Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Buried Truths - The Warlocks, a Cemetery, and a Case Unsolved

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Buried Truths - The Warlocks, a Cemetery, and a Case Unsolved · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. A question that is
0:21
Speaker 1: thrown my way time and time again when people find
0:25
Speaker 1: out what I did for a living is Morgan, How
0:28
Speaker 1: in the world could you be around the dead so much?
0:32
Speaker 1: Doesn't it take a toll? My knee jerk reaction is
0:35
Speaker 1: I don't mind being around the dead. As a matter
0:37
Speaker 1: of fact, the finality of death is rather peaceful, contrary
0:41
Speaker 1: to which you see, you know on here. Perhaps it's
0:44
Speaker 1: not like some movie where you see the dead displaying horror.
0:48
Speaker 1: It's the living that trouble me most of the time.
0:52
Speaker 1: I certainly feel less safe around the living than I
0:55
Speaker 1: do the dead. It all depends on how you look
0:58
Speaker 1: at it, and sometimes things are not as they seem.
1:03
Speaker 1: We're going to be discussing two cases that take place
1:07
Speaker 1: at the same location, and the level of horror that
1:12
Speaker 1: is involved in this would make the strongest of us
1:16
Speaker 1: shaking our boots. Today. We're going to be discussing a
1:20
Speaker 1: double homicide where the remains were deposited in an old,
1:25
Speaker 1: abandoned burial ground. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is
1:31
Speaker 1: Body Backs. Dave mac I don't know about you. I'm
1:38
Speaker 1: not afraid of graveyards and cemeteries. As a matter of fact,
1:43
Speaker 1: I find them rather peaceful. There's actually beauty in them.
1:46
Speaker 1: There are a couple of them that I will seek
1:49
Speaker 1: out during the fall because they're so gorgeous when you
1:52
Speaker 1: can see the changing the leaves and that sort of thing.
1:55
Speaker 1: And of course I'm always going on about how I
1:58
Speaker 1: am from New Orleans, and you begin to talk about artistry,
2:02
Speaker 1: and you visit those mausoleums, those graves that are all
2:06
Speaker 1: above ground. They're famous for having above ground graves because
2:08
Speaker 1: they'll flood if you try to bury the bodies beneath
2:10
Speaker 1: the ground. They're unbelievably gorgeous. I urge anybody that ever
2:15
Speaker 1: goes to New Orleans to take a cemetery tour because
2:18
Speaker 1: it is something to behold the money that has been
2:21
Speaker 1: invested in these final resting spots. But this case, that
2:26
Speaker 1: cases actually that we're going to discuss involve a place
2:29
Speaker 1: called Mount Moriah, which is kind of fascinating because that
2:33
Speaker 1: in the Bible, I think that that's the location where
2:36
Speaker 1: Abraham took his son Isaac to sacrifice him. But that's
2:40
Speaker 1: what this cemetery graveyard burial ground will get into.
2:44
Speaker 2: That was named we need two body bags, Joe, two
2:47
Speaker 2: body bags for today. Police were actually looking for Keith Blumbo,
2:52
Speaker 2: and when they found him, they found another man, David Rizillo,
2:56
Speaker 2: that they weren't even looking for. So let's back up
3:00
Speaker 2: and paint this with a very broad brush. The Warlocks
3:03
Speaker 2: motorcycle club in Philadelphia, according to the National Organization, the
3:08
Speaker 2: charter for the Warlocks in Philadelphia was being pulled because
3:11
Speaker 2: they were too violent, just too thuggish. They had too
3:15
Speaker 2: many street thugs and we're doing things the National Charter
3:17
Speaker 2: didn't like.
3:18
Speaker 1: These are not weakend warriors. These are serious, serious individuals.
3:22
Speaker 2: But the bottom line is Keith Palombo and David Rizillo
3:25
Speaker 2: were two guys on the outside looking in when it
3:27
Speaker 2: comes to the Warlocks. Keith Plombo was a musician, tattoo artist.
3:32
Speaker 2: He comes from a big family, but a very big
3:35
Speaker 2: family that's awesomely connected. They talked every day, they messaged
3:38
Speaker 2: one another. They were in constant contact with each other,
3:41
Speaker 2: and at Keith Palombo, at the age of thirty six,
3:44
Speaker 2: still called his mother every day just to make sure
3:46
Speaker 2: everything was okay. That's how tight this family was. I
3:50
Speaker 2: mentioned Keith was a well known guitar player in the
3:52
Speaker 2: Philadelphia area, also well known in the area as a
3:55
Speaker 2: tattoo artist. Well know how popular tattoos have become in
3:58
Speaker 2: the last fifteen to twenty years. So when police were
4:01
Speaker 2: called on February tenth, they were told, we haven't seen
4:04
Speaker 2: him since February sixth. The interviews start taking place with
4:08
Speaker 2: family and friends, and that's where police get their first
4:12
Speaker 2: big tip, and it is when a relative says that
4:14
Speaker 2: Keith told him, if I ever go missing, start the
4:17
Speaker 2: search at the cemetery. That basically gives you two options.
4:21
Speaker 2: Keith knew that the Warlocks used the cemetery as a
4:23
Speaker 2: dumping ground for people they clipped. That's one.
4:26
Speaker 3: Option.
4:26
Speaker 2: Two is that maybe Keith had been threatened with winding
4:29
Speaker 2: up in the cemetery, and the cemetery in question, by
4:32
Speaker 2: the way, Mount Moriah Cemetery. As the police are putting
4:35
Speaker 2: the case together, they have the Warlocks, they have the cemetery.
4:39
Speaker 2: They've got a missing person, Keith Palumbo. They need that
4:42
Speaker 2: one missing link and they find it in a woman
4:45
Speaker 2: by the name of Donna Morelli. Donna Morelli was known
4:48
Speaker 2: to have close ties to the Warlocks. She was in
4:50
Speaker 2: a longtime relationship with the former leader of the biker
4:53
Speaker 2: club Eric Martinsen. He died in twenty fifteen, but she
4:56
Speaker 2: still had direct contact with the Warlocks. Comarelli also lived
5:01
Speaker 2: right across the street from the cemetery, and by the way,
5:04
Speaker 2: Donna Morelli is actually a board member of the Friends
5:08
Speaker 2: of Mount Mariah Cemetery. That's the nonprofit form to clean
5:11
Speaker 2: and preserve the cemetery after it closed in twenty eleven.
5:14
Speaker 2: So here is your direct tie between the Warlocks, the cemetery,
5:18
Speaker 2: and Keith Palumbo. So the police pay a call on
5:21
Speaker 2: Donna Morelli. Donna Morelli knows something the police aren't even
5:24
Speaker 2: looking for. She knows they're going to find Keith Plumbo.
5:28
Speaker 2: She knows they're going to find something else too, so
5:31
Speaker 2: she starts negotiating, and the police use this information to
5:34
Speaker 2: find out where is the crypt inside the cemetery where
5:38
Speaker 2: they might find Keith Palumbo. So what happens next, Joe.
5:42
Speaker 1: There are not too many situations as an investigator where
5:46
Speaker 1: you're faced with these unusual circumstances where you're literally standing
5:53
Speaker 1: in the middle of an abandoned graveyard, and within the
5:57
Speaker 1: abandoned graveyard, you're actually staring down down into a crypt
6:02
Speaker 1: you had no idea the crypt was there, and it's
6:05
Speaker 1: just it's the unusual fact that the police came into
6:08
Speaker 1: this information. If anything ever happens to me. Palombo was
6:13
Speaker 1: quoted as saying, look in the graveyard, my lord.
6:15
Speaker 3: They did.
6:16
Speaker 1: And when you pull the slab back, you're not just
6:19
Speaker 1: to imagine, if you will, the deepest, darkest, blackest space
6:23
Speaker 1: that you can possibly imagine. It's obviously windowless. You're talking
6:28
Speaker 1: about an environment that is completely encased underground in brick
6:33
Speaker 1: with dirt thrown on top of it. And the dirt
6:36
Speaker 1: has been compacted for years and years, so there is
6:38
Speaker 1: not a bit of light getting into this area. The
6:42
Speaker 1: last time there was any light, and we can only
6:44
Speaker 1: assume that it may have been starlight or moonlight was
6:46
Speaker 1: cast down into this pit was the days that these
6:51
Speaker 1: bodies had been cast down in there. Maybe they used
6:54
Speaker 1: a flashlight. I doubt that they really even cared, because listen,
6:58
Speaker 1: when it comes to this process and how these bodies
7:02
Speaker 1: were disposed of, Palombo and Rosello, you said something that
7:07
Speaker 1: was really key here, Dave. They were tossed away like garbage.
7:11
Speaker 1: So it's not like when you think about this crypt,
7:14
Speaker 1: you think about how respectfully the rest of these bodies
7:16
Speaker 1: were treated down there. These guys were essentially the top
7:19
Speaker 1: of the crypt was pulled back and they were dumped
7:22
Speaker 1: down in there. So the police are faced with a
7:25
Speaker 1: very interesting prospect. First off, how are they going to
7:28
Speaker 1: safely get down into this hole? Well, the fire department
7:30
Speaker 1: shows up and they provide a ladder. There's not a
7:33
Speaker 1: ladder that would go down in this thing. If there
7:35
Speaker 1: had been a ladder at some point in time in
7:38
Speaker 1: order to facilitate these bodies being taken down, it would
7:41
Speaker 1: have been picked up and removed because keep in mind,
7:43
Speaker 1: you have to place this large stone slab over this opening,
7:49
Speaker 1: so there's not like a staircase that's built down that.
7:51
Speaker 1: There's not a winch system or certainly an elevator or
7:56
Speaker 1: something like that to facilitate the bodies going down on
7:59
Speaker 1: the ground.
8:00
Speaker 2: Picture you get to the bottom, there's a crypt keeper,
8:02
Speaker 2: just like from TV. Now that all makes sense. Never
8:05
Speaker 2: understood it, Now I get it.
8:06
Speaker 1: Crypt Keeper is suddenly is certainly a metaphorical character there
8:10
Speaker 1: for the afterlife. In this sense, you've got nothingness, You've
8:13
Speaker 1: got black, deep, dark nothingness. And when you're processing the
8:17
Speaker 1: scene going down into the depths, because you literally are
8:21
Speaker 1: you have to flood this area with lights so before
8:23
Speaker 1: you can do anything in this environment, because the smallest
8:27
Speaker 1: little clue down there, a ripped piece of clothing, a
8:31
Speaker 1: cigarette butt. I've actually had cases Dave with clandestine burials
8:35
Speaker 1: where the people were digging the hole and they flicked
8:38
Speaker 1: a cigarette butt down into the hole and we were
8:42
Speaker 1: able to do DNA off the cigarette butt. So you
8:46
Speaker 1: never know what you're going to find.
8:48
Speaker 2: And they think they're going to find one, they are,
8:50
Speaker 2: Just to be crystal clear, they the police, they believe
8:54
Speaker 2: they're going to find the body of Keith Palumbo. They
8:58
Speaker 2: don't know about David Rissolo. They only think, and they
9:03
Speaker 2: think that Keith was there maybe two months.
9:05
Speaker 1: Rissolo, to be honest with you, he would have been
9:09
Speaker 1: almost completely skeletonized by this point and whatever clothing, which
9:13
Speaker 1: again is a big part of this, whatever clothing he
9:17
Speaker 1: would have had on, would have essentially been a container
9:19
Speaker 1: for his skeletal remains. You've got this kind of point
9:41
Speaker 1: of impact that happens when Keith Palombo is dropped down
9:46
Speaker 1: onto this pre existing skeletal remain, so you can have
9:49
Speaker 1: some disruption in the remains at that point in time,
9:52
Speaker 1: as well, So anything that may have been in one
9:55
Speaker 1: configuration is suddenly distorted. Then on top of that, you've
10:01
Speaker 1: got this process that is going on with this now
10:06
Speaker 1: recent decompositional event where Palombo's body is beginning to break down.
10:12
Speaker 1: We're talking about two months down the road. There still
10:14
Speaker 1: would be soft tissue. And yeah, the odor would have
10:16
Speaker 1: been incredibly foul. Even though this is technically subterranean and
10:21
Speaker 1: you're going to have you'll consistently the ambient interior temperature
10:27
Speaker 1: and here is going to remain consistently at roughly below
10:31
Speaker 1: seventy degrees more than likely.
10:33
Speaker 3: What about humidity, Is it going to be humid?
10:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it would and this and hey listen,
10:37
Speaker 1: this space would have been probably damp. There is no crypt, tomb, casket,
10:43
Speaker 1: or coffin that is free of moisture. People try to
10:46
Speaker 1: sell this, they try to tell you that it is.
10:48
Speaker 1: But these environments you're underground. So with just and keep
10:53
Speaker 1: in mind the water table itself as it rises and fallen.
10:56
Speaker 1: And this crypt, as we know, has been there for
11:00
Speaker 1: well in excess of probably one hundred years. It has
11:02
Speaker 1: experienced water damage over the years. You can just look
11:05
Speaker 1: at the bodies that were stored in there from the
11:07
Speaker 1: cromseeen photos and you can see mold and mildew, and
11:11
Speaker 1: the caskets are actually beginning to break down. Some of
11:14
Speaker 1: them have broken down that are in there. So yeah,
11:16
Speaker 1: the humidity is going to play a key role in this.
11:20
Speaker 2: Police went down to find Keith Palombo. They expect one body,
11:24
Speaker 2: fairly new. But the police aren't stupid. They know, Hey, man,
11:28
Speaker 2: if this was used to get rid of one guy,
11:31
Speaker 2: maybe this might be like the Mob Graveyard but for
11:34
Speaker 2: the biker gang, the Warlocks of Philadelphia.
11:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's pre knowledge of this too. Remember what
11:41
Speaker 1: Keith Palombo actually told his family. He said, if I
11:44
Speaker 1: ever go missing, look in the graveyard. Well, what the
11:48
Speaker 1: heck does that mean?
11:49
Speaker 3: Start this search at the cemetery?
11:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, start searching cemetery. What does that mean? Does did
11:54
Speaker 1: that mean that he had knowledge of this other fellow
11:57
Speaker 1: that had been dumped down in there? Or And this
12:00
Speaker 1: is really chilling when you think about it. Are there
12:03
Speaker 1: other locations throughout the cemetery And the sheer magnitude of
12:08
Speaker 1: this when you begin to kind of do the calculus
12:11
Speaker 1: here is mind blowing. If this was in fact a
12:14
Speaker 1: dumping ground to get rid of bodies and maybe it
12:16
Speaker 1: wasn't just them. Keep in mind with and I don't
12:19
Speaker 1: want to go too far filled with this. You can
12:21
Speaker 1: fantasize about this all you want, but let's just explore
12:24
Speaker 1: is just for a moment. The underworld is interconnected. They're
12:28
Speaker 1: not on an island. You have people doing business, very
12:32
Speaker 1: dark things, but they're still networked with one another and interconnected.
12:36
Speaker 1: Let's just say that one organized crime group got together
12:40
Speaker 1: with the other one said yeah, well we use this
12:41
Speaker 1: area on a regular basis. Nobody's going to look there.
12:45
Speaker 1: It's the perfect set of circumstances. After you get into
12:49
Speaker 1: the space and you've got all of these other casketed
12:51
Speaker 1: bodies or previously casketed bodies, you're thinking the damage on
12:55
Speaker 1: these coffins, did it occur as a result of somebody
12:58
Speaker 1: meddling with it or is it a natural event where
13:01
Speaker 1: they're just breaking down over time? Even if it's old wood.
13:06
Speaker 1: If these are old wooden caskets, which they look like,
13:09
Speaker 1: if they've been freshly cracked, you could appreciate that on
13:12
Speaker 1: the broken ends they won't have as much weather because
13:15
Speaker 1: as they were intact prior to being broken, that area
13:19
Speaker 1: would have kind of been protected, but you could look
13:22
Speaker 1: for fresh breaks and hear and so that would give
13:24
Speaker 1: you an idea of activity. And that's the most important thing.
13:27
Speaker 1: Someone has been down there before. Someone has an awareness.
13:31
Speaker 1: Someone had broken the seal on that crypt at some
13:33
Speaker 1: point in time and gone down there, and they would
13:35
Speaker 1: have had an awareness of it. Someone had passed through
13:38
Speaker 1: that graveyard. Dave repeatedly looking for space to place these bodies.
13:44
Speaker 1: But still at the end of the day, what do
13:46
Speaker 1: you do with all of this when you get it
13:47
Speaker 1: back to the medical examder's office.
13:50
Speaker 2: And that's the question is what did Keith Palumbo? What
13:54
Speaker 2: did his body look like after being in this crypt
13:58
Speaker 2: subterranean temperature moist about eight weeks. We know that, according
14:03
Speaker 2: to documents related to the court case, that he was
14:06
Speaker 2: shot in the face. Are you still going to have
14:08
Speaker 2: enough soft tissue to find a bullet?
14:10
Speaker 1: The bullet here, I think is probably a secondary because
14:14
Speaker 1: the bullet can actually pass through the head. Here's what's key.
14:18
Speaker 1: We know that he was shot in the face. As
14:20
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, one of the reports has from
14:22
Speaker 1: one of the people that kind of rolled over on
14:24
Speaker 1: this case. They shot him on a carpeted area and
14:26
Speaker 1: rolled his body up in the carpet and actually trimmed
14:28
Speaker 1: off pieces of it. The carpet was super saturated, and
14:31
Speaker 1: the police have never released the information relative to this carpet.
14:35
Speaker 1: Was it down there with the body? I think that
14:37
Speaker 1: that's a fascinating bit of forensic evidence. But back to
14:41
Speaker 1: his body, what would it reveal? Listen, even with decomposing remains,
14:46
Speaker 1: Let's just say, if you will put your the tip
14:48
Speaker 1: of your finger in the center of your forehead, that
14:51
Speaker 1: soft tissue right there. Someone is shot in the center
14:53
Speaker 1: of their forehead and it's within I don't know, probably
14:57
Speaker 1: within about eight inches, you're going to have some type
15:01
Speaker 1: of deposition on the surface of that skin. Now, will
15:04
Speaker 1: it be more difficult to see on a decomposing body, Yeah,
15:08
Speaker 1: it will be. Bodies do. In fact, they go through
15:11
Speaker 1: stages relative to the color of their skin as they
15:15
Speaker 1: are decomposing. First you'll have this kind of reddish hue
15:18
Speaker 1: that will take place with the body. Then it'll become
15:21
Speaker 1: this kind of sickly pink color. Then it expands out
15:25
Speaker 1: into a green and then into a black, and then
15:27
Speaker 1: finally the tissue is eradicated. He would not have hit
15:31
Speaker 1: that kind of blackened state yet so you could still
15:34
Speaker 1: appreciate any kind of stippling or tattooing that was there
15:38
Speaker 1: on the skin. And also, if the muzzle of that
15:41
Speaker 1: weapon was close enough to the face, as we've been
15:45
Speaker 1: told that it was fired, they would have done a
15:47
Speaker 1: detailed dissection immediately over that defect. Defect is just a
15:51
Speaker 1: fancy term for the hole, the bullet hole that's in
15:54
Speaker 1: the body. And when you reflect that, let's say that
15:57
Speaker 1: it was within say an inch of the forehead, there's
16:02
Speaker 1: a high possibility that you would get what's referred to
16:04
Speaker 1: as soot deposition on the external table of the skull,
16:08
Speaker 1: which means that once you pull away that soft tissue,
16:12
Speaker 1: you can actually appreciate perhaps gunpowder residue on the surface
16:17
Speaker 1: of the bone. It would still be there. That's not
16:20
Speaker 1: going to dissipate. The skin might disappear, and obviously it
16:24
Speaker 1: would soft tissue, but not just over this period of time.
16:27
Speaker 1: It's a foul mess to work with, trust me, it is.
16:30
Speaker 1: And if he was shot anywhere else in the body,
16:33
Speaker 1: we know in the face, but there's multiple gunshots, there's
16:36
Speaker 1: a possibility you can still find some residue there. And
16:39
Speaker 1: also if he was beaten down in any way. Did
16:41
Speaker 1: you know, even if a body is decomposing, you can
16:45
Speaker 1: still in the anti mortem state when we are bruised,
16:48
Speaker 1: we have these focal areas of hemorrhage in the anti
16:51
Speaker 1: mortem state that occurs. That means our heart is still pumping.
16:55
Speaker 1: You've got this hemorrhage that's leaching out into what's referred
16:57
Speaker 1: to as an interstitial tissue. Even decompositional phase, you can
17:02
Speaker 1: still appreciate that if you still have tissue. So they
17:05
Speaker 1: would have examined that. Finally, one of the things that
17:08
Speaker 1: they're going to try to discover with him. Even before
17:12
Speaker 1: they as we used to say in the morgue, before
17:15
Speaker 1: they put the cold steel to the body, they would
17:17
Speaker 1: have done X rays. And X rays are important in
17:20
Speaker 1: any kind of autops you do. I don't care how
17:23
Speaker 1: benign it might seem. If you have that radiographic record
17:27
Speaker 1: of the body, that's something that will never go away.
17:30
Speaker 1: And you want to do that before you ever remove
17:32
Speaker 1: the clothing period, because you don't know what's hiding beneath
17:36
Speaker 1: these radio opaque things. And with these bullets projectiles, as
17:40
Speaker 1: they pass through and they cavitate through the skull, they
17:43
Speaker 1: leave a little lead storm lots of times, and you
17:46
Speaker 1: can actually track that little lead storm and figure out
17:49
Speaker 1: what the trajectory of the round is. And that's important
17:52
Speaker 1: here because as a body begins to decompose, and particularly
17:56
Speaker 1: when you're talking about the brain, the brain goes into
17:59
Speaker 1: almost this doesn't have the same consistency as it does
18:02
Speaker 1: in life. It's not quite as firm. So before you
18:05
Speaker 1: ever touch the brain, like open it with the striker
18:09
Speaker 1: saw where we removed the skull cap and all that
18:11
Speaker 1: sort of thing. If you're looking at a radiographic record
18:15
Speaker 1: of this, you can still see that little lead track
18:18
Speaker 1: if that bullet is fragmenting, and you can pick up
18:21
Speaker 1: on the trajectory. So if this eyewitness is saying, yeah,
18:24
Speaker 1: I saw him shoot him in the face. He was
18:26
Speaker 1: standing three feet away from him, or two feet away
18:30
Speaker 1: or six inches away from him. He had gotten Palombo
18:33
Speaker 1: down on his knees before he shot him. Well, now
18:36
Speaker 1: you're talking about a trajectory that's going from above to below,
18:39
Speaker 1: from front to back, and it's on a really pitched angle.
18:43
Speaker 1: Maybe Palombo didn't look up at him when he was shot.
18:46
Speaker 1: Maybe he just kept his eyes looking straight ahead. If
18:49
Speaker 1: he's on his knees, at the guy's thighs as he's
18:51
Speaker 1: been shot, and he shot more on the top of
18:53
Speaker 1: the head that can be interpreted as the face, or
18:55
Speaker 1: maybe they're face to face. Maybe he's got his chest
18:58
Speaker 1: thrown out and he whips the gun out, sticks it
19:00
Speaker 1: right in his face and shoose him. That's going to
19:02
Speaker 1: give you a more front to back without as much
19:04
Speaker 1: of a pitch. So that's why the x rays are
19:06
Speaker 1: so very important.
19:07
Speaker 2: So months after he's been in that grip and you
19:10
Speaker 2: can still figure that out. Now, how would you get
19:13
Speaker 2: the body out because I'm going to assume there's going
19:16
Speaker 2: to be a barely in depth investigation of his body
19:20
Speaker 2: right there where it's found before they move it.
19:22
Speaker 3: Right.
19:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got to say something here real quick. A
19:25
Speaker 1: plug for all of my friends in the fire service.
19:28
Speaker 1: I have gotten out of more tight fixes as a
19:31
Speaker 1: medical legal death investigator as a result of fire service
19:35
Speaker 1: being at a scene. And you want to know why
19:37
Speaker 1: police officers are very fastidious with their uniforms. The thing
19:40
Speaker 1: about firefighters, they'll look at you and it doesn't matter
19:43
Speaker 1: how dirty the task is. They'll say, oh yeah, doc
19:46
Speaker 1: will be glad to help you. What do you need.
19:49
Speaker 1: We've got a special knot that we can tie, or
19:51
Speaker 1: we've got this and that that we can help you
19:53
Speaker 1: out with. We got this brand new tool we want
19:55
Speaker 1: to use. And let me tell you. When they would
19:57
Speaker 1: have gotten Palombo's body out, fire rescue would have been involved,
20:02
Speaker 1: and it would have been just like a regular rescue. However,
20:05
Speaker 1: you're talking about a markedly decomposed body. So the body
20:08
Speaker 1: would have been bagged.
20:10
Speaker 3: When you say bagged, you mean like in the body
20:12
Speaker 3: bag as.
20:13
Speaker 1: In body bag. Yeah, to completely contain the body. Here's
20:16
Speaker 1: another bit about body bags, since we're on the topic.
20:20
Speaker 1: Bodies don't go directly into body bags. What happens is
20:24
Speaker 1: we line the body bags with a clean white sheet.
20:26
Speaker 1: And the reason we do that is that when we
20:29
Speaker 1: place the body that is recovered at the scene into
20:33
Speaker 1: the body bag that is in fact lined with a sheet,
20:36
Speaker 1: we're guaranteed to a certain degree, and it's not perfect,
20:40
Speaker 1: but to a certain degree that we can recover any
20:42
Speaker 1: kind of trace evidence that might fall off. It's not
20:45
Speaker 1: going to go anywhere. And so we can tie the
20:48
Speaker 1: sheet off around the body and then zip the body
20:51
Speaker 1: bag closed and lock it. We actually have these little
20:54
Speaker 1: plastic locks. Then the body would have been placed into
20:58
Speaker 1: a life saving basket essentially, like you see mountain rescues
21:02
Speaker 1: being done and all this sort of thing, and it
21:03
Speaker 1: would have been pulled up by the firefighters. That there's
21:06
Speaker 1: a great shot from the scene that was put out
21:10
Speaker 1: by the DA's office. I urge anybody go take a
21:13
Speaker 1: look at this, and you can see firefighters looking over
21:16
Speaker 1: into the crypt and they would have pulled them out
21:19
Speaker 1: and then they would have transferred it to the medical
21:22
Speaker 1: examiner's wagon and off they go.
21:24
Speaker 3: And they would try to keep them level the whole way.
21:27
Speaker 1: As best you can. You don't want to jostle any remains.
21:30
Speaker 1: Skeletal remains are going to be a bit different. The
21:52
Speaker 1: one saving grace is if in fact the skeletal remains
21:56
Speaker 1: were still contained within clothing. We have to assume that
21:59
Speaker 1: they were. That is, if shirt, pants, shoes, all of
22:05
Speaker 1: those items that would have acted as kind of a
22:08
Speaker 1: containment resource for the body. So it's not like at
22:12
Speaker 1: the scene, I think people believe that we're going to
22:15
Speaker 1: do this really detailed examination or remains of the scene.
22:19
Speaker 1: That's not what we're going to do. Our goal at
22:21
Speaker 1: the scene is to try to keep bodies as intact
22:25
Speaker 1: anatomically oriented minds you as we possibly can. That's not
22:29
Speaker 1: always going to be the case, but do care would
22:31
Speaker 1: have had to have been taken with the skeletal remains
22:35
Speaker 1: to try to gently scoop beneath them while they're intact.
22:40
Speaker 1: There's a high probability that you're going to lose, say,
22:43
Speaker 1: for instance, the elements of the hand, any kind of
22:46
Speaker 1: bony structures there. The feet are very are highly complex structurally,
22:50
Speaker 1: so you've got bones that make up the ankle structure,
22:53
Speaker 1: and then of course you have the toes and everything
22:56
Speaker 1: else that's associated with that. So you want to be
22:59
Speaker 1: as careful as you can. And the clothing that would
23:02
Speaker 1: have been down there I've seen as a matter of fact,
23:05
Speaker 1: I worked a skeletal case from New Orleans many years
23:08
Speaker 1: ago where a guy went beneath his house in seventy four,
23:11
Speaker 1: and this was actually profiled on a Michael Biden's autopsy
23:14
Speaker 1: show on HBO many years ago. He went beneath the
23:17
Speaker 1: house in nineteen seventy four and shot himself and the family.
23:21
Speaker 1: They didn't discover that guy's body until like nineteen I
23:26
Speaker 1: think it was like nineteen eighty nine, and I got
23:29
Speaker 1: called out and the blue jeans were still there. He
23:32
Speaker 1: still had the big wide belt that everybody wore back then.
23:36
Speaker 1: The blue jeans were flared, you could still appreciate those.
23:38
Speaker 1: He had leather shoes on and still had a mechanic
23:42
Speaker 1: shirt on that had his name. You ever seen the
23:44
Speaker 1: mechanic shirts that had the name, still had the name
23:47
Speaker 1: where it was visible. And there was an old thirty
23:49
Speaker 1: eight caliber revolver that was rusted away laying right there.
23:52
Speaker 1: This goal was even still there, so you have to
23:54
Speaker 1: be careful with the clothing is very very fragile. In
23:56
Speaker 1: this environment. You talked about humidity, it begins to break down.
24:00
Speaker 2: We know the police went down into the crypt to
24:03
Speaker 2: look for Keith Palombo. That's who they were there to find.
24:06
Speaker 2: That's what their investigation led them there. They had it
24:10
Speaker 2: all covered now by then. They go down to the
24:13
Speaker 2: crypt and they find his body. But they find now, granted,
24:16
Speaker 2: we have a crypt that's got plenty of other bodies
24:19
Speaker 2: in it, but those are obviously supposed to be there.
24:21
Speaker 2: But then you have these two that don't match the rest.
24:25
Speaker 2: One still has hair and skin, the other has been
24:29
Speaker 2: there for considerably longer. Now, when you think about David Rozillo,
24:33
Speaker 2: being in this crypt that for again, he was last
24:37
Speaker 2: seen in December of twenty seventeen. We're now in April
24:41
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty and police had to do DNA, they
24:45
Speaker 2: had to actually do the whole forensic thing on him.
24:48
Speaker 2: So where do you start. You know, you've got the
24:50
Speaker 2: body on top. It was the one you were expecting
24:52
Speaker 2: to find, and based on the condition of his body
24:56
Speaker 2: the remains, they knew they had their right guy. Of course,
24:59
Speaker 2: they did the dental test and everything else to prove it,
25:01
Speaker 2: but they knew this was the guy we were looking for.
25:03
Speaker 3: But what in the world.
25:04
Speaker 2: This is another guy that has been dumped, probably by
25:08
Speaker 2: the same people, which is why they had to get information,
25:11
Speaker 2: and they started making deals with different members of the
25:14
Speaker 2: Warlocks gang because they didn't even know who they were
25:17
Speaker 2: looking at. Nobody had reported this person missing. That was
25:20
Speaker 2: the thing with David Rizillo. They didn't know he was
25:24
Speaker 2: even there. They didn't know he was missing.
25:25
Speaker 1: That's a problem for you. However, since the police, the
25:29
Speaker 1: investigators would know, they're kind of on a very tight
25:32
Speaker 1: spectrum here because you're talking about a motorcycle club and
25:37
Speaker 1: there are a finite number of people that could be
25:38
Speaker 1: a member or associated with that club. Well, you begin
25:41
Speaker 1: to think about the police. Law enforcement are always going
25:44
Speaker 1: to have informants. I don't care how secure you might
25:47
Speaker 1: think your organization is, There's always going to be somebody
25:50
Speaker 1: around that's going to rat you out.
25:52
Speaker 2: There is no honor among thieves and criminals. You know
25:54
Speaker 2: how drug dealers get caught by the idiots that use
25:57
Speaker 2: the drugs. They get caught with it because they're driving
26:00
Speaker 2: around high and they have what they bought for twenty
26:03
Speaker 2: five bucks. Cob gives them two choices. Do you want
26:06
Speaker 2: to go to charge maybe a fellon you lose your
26:08
Speaker 2: job and everything else, or tell me who you bought
26:10
Speaker 2: this from.
26:11
Speaker 1: Who'd you get it from? And you kind of follow
26:12
Speaker 1: the stream.
26:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's what they did here.
26:14
Speaker 2: We know they did it because right at the very beginning,
26:17
Speaker 2: we know that it was Donna Morelli. Donna Morelli was
26:21
Speaker 2: the woman who was on the board to keep the
26:24
Speaker 2: cemetery up. We know that Donna Morelli was the former
26:28
Speaker 2: main lady of the club. Her husband or I don't
26:31
Speaker 2: know what they call him, but her man, he had
26:33
Speaker 2: been the head of the club and she lived right
26:35
Speaker 2: there next to it. She was the one who gave
26:38
Speaker 2: them information about Keith Palombo, and so now who is
26:43
Speaker 2: this other body? You're the investigator, Joe. All you have
26:47
Speaker 2: are bones in what is obviously a place where the
26:50
Speaker 2: Warlocks are dumping bodies. And I think you were right
26:53
Speaker 2: when you said, Keith Palombo said, if I ever go missing,
26:57
Speaker 2: search the cemetery first, because he's used as a threat,
27:01
Speaker 2: or he knew.
27:02
Speaker 1: And even more sinister, did he participate. I don't know
27:05
Speaker 1: that we would ever know, but you have to entertain
27:08
Speaker 1: that because that thread investigatively can connect, can connect back
27:13
Speaker 1: to that. You look at this kind of short list
27:15
Speaker 1: of people that you have, this gentleman that they found
27:19
Speaker 1: just down there, you begin to wonder what do you
27:22
Speaker 1: have to go on. Obviously DNA, we know that they
27:25
Speaker 1: either extracted DNA, probably from a tooth, more than likely,
27:29
Speaker 1: because teeth are The way I've described it in my
27:33
Speaker 1: class is relative to DNA extraction. If you think about
27:38
Speaker 1: extracting DNA from say a softer tissue, it's like having
27:43
Speaker 1: a leather briefcase that you're taking it from. If you
27:47
Speaker 1: take it from teeth, DNA is like having a steel
27:50
Speaker 1: briefcase because it's that resilient. I mean some of the
27:53
Speaker 1: most fantastic work that scientists are doing right now and
27:56
Speaker 1: trying to understand genetics, and those sorts of things, particularly
28:00
Speaker 1: in our prehistory, come from teeth of mast dons and
28:04
Speaker 1: all those sorts of things, because it's a container, it's
28:07
Speaker 1: not bone, and so they would have that. But another
28:10
Speaker 1: kind of broader strokes, there are other evidentiary clues here.
28:14
Speaker 1: You know I'd mentioned that clothing, Well, that clothing is
28:16
Speaker 1: going to have a specific size, it's going to have
28:18
Speaker 1: a specific manufacturer. There might be name tapes or name
28:21
Speaker 1: tax and also you might have a government ID. I
28:25
Speaker 1: never trust government issued identification on anybody, particularly on a
28:30
Speaker 1: decomposed remain, a skeletal remain, because it can be placed there.
28:34
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I can't look at the idea
28:36
Speaker 1: and say that it is this person. So it's a
28:39
Speaker 1: good place to start and see. I would have thought
28:41
Speaker 1: that had been a good one. I really if you had.
28:44
Speaker 1: If I was on a test, I just failed.
28:46
Speaker 2: Now I make sense, Joe, It makes perfectly good sense
28:48
Speaker 2: that you wouldn't trust that.
28:49
Speaker 1: There have been many, many people that have been misidentified
28:52
Speaker 1: with driver's licenses that they had on them. I don't
28:55
Speaker 1: trust them. I don't trust military ideas. I've seen enough
28:58
Speaker 1: of them. They can either be forge are faked, or
29:01
Speaker 1: somebody can be carrying somebody else's It's too much of
29:04
Speaker 1: a risk. You're actually what you're doing is you're running
29:07
Speaker 1: the risk of good and this has happened. You're running
29:10
Speaker 1: the risk of basing an identification and subsequently a notification
29:15
Speaker 1: to a family on a government on a piece of paper.
29:18
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that. I might go to
29:20
Speaker 1: a family and say, look, we have a remain here
29:22
Speaker 1: that might be your loved one, but we have to
29:24
Speaker 1: make sure. What can you tell me about the dental history?
29:27
Speaker 1: What can you tell me about the medical history? Is
29:29
Speaker 1: there anywhere I can go for a dental chart? Can
29:31
Speaker 1: I get a DNA sample from his familial line? And
29:35
Speaker 1: if that is the case, then I can compare what
29:38
Speaker 1: I have the unknown to the known, and that's the
29:41
Speaker 1: most important thing.
29:42
Speaker 2: And so that's what they did with David Rizilla, which
29:45
Speaker 2: is why it ended up going to court. As we
29:47
Speaker 2: know now, Donna Morelli actually was the source of information.
29:52
Speaker 2: She was able to clee it down, which is how
29:54
Speaker 2: it helped to find out who he was. But they
29:57
Speaker 2: did the DNA matching and everything. But I was kind
29:59
Speaker 2: of because we had talked about the condition of the
30:02
Speaker 2: body for Keith Palumbo, that he was still eight weeks pasted,
30:07
Speaker 2: that he still had soft tissue and what have you.
30:10
Speaker 2: But with David Rizzolo, they had to depend on other
30:13
Speaker 2: waves to find out to prove what had happened. Is
30:15
Speaker 2: one thing for somebody to say what happened, but you
30:19
Speaker 2: can't take her word for it, because, well, for crying
30:21
Speaker 2: out loud, everybody we're dealing with, we know is a
30:24
Speaker 2: member of the Warlocks gang here in Philadelphia, but they
30:28
Speaker 2: all claim they were not members of the They were
30:31
Speaker 2: never involved in the case of the guy who they
30:33
Speaker 2: knew was a leader of the thing for years in
30:36
Speaker 2: court they said no, he was a probationary guy. So
30:39
Speaker 2: you can't believe anything that's being said. But what can
30:42
Speaker 2: you find out When you've got the bones, you've got
30:44
Speaker 2: the clothing, you've got this evidence. There's enough to piece
30:48
Speaker 2: too and two together and then form your line of attack.
30:52
Speaker 2: But you're going to find these bones in there, and
30:54
Speaker 2: you don't know if this is where they were when
30:57
Speaker 2: they were first put down there or were they knocked
30:59
Speaker 2: around with the other body was dropped in are the
31:02
Speaker 2: rodents that can get into a crypt, so the bunts
31:04
Speaker 2: can be drug around.
31:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, most certainly, and rats in particular are attracted particularly
31:09
Speaker 1: with exposed remain like this because put it quite bluntly,
31:13
Speaker 1: other animal life attracts other animal life. And so once
31:17
Speaker 1: those say, for instance, the fly which to get into
31:21
Speaker 1: a crypt is an easy feat for a fly, and
31:24
Speaker 1: if they're smelling this decompositional event, they're going to be
31:27
Speaker 1: attracted to it. They have no fear of the dark,
31:30
Speaker 1: and that sense that they have, that sense rather that
31:32
Speaker 1: they have will attract them to the body and they
31:35
Speaker 1: begin their cycle, and it's a naturally occurring event. It's
31:38
Speaker 1: just like any other mammal that dies. We all go
31:42
Speaker 1: through the same process. But in that subterranean world, Yeah,
31:47
Speaker 1: you'll get all kinds of armints that will come in
31:49
Speaker 1: there and they will begin to do what they do
31:52
Speaker 1: with human remains, and you would see evidence on that,
31:55
Speaker 1: even the skeletal remains. You'll see there's any number of
31:58
Speaker 1: cases that are out there where you have naw marks
32:02
Speaker 1: on bone that's left behind. And why do they do that, Well,
32:05
Speaker 1: animals have a natural affinity for minerals and so they're
32:10
Speaker 1: seeking out these things that they can get from bone,
32:13
Speaker 1: for instance, whether it's a calcium, they're searching for protein.
32:18
Speaker 1: Anything that they can know on that is at their disposal,
32:21
Speaker 1: they will seek it out and they will they will
32:23
Speaker 1: utilize it. So yet the bones can be compromised to
32:26
Speaker 1: that point, however, you're at a real you're behind the
32:30
Speaker 1: eight ball where the skeletal remain if you're looking for
32:34
Speaker 1: a cause of death, and I think that that's probably
32:36
Speaker 1: what everybody would want to know. Here's another problem. Let's
32:40
Speaker 1: just say, just like Palombo, he was shot in the face,
32:44
Speaker 1: well his head. As long as there's a soft tissue
32:47
Speaker 1: around the head, you still have containment. The skull would
32:50
Speaker 1: be fragmented, it'd be fractured as decomposition continues on in
32:54
Speaker 1: its natural state. Not talking about an embalmed body. The
32:58
Speaker 1: bones literally kind of fall upon it's like a fracturing
33:01
Speaker 1: clay pot, okay, and they'll be cast about where the
33:05
Speaker 1: skeletal remain. Now you're at this point where if he
33:09
Speaker 1: was shot in the face, you might be dealing with
33:11
Speaker 1: massive skull fracture that's going on. There's no more soft
33:14
Speaker 1: tissue to hold it together. We're talking multiple years down range,
33:17
Speaker 1: so it could be lying down there in multiple parts. Well,
33:21
Speaker 1: guess what. A rodent will take the smaller bits of bone,
33:26
Speaker 1: like the table of the skull, and if they've got
33:28
Speaker 1: a hole, say in the wall of that crypt, they
33:30
Speaker 1: will literally take that back to their nest and they'll
33:33
Speaker 1: gnaw on it. Possums do this all the time out
33:35
Speaker 1: in the woods with bone possums and raccoons. They'll haul
33:39
Speaker 1: bits of bone off to their little nest, their little
33:42
Speaker 1: areas where they live, and they'll feast on this. And
33:45
Speaker 1: you'll wind up missing bits of bone out there with
33:48
Speaker 1: skeletons that have been down for a protracted period of time.
33:51
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the reasons like we rarely find,
33:54
Speaker 1: for instance, like hyoid bones, those boys and bones in
33:57
Speaker 1: the neck that everybody's always going on about, because it's
33:59
Speaker 1: very fragile, it's very tiny, and so that would be
34:03
Speaker 1: prime for say an animal to grab hold of and
34:06
Speaker 1: they haul it away. Well, if the hyoid is missing,
34:08
Speaker 1: for instance, and say just some generic case out there
34:12
Speaker 1: and you're thinking, wow, is this a homicide, Was this
34:14
Speaker 1: a strangulation or something? I need to see if it
34:16
Speaker 1: was fractured, it's not there well, you got to check
34:18
Speaker 1: that off the list. You can't check it. That's a problem.
34:21
Speaker 1: You can't prove it. So with his skull, with the
34:24
Speaker 1: skeletal remains, what you're looking for is even after death,
34:28
Speaker 1: if you have the totality of the skull, you can
34:30
Speaker 1: still put it together all right, and you'll use wax
34:34
Speaker 1: or clay kind of to seal it up many times,
34:36
Speaker 1: and you can appreciate the form of it, and you
34:39
Speaker 1: can also appreciate if there are any defects in the skull.
34:42
Speaker 1: So if he's shot in the forehead, for instance, that's
34:45
Speaker 1: going to have internal beveling. So you think about a
34:47
Speaker 1: beveled glass. The interior of that bone is blown out
34:51
Speaker 1: and it's beveled on the inside. It's smooth on the outside,
34:54
Speaker 1: and it's just the opposite if it exit, If it
34:57
Speaker 1: exits out of the back of the head externally, you'll
34:59
Speaker 1: have it external beveling, but the interior of the skull
35:02
Speaker 1: will be smooth where the whole passes through. So that's
35:04
Speaker 1: how we determine where a skeleton or with a skull,
35:08
Speaker 1: which one is the entrance versus exit. And then is
35:10
Speaker 1: it a throw and through wound. You know, I've picked
35:12
Speaker 1: up skulls before and kind of shook them a little bit.
35:16
Speaker 1: And you can actually hear a projectile rattling around inside
35:19
Speaker 1: the cranial vault, which for us we get excited about
35:23
Speaker 1: because we've got to project all there.
35:25
Speaker 2: So you've got, in this case, combination of good old
35:29
Speaker 2: police work going to your local biker gang and breaking
35:33
Speaker 2: it down. But when they get down the crypt, they
35:36
Speaker 2: find what they're looking for, but they find something they
35:39
Speaker 2: didn't even know was there. And that's where the forensics
35:42
Speaker 2: really had to go into overdrive to figure out who
35:44
Speaker 2: this guy is. Even though they had a story from
35:47
Speaker 2: different individuals in the gang in the club, they still
35:50
Speaker 2: had to prove who he was, and eventually they did
35:53
Speaker 2: so David Rizzolo and Keith Columbo both were able to
35:56
Speaker 2: be put to rest.
35:58
Speaker 1: That's the key to it all. At the end of
35:59
Speaker 1: the day, I can't help but think though that with
36:03
Speaker 1: the investigators that were out there when they found Keith
36:07
Speaker 1: Palombo's remained, there was a certain amount of relief. Obviously
36:11
Speaker 1: they'd been speaking with the family, but always in the
36:14
Speaker 1: back of their mind they're thinking, how are we going
36:17
Speaker 1: to make sense of this? Because this is the ultimate
36:20
Speaker 1: puzzle isn't it when you have one individual that you're
36:24
Speaker 1: looking for and suddenly, is almost like some kind of
36:27
Speaker 1: sick bonus, you find the skeletal remains of another homicide victim.
36:36
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body Backs.