Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags: The Murder of the Amato Family
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- 0:09Speaker 1: Body Backs with Joseph Scott Morgan. You work hard all
- 0:22Speaker 1: your life, you raise a family, three boys. You're coming
- 0:25Speaker 1: to the end of your career. You're looking forward to retirement.
- 0:29Speaker 1: You've been sweating away in central Florida all these years,
- 0:32Speaker 1: and you decide to buy a retirement home up in
- 0:34Speaker 1: the mountains of Tennessee. You've got your eyes set on
- 0:37Speaker 1: the prize, and suddenly one day your life comes to
- 0:42Speaker 1: swift and violent end at the hand of your own child. Today,
- 0:49Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the Mask of the a
- 0:51Speaker 1: Motto family and their son Grant a Motto. I'm Joseph
- 0:59Speaker 1: Scott Morgan and this his Body Backs Back with me
- 1:06Speaker 1: today is Jackie Howard, executive producer of Crime Stories with
- 1:10Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. Jackie tell us about the strategy. Joe Grant
- 1:15Speaker 1: a Motto is a twenty nine year old nurse and
- 1:18Speaker 1: he is accused of killing his family members at their home.
- 1:22Speaker 1: The reason is an obsession with a Bulgarian webcam model
- 1:27Speaker 1: that he met as a result of his addiction to
- 1:29Speaker 1: online porn. He had stolen two hundred thousand dollars from
- 1:35Speaker 1: his family to pay this online model. The police investigation
- 1:40Speaker 1: into the Amoto family began after a coworker called police
- 1:44Speaker 1: when Cody A. Mootto had not come into work. The
- 1:47Speaker 1: deputies circled the Amoto home and inside about nine am,
- 1:51Speaker 1: they found three people dead. According to Grant's arrest, Warren
- 1:55Speaker 1: aff A, David chat Amotto, his dad, was found dead
- 1:58Speaker 1: in the kitchen of their home, Cody A. Motto was
- 2:01Speaker 1: killed in a storage room, and Margaret Amatto, his mom,
- 2:05Speaker 1: was found shot dead in an office chair. Police officers
- 2:09Speaker 1: say Cody and Margaret Amatto suffered execution style wounds. Of
- 2:15Speaker 1: that money that was stolen from his family, the two
- 2:17Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars sixty thousand dollars was stolen from his
- 2:21Speaker 1: brother Cody. He also stole Cody's guns and sold them
- 2:26Speaker 1: without his permission, all to fund his obsession with this
- 2:29Speaker 1: Bulgaria model. What a Motto was doing was taking the
- 2:33Speaker 1: money that he had received or stolen from his family
- 2:36Speaker 1: and was wiring it to Bulgaria to this model. Grandamatta
- 2:41Speaker 1: was not a stupid person. You would you hear in
- 2:45Speaker 1: all of this, You would think that he didn't have
- 2:48Speaker 1: two cents in his brain to rub together. But this
- 2:51Speaker 1: kid was professionally sound to a certain degree. He was
- 2:55Speaker 1: a registered nurse. He and his brother had both graduated
- 2:59Speaker 1: from nur in school and he, you know, just prior
- 3:02Speaker 1: to these events, he was actually practicing as a nurse,
- 3:05Speaker 1: but his life kind of went down to this dark path.
- 3:09Speaker 1: At one point in time. He had kind of been
- 3:11Speaker 1: bulked up, was involved in weightlifting, he'd participated in airsoft competitions.
- 3:17Speaker 1: He'd loved shooting guns with his brother, and he and
- 3:20Speaker 1: his brother got along really really well. But over a
- 3:22Speaker 1: period of time, Jackie, you know, he he became very,
- 3:26Speaker 1: very diminished as he got into this world of the
- 3:29Speaker 1: sexual addiction where he's just feeding money to this woman
- 3:33Speaker 1: in Bulgaria, and you know, friends had talked about how
- 3:37Speaker 1: he almost took on almost a skeletal like appearance, eyes
- 3:41Speaker 1: were sunken back in his head. His weight had dropped precipitously,
- 3:45Speaker 1: probably lost close to fifty pounds or so, so when he,
- 3:48Speaker 1: you know, would pass her an area, he had almost
- 3:52Speaker 1: like a spectral appearance to him, and you know, kind
- 3:54Speaker 1: of ominous when he began to think about it. His brother,
- 3:58Speaker 1: Cody had actually gotten a degree as a nurse anesthetist,
- 4:03Speaker 1: and Grant had attempted to go through the same program.
- 4:07Speaker 1: But unlike his brother, he had actually flunked out of
- 4:10Speaker 1: the program. Some people say that this was the moment
- 4:13Speaker 1: in time when his life began to kind of tumble down.
- 4:16Speaker 1: He had these aspirations of becoming like a super duper millionaire,
- 4:20Speaker 1: you know, independently wealthy, and he and his brother had
- 4:24Speaker 1: planned on having matching BMW's that they would drive around in.
- 4:27Speaker 1: And you know, they were going to live in this
- 4:29Speaker 1: house that their parents had down in Florida, and the
- 4:32Speaker 1: parents were going to retire to Tennessee. As a matter
- 4:35Speaker 1: of fact, they had already targeted home up there that
- 4:38Speaker 1: they were going to move into. So it's it's all
- 4:40Speaker 1: a bunch of tragic circumstances that led to these fatal events, Jackie.
- 4:45Speaker 1: We know that the surviving brother, Jason Amato, told police
- 4:48Speaker 1: that Grant Amato had spent about two weeks out of
- 4:52Speaker 1: facility getting treated for depression. Grant Amato was actually enrolled
- 4:57Speaker 1: in a sixty day treatment pro Graham four Internet and
- 5:01Speaker 1: sex addiction, but he only completed about two weeks of
- 5:05Speaker 1: that program before he came home. According to the testimony
- 5:08Speaker 1: from Grant a Motto, he was an unheated argument with
- 5:11Speaker 1: his father and got kicked out of the home because
- 5:14Speaker 1: he did not cut off communication with the Bulgarian model
- 5:17Speaker 1: as advised and instructed by his family. My question to you,
- 5:22Speaker 1: Joe is, obviously, these parents are not forensic specialists and
- 5:26Speaker 1: would not have been looking at it with this critical
- 5:28Speaker 1: of an eye as you do. But should there have
- 5:32Speaker 1: been things that they noticed or maybe they did and
- 5:36Speaker 1: that's what led to this? Well, yeah, you know, you
- 5:38Speaker 1: talk about forensics, and you often have students, you know,
- 5:41Speaker 1: ask me, you know, well, professor Morgan, would what should
- 5:44Speaker 1: I do? In forensics? And one of the biggest growing
- 5:48Speaker 1: areas to the largest areas in forensic practice are actually
- 5:52Speaker 1: forensic computer science and forensic accounting, and certainly that came
- 5:57Speaker 1: into play in this case. Jackie. I mean, can you
- 6:00Speaker 1: can you even begin to fathom seeing your bank accounts
- 6:05Speaker 1: literally drained away? I think that it was close to
- 6:08Speaker 1: the actual dollar specific dollar amount, it's like one hundred
- 6:12Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars, and that was just liquidity of
- 6:16Speaker 1: cash that was that was drawn away. And then I
- 6:19Speaker 1: think that there was a loan that had been taken
- 6:22Speaker 1: out on the family home for an arrangement about sixty
- 6:26Speaker 1: thousand and then in addition to that, Grant had swiped
- 6:31Speaker 1: in excess of ten thousand dollars from his brother, so
- 6:34Speaker 1: we're we're above two hundred thousand dollars at this point
- 6:38Speaker 1: in time. So you know, when you're piecing this together
- 6:41Speaker 1: from a forensic standpoint, you know everything, everything you know
- 6:46Speaker 1: has a contact back in time. With an investigation. You
- 6:50Speaker 1: look for these little points of connection all the way
- 6:52Speaker 1: through the forensic narrative, and so you would when you're
- 6:56Speaker 1: piecing this together, you try to match up the narrative
- 6:59Speaker 1: of what you're hearing as an investigator with the cold
- 7:02Speaker 1: heart facts. And if you can look at the numbers,
- 7:06Speaker 1: and there are very specific numbers here, you can kind
- 7:09Speaker 1: of see this drain. If you put it on a graft,
- 7:11Speaker 1: you can see this kind of downward tumble that was
- 7:13Speaker 1: taking place. Now in addition to this, let's keep in
- 7:16Speaker 1: mind Grant a Motto, was not hopping on a plane
- 7:21Speaker 1: and flying to Eastern Europe. He was doing all of this.
- 7:27Speaker 1: Let me rephrase that he was in contact with this
- 7:32Speaker 1: cam model via the internet. So every time, every time
- 7:37Speaker 1: he would engage with her, there is actually a digital
- 7:41Speaker 1: footprint that's left behind. And one more interesting thing I
- 7:45Speaker 1: found about this, you know, when we begin to talk
- 7:47Speaker 1: about electronic forensics and how this kind of sex trade
- 7:51Speaker 1: works like this, in order to facilitate this kind of
- 7:56Speaker 1: on camera session that he would have with her, he
- 7:59Speaker 1: had to purchase these digital coins, if you will, And
- 8:04Speaker 1: there's even evidence that he had purchased roughly six hundred
- 8:08Speaker 1: dollars worth of these coins just prior to what they
- 8:13Speaker 1: believe or the deaths, the murders of his family members.
- 8:17Speaker 1: And that goes to tell you how obsessed he was
- 8:21Speaker 1: in this world that he had kind of buried himself into.
- 8:45Speaker 1: During the course of my career, I've walked into many
- 8:48Speaker 1: scenes where there have been multiple desks, but I don't
- 8:51Speaker 1: know that there is anything that kind of literally rips
- 8:55Speaker 1: my heart out. Then walking into a blood soaked environment
- 9:00Speaker 1: where a family has almost literally been completely wiped out,
- 9:04Speaker 1: and in the case of the Motto family, save the
- 9:07Speaker 1: perpetrator and the brother that was not at the house,
- 9:10Speaker 1: that's basically what happened. Jackie Grant a Motto is accused
- 9:14Speaker 1: of shooting his father first in the kitchen and then
- 9:18Speaker 1: killing his mother and brother execution style. What does that mean?
- 9:23Speaker 1: What makes a murder and execution style death classically, when
- 9:27Speaker 1: we begin to think about execution style homicides, what we're
- 9:32Speaker 1: talking about is the perpetrator being in a dominant position
- 9:37Speaker 1: over the victim. And generally the individual that is shot
- 9:41Speaker 1: will either be in a seated position below the level
- 9:45Speaker 1: of a standing perpetrator, they'll be kneeling, they'll be laying.
- 9:49Speaker 1: That is the victim I'm referring to. And in this
- 9:52Speaker 1: particular case, when you see the mother, Margaret, she is
- 9:56Speaker 1: actually positioned at her desk, Jackie. And if folks at
- 10:00Speaker 1: home will feel on the back of their head, there's
- 10:04Speaker 1: a little protuberant area on the back of your skull
- 10:08Speaker 1: that's called the occiput. And if you'll put your hand
- 10:11Speaker 1: to the right side of the midline, that's actually where
- 10:14Speaker 1: Margaret's entrance was. And that gunshot wound that she sustained
- 10:19Speaker 1: is a classic execution style gunshot. It passes through the
- 10:25Speaker 1: right occiput. That b very bony structure is very thick.
- 10:28Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, it's one of the thickest
- 10:29Speaker 1: bones of the skull, and it goes from right to
- 10:32Speaker 1: left and it actually comes out below her left eye.
- 10:37Speaker 1: It exits out of the cheek. In my estimation, she
- 10:41Speaker 1: probably never knew what happened, and it's it's an interesting thing.
- 10:47Speaker 1: I was kind of contemplating this. How many times had
- 10:51Speaker 1: her child grant walked into her office space in that
- 10:55Speaker 1: area and she thinks nothing of it. I mean, she's
- 10:58Speaker 1: sitting there, she might hear the click of his heels
- 11:01Speaker 1: on the floor, you know, approaching from the rear. She
- 11:04Speaker 1: feels safe in this environment, and you would feel safe,
- 11:07Speaker 1: this is your home, and then all of a sudden,
- 11:10Speaker 1: I don't even know if your brain can calculate hearing
- 11:13Speaker 1: the sound as you're shot in this primal area of
- 11:16Speaker 1: the brain that causes everything to shut down. You know,
- 11:18Speaker 1: people always ask when you know, is this an instantaneous death?
- 11:20Speaker 1: This is probably about as close as you can have
- 11:24Speaker 1: to an instantaneous event, because you're you're knocking out the
- 11:28Speaker 1: primal brain center. This is passing through most likely at
- 11:33Speaker 1: least the top aspect of the brain stem, taking up
- 11:37Speaker 1: the cerebellum, and then you know, crossing over the middlene
- 11:40Speaker 1: of the brain and then exiting out of the face.
- 11:42Speaker 1: It's it's very horrific, but in her case, it was
- 11:45Speaker 1: very very quick. When you consider Dad, this is Chad.
- 11:51Speaker 1: He was found in an adjacent area, adjacent to the
- 11:56Speaker 1: kitchen and this sort of thing. He also had gunshot
- 11:59Speaker 1: wounds to the back of his head on the right
- 12:03Speaker 1: aspect as well. So that gives you when you begin
- 12:06Speaker 1: to look at entrance wounds and examine them, not only
- 12:11Speaker 1: are you getting an idea of the position of the victim,
- 12:14Speaker 1: you're also getting an idea of the position of the perpetrator.
- 12:19Speaker 1: So if you will just imagine that in this case,
- 12:21Speaker 1: grant Amato would have been to the right rear of
- 12:24Speaker 1: his father, because, as it turns out, there was actually
- 12:28Speaker 1: two two gunshot wounds to his dad's head. And one
- 12:34Speaker 1: of these, and this is quite gruesome when you begin
- 12:37Speaker 1: to think about it, one of these actually clipped through
- 12:40Speaker 1: the right aspect the rear aspect of his head, came out,
- 12:44Speaker 1: went back in through his ear, and then back into
- 12:47Speaker 1: his head. And then wait wait, wait, wait wait wait,
- 12:50Speaker 1: say that again. It did the bullet. What was the
- 12:53Speaker 1: trajectory of the bullet. Yeah, what you're talking about is
- 12:57Speaker 1: and many times you'll see this, Jackie. You will have
- 13:00Speaker 1: these cases where you'll have an entrance, then an exit,
- 13:06Speaker 1: and then a re entrance, and then finally you may
- 13:10Speaker 1: have another exit and it's all the same bullet that
- 13:13Speaker 1: is creating this cavity in the brain. And interestingly enough,
- 13:18Speaker 1: you know, when the forensic pathologist, doctor Jones, actually testified
- 13:21Speaker 1: in this case at a trial, the prosecution was asking
- 13:25Speaker 1: her questions, how exactly do you track these wounds? And
- 13:27Speaker 1: this is something we do in the Morgan. This is
- 13:29Speaker 1: kind of fascinating when we have multiple gunshot wounds, particularly
- 13:33Speaker 1: that are so close together, like in the case of
- 13:36Speaker 1: chatter Motto. We'll use what are referred to as dowel
- 13:39Speaker 1: rods that you can buy at any large box store
- 13:42Speaker 1: or home depot, you know, Blows or Walmart, and they're
- 13:45Speaker 1: wooden dowels, and we have tiny ones in the morgue
- 13:49Speaker 1: and we can actually pass these through the defect that's
- 13:53Speaker 1: created by the projectile, and it will give you an
- 13:56Speaker 1: idea of the of the trajectory of the round if
- 14:00Speaker 1: it travels from above to below or from below to above,
- 14:04Speaker 1: and also the directionality if it goes from right to
- 14:08Speaker 1: left or left to right, or if it just stays
- 14:10Speaker 1: right straight straight away down the middle line. And when
- 14:14Speaker 1: you do this, it's kind of odd when you think
- 14:16Speaker 1: about it, but it's as a demonstration tool, particularly when
- 14:19Speaker 1: you go to court if you have these dowal rods
- 14:21Speaker 1: in place with multiple gunshot wounds, and you've got tracks
- 14:25Speaker 1: that are criss crossing one another, and it makes it
- 14:27Speaker 1: highly complex. When you put these static little pieces of
- 14:31Speaker 1: wood in there and they're projecting in and out of
- 14:33Speaker 1: the body and you snap a photograph of that, Suddenly
- 14:36Speaker 1: the jury gets an instantaneous picture of the relationship between
- 14:42Speaker 1: the shooter and the victim. And that's powerful stuff when
- 14:45Speaker 1: you're a jury member and say, you're not used to
- 14:48Speaker 1: seeing this sort of thing, and lord knows who in
- 14:50Speaker 1: the world would be, particularly in a case like this
- 14:53Speaker 1: that's just absolute pure butchery, But it orients them to
- 14:57Speaker 1: that space and time and the orientation between Grant in
- 15:01Speaker 1: his father's head when he executed. So let's talk a
- 15:04Speaker 1: little bit about each crime scene, because we have three.
- 15:07Speaker 1: We have the kitchen, we have the room that the
- 15:11Speaker 1: mother was in in the office chair, and a storage room.
- 15:15Speaker 1: Would you not have heard the shots being fired? For
- 15:20Speaker 1: the damn, I mean, the mother and the father were
- 15:23Speaker 1: home at the same time, So would you not have
- 15:25Speaker 1: heard the shot that killed the father? You know, that's
- 15:29Speaker 1: a fantastic question. Jackie and I have to tell you,
- 15:32Speaker 1: I think that, in my estimation at least, I don't
- 15:35Speaker 1: think you could pull this off with all three of
- 15:38Speaker 1: these individuals in the house at the same time. I
- 15:41Speaker 1: think he laid in wait and kind of worked this
- 15:44Speaker 1: out systematically. In my opinion, The mother is in a
- 15:48Speaker 1: very static position, Jackie. When you see and I've seen
- 15:51Speaker 1: these crime scene images and they are absolutely horrible, the
- 15:56Speaker 1: mom is just kind of in a very RESTful position.
- 16:00Speaker 1: There's no evidence of struggle or twisting about her this
- 16:03Speaker 1: sort of thing. She is literally laying forward, pitched for it,
- 16:06Speaker 1: if you will, And that's that's a pretty accurate term,
- 16:09Speaker 1: pitched for it on the surface of this desk. The dad, however,
- 16:14Speaker 1: is laying in what we refer to as a supine position,
- 16:18Speaker 1: and that's kind of fancy talk for laying face up.
- 16:21Speaker 1: And what's so interesting about this is that when he
- 16:26Speaker 1: is observed at the scene, Jackie, one of the investigators
- 16:30Speaker 1: that was out there, noted that even though he is
- 16:32Speaker 1: face up, there's an indication Jackie, that he had been moved.
- 16:37Speaker 1: He had been moved post mortem. And the way that
- 16:39Speaker 1: we determine that is that when a body is laying
- 16:43Speaker 1: in a specific position dead blood will settle to a
- 16:46Speaker 1: particular area. Okay. So let's just say, for instance, someone
- 16:49Speaker 1: is like mister Amato, was lying on his stomach. Okay,
- 16:54Speaker 1: blood will settle to his chest, to his antior chest,
- 16:59Speaker 1: and to his ab maybe two his thighs. He'll have
- 17:02Speaker 1: points of contact that will be blanched out, and that
- 17:05Speaker 1: blood is going to settle to those areas in fix.
- 17:08Speaker 1: Remember their bodies weren't found to the next day. But
- 17:12Speaker 1: if you manipulate that body in any way, which we
- 17:16Speaker 1: believe happened with Chad, you will still have this anterior
- 17:21Speaker 1: or frontal presentation of lavidity, but it'll be absent on
- 17:25Speaker 1: the back. And that's one of the things we look
- 17:27Speaker 1: for to see if a scene has particularly been staged,
- 17:31Speaker 1: and the term staging came up over and over and
- 17:33Speaker 1: over again, that he tried to make this case or
- 17:36Speaker 1: try to make the scene appear different. And one a
- 17:39Speaker 1: very interesting element with Chad's body is the fact that
- 17:43Speaker 1: he was wearing a holstered weapon. Can you imagine that
- 17:46Speaker 1: he's wearing a holstered weapon on his belt in his home,
- 17:50Speaker 1: and it's oddly positioned. It's on his right side, but
- 17:55Speaker 1: it's turned so that the butt of the weapon is
- 17:58Speaker 1: facing forward, so you would that's called a cross draw
- 18:02Speaker 1: configuration where an individual, you think about an old Cowboy
- 18:05Speaker 1: movie where a gunfighter would reach across their body and
- 18:10Speaker 1: pull the weapon out safer left handed. You pull it
- 18:12Speaker 1: from your right hip and hold it in your left hand.
- 18:16Speaker 1: But here's the twist. Chad's right handed, but yet this
- 18:22Speaker 1: oddly positioned weapon is positioned on his right hand, so
- 18:26Speaker 1: that if he had to draw that weapon, he would
- 18:28Speaker 1: have had to literally twist his arm around at the
- 18:31Speaker 1: elbow in order to facilitate that. And that's another indication
- 18:35Speaker 1: that this happened after death. They believed that Grant probably
- 18:39Speaker 1: moved the body around in an attempt to strap this
- 18:42Speaker 1: weapon onto his dad. And again another just odd ball
- 18:46Speaker 1: set of circumstances when you get to Cody's body, the
- 18:51Speaker 1: brother and this is this is so sad, you know,
- 18:53Speaker 1: because Cody and Grant were very close. And I remember
- 18:58Speaker 1: watching this trial and you can see Grant sitting at
- 19:02Speaker 1: the table and just weeping when they're talking about his
- 19:04Speaker 1: brother that he shot. And you know, we talked about
- 19:08Speaker 1: execution with mom and dad. With Cody Jackie, he shot
- 19:12Speaker 1: his brother in the face and What that tells us
- 19:16Speaker 1: is that he was to ie with his brother, who
- 19:21Speaker 1: was roughly a year and a half to two years
- 19:23Speaker 1: older than him, a kid that he had grown up with,
- 19:25Speaker 1: that they participated in the air soft with, they'd gone
- 19:27Speaker 1: hunting with, they'd done martial arts, they traveled to Japan together.
- 19:33Speaker 1: Can you imagine you're there with your sibling and you
- 19:35Speaker 1: were so obsessed, you're so obsessed with this sexual addiction
- 19:40Speaker 1: that you have to this person that lives in eastern Europe,
- 19:44Speaker 1: that you would take a handgun and pointed at your
- 19:47Speaker 1: own brother's face and kill him. And that's what he did.
- 19:51Speaker 1: He shot him right below his right eye, and that bullet,
- 19:54Speaker 1: that bullet traveled through his brother's head and knocked him
- 19:59Speaker 1: down to the ground. He standing there, he had just
- 20:01Speaker 1: gotten home from work. Jackie was still wearing you know,
- 20:03Speaker 1: his brother's a nurse as well. He's still wearing his
- 20:05Speaker 1: green scrub suit. And even his lunch box. You know,
- 20:08Speaker 1: it's one of those insulated lunch boxes like that zip
- 20:12Speaker 1: you know that you can pack all. It was laying
- 20:13Speaker 1: immediately adjacent to his brother, and in another attempt to
- 20:18Speaker 1: stage a crime scene, he had taken a weapon and
- 20:24Speaker 1: laid it immediately adjacent to his brother's hand, and investigators
- 20:28Speaker 1: believe that Grant had done this in an attempt to
- 20:30Speaker 1: make this look like a murder suicide, that his brother
- 20:33Speaker 1: had walked in the house, shot his mom and dad,
- 20:37Speaker 1: and then took his own life. And you know the
- 20:40Speaker 1: problem with that when you begin to look at it
- 20:42Speaker 1: out of all of the suicides. And I think I've
- 20:45Speaker 1: said this before, but it bears repeating. You know, as
- 20:48Speaker 1: medical legal death investigators, you think that, oh boy. You
- 20:51Speaker 1: know you work at the Corner's office, the medical examin
- 20:53Speaker 1: You work a lot of homicides. You know, suicides actually
- 20:56Speaker 1: outnumber homicides probably too, probably three to one actually, so
- 21:01Speaker 1: we work a lot more suicides. I don't recall. In
- 21:05Speaker 1: the course of my career, I can probably count on one,
- 21:09Speaker 1: maybe two hands, how many cases I've worked of self
- 21:12Speaker 1: inflicted gunshot wounds where people shot themselves in the face. Um,
- 21:17Speaker 1: it's just an aid. It's what we call an atypical
- 21:19Speaker 1: gunshot wound. It doesn't fit the pattern. It's more consistent.
- 21:24Speaker 1: And and here's here's the even bigger problem. When the
- 21:28Speaker 1: forensic pathologists was describing these injuries, you know, she's she's
- 21:33Speaker 1: relating the fact that this um that this was not
- 21:36Speaker 1: a close contact gunshot wound. So again that would mean
- 21:39Speaker 1: him holding the weapon away from his face in order
- 21:42Speaker 1: to shoot himself in the face. Cases like this that
- 22:07Speaker 1: involve a lot of trauma, there's a lot of blood there.
- 22:10Speaker 1: For the investigators people at work in my field of
- 22:14Speaker 1: medical legal death investigation, it's very difficult to kind of
- 22:17Speaker 1: make your way through these scenes. First off, you're worrying
- 22:21Speaker 1: about the complexity of it, how you can cross contaminate things,
- 22:26Speaker 1: how you're going to destroy your evidence. And I gotta
- 22:29Speaker 1: tell you this case, the Amouto case, stands out to
- 22:33Speaker 1: me because it is so very complex that these investigators
- 22:37Speaker 1: would have really have had to take their time in
- 22:39Speaker 1: processing this scene. Jackie well, especially considering that they had
- 22:43Speaker 1: three scenes to process. So I'm wondering, Joe, in looking
- 22:47Speaker 1: at how this was staged. You have each victim in
- 22:52Speaker 1: a separate room, and as you said, it was thought
- 22:55Speaker 1: that these individuals were killed one at a time. The
- 22:58Speaker 1: dad was killed first in the kitchen, the mom must
- 23:01Speaker 1: have come home and not gone into the kitchen, and
- 23:03Speaker 1: the brother was found in a storage room. I'm curious
- 23:07Speaker 1: about the storage room. How do we get the brother
- 23:10Speaker 1: to go to the storage room? Was it in the garage?
- 23:13Speaker 1: I mean, how do we keep the brother from not
- 23:15Speaker 1: going through the house and discovering what's going on? Was
- 23:19Speaker 1: this planned or was this a crime of passion and
- 23:24Speaker 1: opportunity for it to happen that way? I think that
- 23:27Speaker 1: this was plan Jackie, and I you know, I'll go
- 23:29Speaker 1: back to my earlier point that it's my belief that
- 23:35Speaker 1: that he laid in wait for these individuals he knew.
- 23:38Speaker 1: He kind of if you ever you know, if you
- 23:41Speaker 1: ever watched a cat that's going to spring on something,
- 23:44Speaker 1: I think that that's what he was. He was sitting
- 23:46Speaker 1: on go in the house as the opportunity presented itself,
- 23:50Speaker 1: as he presented himself as stealthily as possible in this
- 23:54Speaker 1: environment which he knew very well. Remember, this is his home.
- 23:57Speaker 1: He knows all the blind spots, he knows the place
- 24:00Speaker 1: is to hide. He also knows the tendencies of the
- 24:05Speaker 1: people that he lived in the house with, mom, dad
- 24:09Speaker 1: and brother. And just think about it. I mean, we
- 24:11Speaker 1: you know, for those of us in our audience that
- 24:13Speaker 1: live with individuals, you know what the tendencies are. You
- 24:15Speaker 1: know where they're going to come and go and that
- 24:17Speaker 1: sort of thing. You know, they're timing, you know, when
- 24:19Speaker 1: they're going to arrive at home, so he everything is
- 24:23Speaker 1: stacked in his advantage. And you know, this is this
- 24:27Speaker 1: is quite interesting little aside here, but you know, when
- 24:30Speaker 1: you come home, home is associated with haven, it's associated
- 24:36Speaker 1: with a place of safety, a place of security. So
- 24:40Speaker 1: your guard is down. You know, when you walk into
- 24:42Speaker 1: a home, it's not like you're turning down at dark
- 24:44Speaker 1: alley and you don't know what's down. There's someplace you've
- 24:46Speaker 1: never been before. But in the context of coming home
- 24:50Speaker 1: and making your way through the house, it's it's going
- 24:54Speaker 1: to give you a false sense of security. So if
- 24:56Speaker 1: you've got somebody that means to do you harm in
- 24:58Speaker 1: this case Grant a model, then your guard will be
- 25:01Speaker 1: down for that amount of time and it's easy for
- 25:04Speaker 1: him to pray. And you know, and this is another thing.
- 25:06Speaker 1: And when you have the familiarity you remember I was
- 25:09Speaker 1: talking about the mom, how she was kind of in
- 25:12Speaker 1: this relaxed position at the desk. You don't expect for
- 25:16Speaker 1: your son to kill you if your dad, same thing,
- 25:20Speaker 1: And when Cody comes home, he doesn't you know, you know,
- 25:24Speaker 1: his brother could approach him quite easily, and he would
- 25:27Speaker 1: have his guard down. He'd just be holding his lunch
- 25:29Speaker 1: box in his hand. He'd be there in his scrubs
- 25:31Speaker 1: and he'd be you know, hey, bro, how you doing.
- 25:33Speaker 1: And the next thing, you know, the last thing he
- 25:36Speaker 1: sees is maybe a puff of smoke, and his life
- 25:39Speaker 1: comes to an end. And so all of these given
- 25:42Speaker 1: the close proximity of kind of the storage area that's there,
- 25:47Speaker 1: which is near a point of entrance. You've got Mom
- 25:51Speaker 1: that is there in her you know, in her office area,
- 25:55Speaker 1: which most of us feel very safe, and then Dad
- 25:58Speaker 1: to send the kitchen. Their guard is going to be
- 26:01Speaker 1: down at those moments in time. What's kind of interesting
- 26:05Speaker 1: about this case though, And you really have to just
- 26:09Speaker 1: let me say this to you and let you wrap
- 26:11Speaker 1: your brain around this. After Mom and Dad had died,
- 26:16Speaker 1: Investigators estimate and just listen to this very carefully and
- 26:19Speaker 1: let it sink in. Investigators estimate that Granda Motto stayed
- 26:25Speaker 1: in the house with his executed parents, these individuals that
- 26:30Speaker 1: had loved him, taking care of him, tolerated him through
- 26:35Speaker 1: all of this nonsense that he was involved in. He
- 26:38Speaker 1: stayed in that house. Jackie for four hours with their bodies.
- 26:41Speaker 1: Can you Emaine staying in there as your parents lay
- 26:48Speaker 1: there on the floor and in their office area waiting,
- 26:51Speaker 1: just waiting for your brother Cody to come walking through
- 26:54Speaker 1: the door so that you can end his life to
- 26:57Speaker 1: Another interesting aspect of this show is that, well, actually
- 27:00Speaker 1: there's more than one. Grant was a member of a
- 27:04Speaker 1: competitive Aerosoft team, which means he had firearms experience. Maybe
- 27:10Speaker 1: not leathal firearms experience, but to be able to win
- 27:14Speaker 1: an Aerosoft competition you have to be accurate. And also,
- 27:19Speaker 1: Grant a Motto, had some medical training, so he would
- 27:22Speaker 1: have known the best place to shoot to kill. Yeah, right,
- 27:27Speaker 1: you are, Jackie. Yeah, he was part of an airsoft team,
- 27:29Speaker 1: as was his brother. I mean he had firearms proficiency
- 27:32Speaker 1: in addition to airsoft proficiency. You know, airsoft proficiency, even
- 27:38Speaker 1: though it's not the same as an actual firearm, it
- 27:41Speaker 1: gives you. It gives you proficiency in the area of
- 27:45Speaker 1: being able to aim and put put the weapon on
- 27:48Speaker 1: target if you will, and moving targets, you know, because
- 27:51Speaker 1: these guys run all over the place where they're doing that,
- 27:53Speaker 1: And there's several images of him where he's all camoed out.
- 27:56Speaker 1: You know, he's dressed, he's carrying these weapons that look
- 27:58Speaker 1: like military style weapons, but their air soft weapons. But
- 28:01Speaker 1: you have to keep in mind he also owned and
- 28:04Speaker 1: the family did, um multiple real firearms as well. And
- 28:08Speaker 1: there's even images of him out you know, fire and
- 28:10Speaker 1: shot guns and all these sorts of things. So he
- 28:13Speaker 1: was not uncomfortable, uncomfortable in a world of firearms. And
- 28:18Speaker 1: so that that becomes kind of wrote. You know, when
- 28:23Speaker 1: when you begin to think about the family coming home
- 28:27Speaker 1: and him essentially ambushing him. I mean it's like he
- 28:29Speaker 1: had been practicing for this for a while, um in
- 28:33Speaker 1: his mind, because you know, when everything began to collapse
- 28:37Speaker 1: around him. And you know, one thing I forgot to
- 28:39Speaker 1: mention to you had mentioned that he was a nurse,
- 28:42Speaker 1: and he was a nurse. He just he flunked out
- 28:44Speaker 1: of anesthesia school, um and U. But he was a
- 28:49Speaker 1: practicing nurse. But this is interesting as well, Jackie. You know,
- 28:53Speaker 1: he had been caught at work, um in the Orlando area,
- 29:00Speaker 1: at his job stealing h stealing a drug that is
- 29:06Speaker 1: used as a sedative, what they refer to as a
- 29:12Speaker 1: pre anesthesia drug. It's one of these drugs that they'll
- 29:14Speaker 1: give you, you know, like I'll give you an example
- 29:16Speaker 1: for anybody's ever had surgery. You know that when the
- 29:20Speaker 1: nurse goes to inject your your IV line, they'll say,
- 29:23Speaker 1: now you're going to feel something cold in your line,
- 29:26Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, the world begins to
- 29:27Speaker 1: get kind of milky and warm and that sort of thing.
- 29:30Speaker 1: And that's that's kind of what they do before they
- 29:32Speaker 1: give you the jolt of the antidual. Well, this drug,
- 29:35Speaker 1: in particular, Jackie, he had stolen in excess of four
- 29:40Speaker 1: thousand dollars worth these drugs, and not only had he
- 29:44Speaker 1: been fired from the hospital, but they were pressing charges
- 29:46Speaker 1: for grand theft in addition to this. And I think
- 29:49Speaker 1: that this probably wound up in the suspension of his
- 29:51Speaker 1: nursing license. So all of this was like kind of
- 29:54Speaker 1: this perfect storm that was cycling about in his life.
- 29:59Speaker 1: What you know, it was going to send him down
- 30:01Speaker 1: in flames, and unfortunately, you know, his family wound up
- 30:04Speaker 1: bearing the brunt of it. Why would he have stolen
- 30:08Speaker 1: these drugs show? Is it possible that he intended to
- 30:11Speaker 1: use them on his parents or maybe sell them to
- 30:15Speaker 1: get more money for his webcam girlfriend? A fantastic question, Jackie,
- 30:20Speaker 1: and I think that it's probably going to be the
- 30:23Speaker 1: latter more than likely because and I'll tell you why.
- 30:27Speaker 1: First off, there was no evidence that they had this
- 30:29Speaker 1: particular drug, propafall is the name of it. There was
- 30:33Speaker 1: no evidence of this in their system, and this had
- 30:35Speaker 1: happened a couple of months prior to but he had
- 30:38Speaker 1: been acquiring these mets. I think that there would be
- 30:42Speaker 1: a higher possibility that he could have sold them. What
- 30:47Speaker 1: his rationale that he gave when he was questioned wasn't
- 30:51Speaker 1: I guess he viewed himself as some kind of Florence
- 30:53Speaker 1: Nightingale because he presented himself to the staff and to
- 30:57Speaker 1: the police. He's like, well, you know, my patient, it's
- 31:00Speaker 1: on the floor or under medicated. So I wanted to
- 31:03Speaker 1: assist him by injecting them with this medication in order to,
- 31:07Speaker 1: I don't know, alleviate their pain or their anxiety or
- 31:09Speaker 1: whatever it was. But I found that quite telling as well.
- 31:13Speaker 1: This is a very dangerous environment for somebody that has
- 31:16Speaker 1: this kind of proclivity, if you will, to be around
- 31:21Speaker 1: really sick people and applying this very very powerful hypnotic
- 31:25Speaker 1: drug that can really depress the system. I'm they're very
- 31:29Speaker 1: fortunate that if he did apply it to these people,
- 31:32Speaker 1: that he didn't kill them. So, you know, no one
- 31:35Speaker 1: really knows what he did with a drug, but they
- 31:38Speaker 1: know that the drugs were missing and they tied it
- 31:40Speaker 1: back to him, and I think that that's again, this
- 31:44Speaker 1: goes into this kind of pathology that he's dealing with.
- 31:48Speaker 1: He was on a real downhill slide. I'm Joseph Scott
- 31:56Speaker 1: Morgan in this is Bodybacks