielding that's going to do the damage.
8:01
Speaker 1: Which is it? Is it the heavy object or the
8:04
Speaker 1: force in general. You know, it's a combination of both, Jackie.
8:08
Speaker 1: And you know when you pick up a bowl like
8:10
Speaker 1: this or any hot, heavy object, you have to think
8:13
Speaker 1: about the energy that's being transferred. If you're going to
8:16
Speaker 1: beat somebody, from the hips of the perpetrator to the
8:20
Speaker 1: shoulder extending out to the arm, and the further way
8:24
Speaker 1: you hold this thing at its distal point in the
8:27
Speaker 1: individual's arm, you get this tremendous amount of velocity that
8:30
Speaker 1: is generated as those hips and the shoulder go in
8:34
Speaker 1: to this motion, and it's a downward kind of a
8:36
Speaker 1: downward event. I suspect that they had this poor woman
8:40
Speaker 1: on the floor and as they swing this thing down,
8:43
Speaker 1: all of that energy is transferring to, like I said,
8:46
Speaker 1: this rather robust, heavy bowl and it's being driven into
8:50
Speaker 1: her skull. And let me tell you something. The damage
8:53
Speaker 1: that was involved, and this is solid, Jackie, is unlike
8:58
Speaker 1: anything that you normally see. There was a level of
9:00
Speaker 1: verocity to this that we can't really describe without you know,
9:06
Speaker 1: being able to physically be there and see it. But
9:08
Speaker 1: let me tell you what had happened. If if folks
9:11
Speaker 1: at home will essentially touch the area beneath both of
9:15
Speaker 1: your eyes and you feel those bony structures. Those are
9:17
Speaker 1: called a suborbital rims that that's that goes into the
9:22
Speaker 1: orbits that the eyes actually fit into the sockets, and
9:26
Speaker 1: then you have the bony prominence of the nose. Well,
9:30
Speaker 1: all of that, all of that was fractured. This poor
9:51
Speaker 1: woman was literally beaten to death. We use that term
9:56
Speaker 1: a lot in in our world, a true crime, but
10:00
Speaker 1: in this case, it's absolutely the truth. Beaten to death. Joe,
10:05
Speaker 1: Can we explain what that is because there's some things
10:08
Speaker 1: that we find out about this case with Sheila von
10:11
Speaker 1: Wye Smack. You were talking about the fractures in her
10:14
Speaker 1: face and that in itself led to bleeding, which led
10:18
Speaker 1: to some other issues. So let's first explain what it
10:21
Speaker 1: means to be beaten to death and then talk about
10:25
Speaker 1: what resulted from the damage that was done to her head.
10:29
Speaker 1: In this particular case, what we're looking at is, you know,
10:33
Speaker 1: her facial bones were actually fractured. And you know, when
10:36
Speaker 1: we touch our face, we think about you know, you
10:39
Speaker 1: touch beneath your eyes and you can feel the base
10:41
Speaker 1: of your eye sockets down there. You can also feel
10:44
Speaker 1: your nose and maybe your nose feels rather firm. Maybe
10:47
Speaker 1: the frontal bone of your skull, that's that leading that
10:51
Speaker 1: leading bone that comprises your forehead. Essentially, it feels robust,
10:55
Speaker 1: doesn't it. But once you begin to strike those areas,
10:59
Speaker 1: and of course she was struck multiple times with this
11:02
Speaker 1: heavy decorative bowl, it's those little bones that dwell behind
11:07
Speaker 1: that area. You know what's really fascinating When you do
11:10
Speaker 1: an autopsy on an individual, and we literally do take
11:14
Speaker 1: off the skull cap at autopsy to take out the brain,
11:17
Speaker 1: we have to examine the interior of the skull. Did
11:20
Speaker 1: you know that you can actually take a flashlight and
11:25
Speaker 1: place it, turn it on, and place it up to
11:28
Speaker 1: the eye, to the eye area of a deceased individual,
11:31
Speaker 1: and you can see that light shining through the floor
11:34
Speaker 1: of the skull if you will. That's how thin those
11:37
Speaker 1: bones are. I want all of our listeners to think
11:39
Speaker 1: about this. That bone, that bone is actually about the
11:44
Speaker 1: thickness of an eggshell. And you get into the nose,
11:48
Speaker 1: those bones are very very fragule as well, and so
11:51
Speaker 1: those have all been fractured. In addition to that, this
11:54
Speaker 1: poor woman has got a fractured vertebra, and she's got
11:58
Speaker 1: other insulted areas all around the circumference of her skull.
12:02
Speaker 1: So you've got an event where this woman is not
12:05
Speaker 1: just being struck in the face, she's actually being struck
12:09
Speaker 1: in the rear, on the sides and on top of
12:12
Speaker 1: her head as well. You know, when you're actually beaten
12:15
Speaker 1: to death. This is what we mean by bludgeoning. It's grotesque.
12:19
Speaker 1: And what you're talking about is it's massive trauma where
12:23
Speaker 1: not only do you have multiple massive fracturing, but you've
12:27
Speaker 1: got what are called microfractures all through the body. That
12:31
Speaker 1: eggshell thickness bone that we're referring to like the surface
12:35
Speaker 1: of the interior floor of the skull, if you will,
12:39
Speaker 1: and all of the sinus regions. Those little bones literally
12:42
Speaker 1: come apart just like an eggshell fragment. And so not
12:47
Speaker 1: only are fragmenting the bone itself, but you know, there
12:51
Speaker 1: are these little tiny holes in the bone that are
12:54
Speaker 1: actually called for raiment, and that's where the vessels run
12:58
Speaker 1: up through. So every time you smash one of these bones,
13:02
Speaker 1: you actually clip these vessels and the individual begins to
13:06
Speaker 1: bleed out internally, those little vessels are all clipped. Not
13:09
Speaker 1: to mention the major ones that are supplying the brain itself,
13:13
Speaker 1: so you're dealing with massive fracturing, and then the brain
13:17
Speaker 1: begins to swell because it's becoming engorged with blood. The
13:21
Speaker 1: brain is very fragile, and as it begins to engorge,
13:25
Speaker 1: it begins to swell and it can't function. It can't
13:28
Speaker 1: function at all. And so when we talk about things
13:31
Speaker 1: like being beaten to death or bludgeing to death, just
13:34
Speaker 1: think of it in this sense that it is in
13:36
Speaker 1: fact massive massive trauma. So along with what you're saying there, Joe,
13:42
Speaker 1: we know that when you have that kind of damage
13:45
Speaker 1: tissue tearing, bone fracturing, the bones are going to damage
13:50
Speaker 1: the tissues inside, and as you said, we have bleeding.
13:53
Speaker 1: This led to a major finding for Shela von wie Smack.
13:57
Speaker 1: You know, Jackie, it did. And when I read this,
14:00
Speaker 1: I remember covering this case and when I first read it,
14:04
Speaker 1: I was reflecting on this because not only did the
14:08
Speaker 1: pathologist rule this death as massive blunt force trauma, the
14:13
Speaker 1: real kicker here is that this is an asphyxial death.
14:16
Speaker 1: And you think, you know, most of the time we
14:18
Speaker 1: talk about its phyxial death, we think about people that
14:21
Speaker 1: are being strangled or smothered or choked or you know,
14:24
Speaker 1: or you know, strangled, say for instance, with a cord
14:27
Speaker 1: or rope, or maybe somebody's bare hands. Not in this case.
14:30
Speaker 1: You know, what this actually turned out to be, Jackie,
14:33
Speaker 1: is that you remember all those little bones and the
14:35
Speaker 1: blood that I was talking about that are fractured away
14:38
Speaker 1: within within the context of the sinuses, those little bones
14:45
Speaker 1: as she's as she is laying there and she's gasping
14:49
Speaker 1: for breath, gasping for her life. She's inhalating, inhalating all
14:53
Speaker 1: of this blood that's being generated from the skull trauma
14:57
Speaker 1: and also those little flecks of bone and guess where
15:00
Speaker 1: they're going. They're all going down her trachea into her
15:03
Speaker 1: airway and it's including her airway. So she begins to
15:07
Speaker 1: asphyxiate as a result of this. So she's really got
15:11
Speaker 1: a double dosee here, doesn't she. She's got this massive
15:13
Speaker 1: head trauma and all the while some people actually refer
15:17
Speaker 1: to this as an individual drowning in their own blood,
15:21
Speaker 1: if you will, And it's an absolutely horrific way to die.
15:25
Speaker 1: And the fascinating part about this is that the daughter
15:31
Speaker 1: and the boyfriend would have been present for this. They
15:35
Speaker 1: would have heard what would have been the best way
15:38
Speaker 1: to kind of term it would be a gurgling sound
15:42
Speaker 1: as she's breathing her last you would have actually seen
15:46
Speaker 1: blood bubbling up out of her nose and out of
15:50
Speaker 1: her mouth as she's struggling to breathe. And there her
15:53
Speaker 1: daughter stands, this daughter that in life, this woman had
15:57
Speaker 1: given birth to and had nurtured throughout her life. I've
16:00
Speaker 1: provided a roof over her head. She watched her mother
16:03
Speaker 1: just there in this horrible state, essentially drowned to death
16:07
Speaker 1: on her own blood. Okay, so let's be technical here, Joe.
16:10
Speaker 1: You said drownding in her own blood, and you describe
16:14
Speaker 1: this as an asphyxiation. Are they the same thing? I mean,
16:18
Speaker 1: did she drowned or was she asphyxiated? Yeah, that's that's
16:22
Speaker 1: a point it needs to be made here. You know,
16:24
Speaker 1: when people say that an individual drowns in their own blood,
16:28
Speaker 1: that essentially is kind of a metaphor for what's going on.
16:31
Speaker 1: But in essence, what's happening is that the blood is
16:34
Speaker 1: going down the airway and as it's being inhalated, that
16:39
Speaker 1: means to breathe in all of that tissue that's issuing
16:43
Speaker 1: forth out of these fractured sinus areas is being drawn
16:49
Speaker 1: down into the trachea and it's blocking the airway. So
16:52
Speaker 1: that's where the asphyxia comes in. Now, when the autopsy
16:57
Speaker 1: would have been performed, let me kind of paint the
16:59
Speaker 1: picture for what they would have seen when this poor
17:02
Speaker 1: woman's lungs were removed in her airway, which is something
17:05
Speaker 1: we do at autopsy, they would have opened them and
17:09
Speaker 1: as they opened them, blood and probably clotted blood would
17:13
Speaker 1: have literally poured out of the trachea. And it's just
17:18
Speaker 1: not a normal finding. And as you begin to examine
17:22
Speaker 1: the lungs and you dissect the lungs and the little
17:25
Speaker 1: air sacks, you'll actually find focal areas of hemorrhage that
17:30
Speaker 1: are contained therein And that's her blood that's coming from
17:33
Speaker 1: her head literally from these fractured areas, and she's breathing
17:37
Speaker 1: it into those tiny little air sacks into her lung So, yeah,
17:42
Speaker 1: it's kind of a drowning process in the sense that
17:45
Speaker 1: you know when an individual drowns and water, what are
17:47
Speaker 1: they doing, Well, they're inhalating water, and we know that
17:50
Speaker 1: water and the lungs is not compatible with life. Well,
17:52
Speaker 1: neither is blood. And neither is bone in this case.
17:55
Speaker 1: So yeah, I guess you could say in a way,
17:57
Speaker 1: this woman did, in fact drown on her own blood.
18:00
Speaker 1: What about defensive wounds, Joe, We know that, as you
18:04
Speaker 1: have said, she was beaten very very badly, but there,
18:07
Speaker 1: if I understand it correctly, there were wounds on her hands,
18:12
Speaker 1: on her arms that most likely were defensive wounds. Describe
18:16
Speaker 1: those for me. Yeah. You know, most of the time
18:19
Speaker 1: when you see defensive wounds, Jackie, on an individual, they're
18:23
Speaker 1: going to present, particularly when we're talking about blunt force
18:27
Speaker 1: trauma like a bludgeoning event like this, you're going to
18:31
Speaker 1: pick up on what are called focal areas of hemorrhage,
18:34
Speaker 1: all right, So they're going to come up as bruises.
18:36
Speaker 1: And again that's that's just a ten dollar term for
18:39
Speaker 1: a bruise. And what's fascinating is that at the morgue,
18:44
Speaker 1: at the autopsy room, if we have the weapon that
18:48
Speaker 1: was used in this case, we fluct back to what
18:50
Speaker 1: we've already talked about with this heavy glass decorative bowl.
18:55
Speaker 1: If that bowl has any kind of pattern to it,
18:58
Speaker 1: just think, you know, if you've ever been to one
19:02
Speaker 1: of your relatives homes and they've got a fancy candy dish,
19:05
Speaker 1: for instance, and it will have those kind of very
19:08
Speaker 1: sharp edges on it, you know, that were formed in
19:10
Speaker 1: some glass factory somewhere. Those patterns will actually begin to
19:14
Speaker 1: demonstrate on the soft tissue. You'd find them on the head.
19:17
Speaker 1: But let's just think about her hands and her arms.
19:20
Speaker 1: What's really horrifying about this is that because she had
19:24
Speaker 1: these injuries on her hands and arms, we know that
19:28
Speaker 1: she had an awareness. It's not like they just walked
19:30
Speaker 1: up behind her jackie and knocked her unconscious. No, no, no,
19:34
Speaker 1: that's not what happened in this case. This woman was
19:36
Speaker 1: initially attacked. This guy probably came at her with a
19:40
Speaker 1: bowl with incredible ferocity because it takes a lot of
19:43
Speaker 1: energy to do this. She has enough awareness where she's
19:46
Speaker 1: going to raise not one arm, not one hand, but
19:50
Speaker 1: both arms and both hands in order to try to
19:53
Speaker 1: fend him off. And the reason we know this is
19:55
Speaker 1: that there are multiple contusions over the surfaces of both
19:59
Speaker 1: hands and both arms. So this gives you an idea
20:03
Speaker 1: that she's attempted to fend this attacker off. Now, her daughter, Heather,
20:08
Speaker 1: says that the entire time this was going on, she
20:10
Speaker 1: was hiding in the bathroom and she's putting it all
20:12
Speaker 1: off on a boyfriend. But just think about how horrific
20:15
Speaker 1: this is. It's the daughter's involved in this, and she's
20:17
Speaker 1: trying to control mam and this guy's swinging this bowl around.
20:21
Speaker 1: We do know that she's gone to the ground at
20:23
Speaker 1: this point because we think back to her injuries. We
20:28
Speaker 1: know that she's got a fractured vertebra. Well, you don't
20:30
Speaker 1: fracture vertebrate simply by striking somebody in the nose with
20:33
Speaker 1: a bowl. That's something that she's trying to roll away from.
20:36
Speaker 1: And so he crashes his bowl down on her cervical
20:40
Speaker 1: vertebra and actually fractures it. People don't realize how much
20:43
Speaker 1: force that takes. So there's an awareness we've got these
20:46
Speaker 1: defensive wounds that are playing into this. She's rolling around
20:49
Speaker 1: because she's got these injuries on multiple planes, on the
20:52
Speaker 1: sides of her head, the top of course, the front,
20:55
Speaker 1: and eventually in the back where this vertebrus fracture. You
21:22
Speaker 1: have your mama beaten to death by your boyfriend and
21:25
Speaker 1: you're in a foreign country, sixteen hour plane ride from
21:29
Speaker 1: LA What are you gonna do next? You're in a
21:32
Speaker 1: foreign country. What are you gonna do with the body
21:34
Speaker 1: after this attack happens. Well, that was a good question
21:37
Speaker 1: that they had to figure out, Joe, what do you
21:39
Speaker 1: do with the body? We know that Heather Mac and
21:43
Speaker 1: her boyfriend put her mother inside a suitcase. That suitcase
21:48
Speaker 1: was transported downstairs as if they were checking out. It
21:52
Speaker 1: was put into a taxi and they tried to slip
21:54
Speaker 1: away to another hotel to not get caught. But what
21:58
Speaker 1: we find out is the tax seed driver calls the
22:01
Speaker 1: police once he pulls out the suitcase and there is
22:05
Speaker 1: large amounts of blood soaking through the suitcase. And I
22:09
Speaker 1: have to tell you, Joe, I really don't even know
22:11
Speaker 1: where to start on this, but so let's just start there.
22:14
Speaker 1: We know that once your heart stops beating, that blood
22:17
Speaker 1: stops pumping. So first, how did the suitcase get so bloody? Well,
22:22
Speaker 1: you know, when you see images of the suitcase jacket,
22:24
Speaker 1: it's kind of striking. You're handling luggage and all of
22:27
Speaker 1: a sudden you come across this. It's actually a rigid suitcase.
22:32
Speaker 1: It's not some kind of gym baglike thing. And you've
22:36
Speaker 1: got blood smeared all on the outside of this thing. Well,
22:40
Speaker 1: that tells us a lot about the dynamic that went
22:43
Speaker 1: on after death. These individuals that we're tasked, that's the
22:50
Speaker 1: daughter and the boyfriend with getting this woman's body into
22:54
Speaker 1: this people are calling a large suitcase. It's really not
22:57
Speaker 1: that large. It's no larger than anything else. You'd go
23:00
Speaker 1: and buy it some luggage place or some shop out there.
23:05
Speaker 1: It's pretty standard. They would have to have tightly folded
23:08
Speaker 1: her up in here. And you're talking about this blood
23:11
Speaker 1: issuing from the body post mortal, Well, yeah, it's going
23:13
Speaker 1: to issue from the body post more. And first of all,
23:15
Speaker 1: blood is liquid, so it's going to seek the lowest
23:18
Speaker 1: point of gravity and it trust me, if you've got
23:21
Speaker 1: these horrendous injuries to your face like this poor woman did,
23:26
Speaker 1: blood is going to seep out of there and it
23:28
Speaker 1: will be a copious That means that's a fancy word
23:31
Speaker 1: for a lot. As you know, friends of pathologists like
23:34
Speaker 1: to use the term copious. It's a lot of blood.
23:37
Speaker 1: It would have seeped out and depended upon how her
23:40
Speaker 1: body is position and this is key. If they've got
23:44
Speaker 1: her body turned on its side in any way, trying
23:48
Speaker 1: to roll her around and manipulate her. This is no
23:51
Speaker 1: easy task to jam her into this suitcase. There will
23:55
Speaker 1: be blood everywhere. It'll be issuing from her now greatly
24:00
Speaker 1: fractured nose. It's traumatized, She's probably got lacerations all of
24:04
Speaker 1: her face and all over the top of her head.
24:06
Speaker 1: And I can't, I cannot go another second without reminding
24:09
Speaker 1: everybody that again, the head is the most vascular area
24:13
Speaker 1: of the body. It has the most vessels in it.
24:16
Speaker 1: So therefore logic would dictate you're probably going to have
24:19
Speaker 1: the most blood that's in dwelling there. Remember, she'd lived
24:22
Speaker 1: long enough probably for a brain to swell up a
24:24
Speaker 1: little bit, so she's gonna be in gorged with this fluid,
24:27
Speaker 1: and so it's getting everywhere. Can you imagine they're not
24:30
Speaker 1: equipped to do this. They're not wearing any kind of
24:33
Speaker 1: environmental protection suits or anything. They're up there and they're
24:36
Speaker 1: you know, and they're standard everyday clothes, and they're trying
24:39
Speaker 1: to manipulate this woman's body into the suitcase. So they're
24:43
Speaker 1: going to be covered with blood. And in forensics, what
24:46
Speaker 1: we refer to this as is transfer blood. So if
24:49
Speaker 1: you put your hands on a bloody surface or on
24:53
Speaker 1: a bloody body, and then you touch somewhere else, like
24:56
Speaker 1: the exterior of this suit case, you'll have blood all
25:00
Speaker 1: on the outside of it. It'll be all over you,
25:02
Speaker 1: It'll be on the contacting surfaces underlying the suitcase because
25:07
Speaker 1: you're having to leverage, so it's going to be on
25:08
Speaker 1: the carpeted surface or the marble floor or the wooden
25:11
Speaker 1: floor that's supporting the suitcase. And then if you're having
25:14
Speaker 1: to leverage your body, say there's a coffee table, you
25:17
Speaker 1: have to move it out of the way, and all
25:19
Speaker 1: these things people don't think about when they're contacting these surfaces.
25:22
Speaker 1: That's how we catch people lots of times with forensics,
25:26
Speaker 1: because people do not understand that everywhere they touch in
25:31
Speaker 1: this environment, there's going to be a trace left behind.
25:34
Speaker 1: And when you create such a bloody mess as was
25:36
Speaker 1: created with this attack, you'll have blood all over the place.
25:40
Speaker 1: So that explains why the exterior of this suitcase is
25:44
Speaker 1: just covered or bathed in blood. I would have to imagine, also, Joe,
25:51
Speaker 1: that the pressure that they are putting on this body
25:55
Speaker 1: to get it to fit into a particular area. I
26:00
Speaker 1: guess it would have to kind of be like pushing
26:02
Speaker 1: on a balloon. Trying to push air out of a balloon,
26:04
Speaker 1: so that it is actually forcing the blood out of
26:08
Speaker 1: the body at any opening that it can get out.
26:11
Speaker 1: You've got a gold star today, Jackie. You've learned, and
26:14
Speaker 1: I'm pleased with that comment. You're absolutely right. It's it's
26:17
Speaker 1: almost I like the analogy better of like squeezing an orange.
26:20
Speaker 1: If you if you cut a slit into an orange
26:23
Speaker 1: and you begin to squeeze the exterior of that orange,
26:26
Speaker 1: you don't have to squeeze it very hard. But if
26:27
Speaker 1: there's already an existing defect of the orange, where's fluid
26:31
Speaker 1: going to go. Well, it's going to seek that area
26:33
Speaker 1: that has the least amount of tension on it, and
26:36
Speaker 1: all of that fluid, you know, for instance, like an orange,
26:39
Speaker 1: is mostly water, so it's going to pour out of
26:41
Speaker 1: that area. And as they are manipulating her body, even
26:45
Speaker 1: though the heart is no longer pumping, if you're manipulating
26:49
Speaker 1: the legs, say, bending them at the hips and at
26:52
Speaker 1: the knees and at the feet, and you're having to
26:54
Speaker 1: contain the arms, that's almost got a pumping action, doesn't it.
26:57
Speaker 1: And you've already created these little defects or holes in
27:00
Speaker 1: the body from this bludgeoning event. You're pumping blood out
27:04
Speaker 1: of the body. You can't stop it. The only way
27:07
Speaker 1: you can, really, I don't know, kind of kind of
27:10
Speaker 1: slow it down is if you take something like a
27:12
Speaker 1: towel or a plastic bag and wrap the head in.
27:16
Speaker 1: But I gotta tell you, Jackie, based upon what I've
27:18
Speaker 1: seen and what I've heard about this case, it seems
27:21
Speaker 1: very frenzied. It doesn't seem like they put a lot
27:25
Speaker 1: of thought into it. And you know what we think
27:28
Speaker 1: about that bowl. It's not like he went out and
27:30
Speaker 1: got a hammer. It's it's you know, it's not like
27:33
Speaker 1: he went out and got a lead pipe. He went
27:36
Speaker 1: and got a decorative bowl. Of all things in the
27:38
Speaker 1: world that you're going to use to kill somebody with,
27:41
Speaker 1: this is what you choose. So that gives us an
27:43
Speaker 1: indication they're not putting a lot of thought into this.
27:46
Speaker 1: And of course that's played out, you know at the
27:49
Speaker 1: end of the day when they decide to leave the hotel,
27:53
Speaker 1: and for them to be able to leave the hotel,
27:55
Speaker 1: they had to dispose of the body, and their decision
27:57
Speaker 1: was to put ship livon wy Smack into the suitcase.
28:02
Speaker 1: And knowing Joe what they had to do is just
28:06
Speaker 1: mind boggling to me. Besides the fact that they killed
28:09
Speaker 1: her mother, what they did to dispose of this body.
28:13
Speaker 1: How do you put a human inside of a suitcase?
28:19
Speaker 1: You know, Jackie. One of the things that I found
28:23
Speaker 1: kind of fascinating about this this young man, and you know,
28:27
Speaker 1: we've talked about how this is kind of a what
28:29
Speaker 1: I would refer to as a disorganized event. He actually
28:32
Speaker 1: went down to the front desk after having committed this
28:35
Speaker 1: horrible crime and asked people to front desk for duct tape.
28:40
Speaker 1: Can you imagine. So the reason is is that they've
28:44
Speaker 1: got to do something in order to secure her body
28:47
Speaker 1: within the suitcase. Either one of two things. Either that
28:53
Speaker 1: can't tighten her down enough like binding her to get
28:56
Speaker 1: her down to the size that they need her to
28:59
Speaker 1: her body to come apply to to get within this
29:01
Speaker 1: rigid suitcase, or they can't get the case closed well
29:05
Speaker 1: enough and so they're having to, you know, kind of
29:08
Speaker 1: wrap this thing up. I think that what was going
29:10
Speaker 1: on is they couldn't contain her body well enough, so
29:13
Speaker 1: they're having to kind of bind her down to get
29:15
Speaker 1: her into this environment. Can't imagine that these people felt
29:19
Speaker 1: that comfortable around something this grotesque, and so there's a
29:25
Speaker 1: certain level of tension that comes along with this, and
29:28
Speaker 1: you don't think about what you're doing, but what you
29:30
Speaker 1: do know is that you want to put as much
29:33
Speaker 1: distance between yourself and this crime, and the crime is
29:38
Speaker 1: symbolized by this body. They want to try to put
29:40
Speaker 1: as much distance between themselves and this body. But how
29:44
Speaker 1: do you do that? Because remember, they're not in Chicago,
29:48
Speaker 1: they're not familiar with the streets, they have no idea,
29:52
Speaker 1: they're disoriented to where everything is. And now on top
29:56
Speaker 1: of that, you've got to get rid of human remains.
29:59
Speaker 1: It's a it's a very dawning task. So how do
30:03
Speaker 1: you do it, though, Joe? How do you put a
30:04
Speaker 1: body knowing that lividity is going to set in where
30:09
Speaker 1: the joints stiffen and making movement of a body, making
30:14
Speaker 1: the movements difficult. So what would they had to have done?
30:17
Speaker 1: I mean, are you talking about breaking breaking bones, which
30:21
Speaker 1: is hard to do just with the human hands, are
30:23
Speaker 1: you talking about popping tendons? Or I mean, what physically
30:28
Speaker 1: happened here to her body? Well, there's no indications there
30:31
Speaker 1: was any kind of dismemberment that took place, but What
30:36
Speaker 1: can happen in order to manipulate bodies into small spaces
30:41
Speaker 1: is not necessarily the fracturing of bones, but you can
30:44
Speaker 1: place enough tension, enough force rather is a better term,
30:49
Speaker 1: enough force on to say the extremities like the knees
30:53
Speaker 1: and particularly the hip points, so that generally gives people
30:56
Speaker 1: the most trouble and shoulders to disjoint them. Now, just
31:00
Speaker 1: let that sink in for a second, because that takes
31:02
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of force because you have all of
31:05
Speaker 1: these ligament attachments that have to become dislodged. Just the
31:12
Speaker 1: joint where the hip fits in to the pelvic girdle
31:16
Speaker 1: is very robust. So in a case like this where
31:19
Speaker 1: you're not doing dismemberment, you're literally going to have to
31:22
Speaker 1: disjoint the body and kind of fold it in on itself.
31:25
Speaker 1: And that's going to take time. And I'm glad you
31:26
Speaker 1: brought up post mortem lavidity in this case. And the
31:30
Speaker 1: reason is is that with a case like this, one
31:34
Speaker 1: of the things you're going to want to examine is
31:36
Speaker 1: the distribution of blood settling in the body. Now, this
31:39
Speaker 1: is not something that I would imagine, and I've got
31:42
Speaker 1: a reason for this. This is not something I would
31:45
Speaker 1: imagine that they did willy nilly to begin with. They
31:48
Speaker 1: had to think about this at least for a moment.
31:50
Speaker 1: And now they didn't plan it very well, but they
31:52
Speaker 1: had to get that body out of there. So they're
31:54
Speaker 1: sitting there scratching their heads. How are we going to
31:57
Speaker 1: do this? So, all the while this woman's body is
32:00
Speaker 1: in there, blood settling. You can't stop gravity. Blood is settling.
32:04
Speaker 1: So you're going to have a presentation, say she's the
32:07
Speaker 1: final blow that killed her. Maybe put her face down
32:10
Speaker 1: on the floor. Will blood is going to settle to
32:12
Speaker 1: the front of her body. Well, all of a sudden,
32:14
Speaker 1: you've got this presentation to post morm vidity anteriorly, which
32:17
Speaker 1: means front, and then you fold her over and you
32:20
Speaker 1: put her into this suitcase. Now she's kind of laying
32:23
Speaker 1: on her side. Well, it takes several hours for the
32:26
Speaker 1: lavidity to actually set in, so you'll get multiple points
32:31
Speaker 1: of settling of lividity on this body. And that gives
32:34
Speaker 1: you an indication to somebody's manipulated to the body. And
32:36
Speaker 1: again that goes to the picture you're trying to present
32:40
Speaker 1: of what they did post mortem relative to their activities.
32:44
Speaker 1: One of the essential part here is that there were
32:47
Speaker 1: witnesses to them exiting the hotel. They've got bags and
32:51
Speaker 1: of course they've got v bag that contains that contains
32:55
Speaker 1: her body, the victim's body. But you know what, they
32:58
Speaker 1: didn't take notice of any kind of blood on the
33:02
Speaker 1: perpetrator's bodies. So what does that tell us? What It
33:05
Speaker 1: tells us that they probably took at least some amount
33:07
Speaker 1: of time to clean themselves up, because you know, let's
33:11
Speaker 1: face it, and anything it's going to sell off an
33:13
Speaker 1: alarm with people that are paying attention. If you've got
33:16
Speaker 1: blood smeared up and down the side of your face,
33:18
Speaker 1: on your neck, on your hands, and that sort of thing.
33:20
Speaker 1: Bollies a tropical environment, so you're not going to be
33:23
Speaker 1: wearing heavy clothes. It's not like you're gonna walk out
33:25
Speaker 1: with a park on. You might be wearing shorts and
33:28
Speaker 1: maybe a tank top or a T shirt. All of
33:31
Speaker 1: your body surfaces are going to be exposed, so people
33:34
Speaker 1: will see your skin. You have to take time to
33:36
Speaker 1: clean up because, as we have already established, this is
33:38
Speaker 1: just an absolutely horror show of crime scene. Joseph Scott
33:47
Speaker 1: Morgan and this is body backs