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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: An Alternate Ending Edward LeClair · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan. You talk to any prosecutor
0:21
Speaker 1: that's been doing it for a while, and some of
0:23
Speaker 1: the most memorable moments that they have in court is
0:27
Speaker 1: when they've completed a case and they've got a conviction
0:30
Speaker 1: and they are on the other side of the room
0:32
Speaker 1: stands the individual that has now been charged, prosecuted and
0:37
Speaker 1: stands to pay the price for their misdeeds. And the
0:40
Speaker 1: prosecutors will tell you it runs a gamut. You never
0:43
Speaker 1: know how anybody is going to react on any particular
0:47
Speaker 1: day to a sentence. But for us today, we're going
0:51
Speaker 1: to talk about an individual who may have thought he
0:55
Speaker 1: was cheating the hangman. Today we're going to talk about
0:58
Speaker 1: the death of Edward Leclair that actually began at the
1:03
Speaker 1: time of the sentencing in a Denton, Texas courtroom. I'm
1:09
Speaker 1: Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks. For those of
1:18
Speaker 1: you listening to my voice today, I have to just
1:21
Speaker 1: remind you that if there is anyone either listening or
1:26
Speaker 1: if you have a friend that is dealing with thoughts
1:30
Speaker 1: of self harm suicide, there is help for you, and
1:34
Speaker 1: that help can be found at the National Suicide Prevention
1:37
Speaker 1: Lifeline and that number is one eight hundred two seventy
1:43
Speaker 1: three eight two five five. That's eight hundred and two
1:47
Speaker 1: seventy three. Talk t a l K. Joining me today
1:52
Speaker 1: is my good buddy Dave mac Dave's crime reporter for
1:56
Speaker 1: Crime Online. Dave, I got to tell you, sometimes a
1:58
Speaker 1: bottle of water is as innocent as people might think.
2:02
Speaker 1: When you told me about this story, my first thought was,
2:06
Speaker 1: how in the world can you get anything into a courtroom.
2:12
Speaker 1: In this particular case, Edward Leclair at fifty seven years old,
2:16
Speaker 1: accused and on trial five counts of sexual abuse, and
2:22
Speaker 1: he was out on bail, so he came in from
2:24
Speaker 1: the outside. He was not in jail being led into court,
2:28
Speaker 1: and so I thought he snuck it in that way. Nope,
2:30
Speaker 1: he actually bought a bottle of water. Joe inside the courthouse.
2:35
Speaker 1: They saw him on video seven am buying a bottle
2:39
Speaker 1: of water out of the machine in there. That bottle
2:43
Speaker 1: of water was just fine. He was able to go
2:46
Speaker 1: through all the things one has to to go to
2:47
Speaker 1: court and nobody found anything on him. Apparently. So we
2:51
Speaker 1: find Edward Leclair waiting on the judge to read the
2:55
Speaker 1: verdict from the jury. Three hours later, we have a verdict.
3:00
Speaker 1: You have a well planned out thing for Edward Leclair.
3:05
Speaker 1: You called it cheating the hangman. I thought how interesting
3:08
Speaker 1: of a term that was. He was prepared for a
3:12
Speaker 1: guilty verdict. Yeah, he's staring down the barrel of this thing.
3:15
Speaker 1: He knows what's coming. The evidence that had been presented
3:18
Speaker 1: was so incredibly overwhelming. Lawyers like to use the term
3:23
Speaker 1: compelling when they're talking about things a relative to evidentiary value.
3:28
Speaker 1: This evidence is so compelling that it causes you to
3:31
Speaker 1: give pause and you can begin to see this thread
3:34
Speaker 1: that runs through the entire prosecution. Here's what happened. Edward
3:38
Speaker 1: Leclair met a girl online. At first, he didn't know
3:43
Speaker 1: how old she was, but after they met up the
3:47
Speaker 1: first time, he learned how old she was, and that
3:51
Speaker 1: was fourteen. She told him she was fourteen. He continued
3:58
Speaker 1: to come after this girl. Well, right there, you can't
4:03
Speaker 1: say I didn't know how old she was because she
4:05
Speaker 1: told you. And there is evidence. There's plenty of information online, texting, emails, pictures,
4:11
Speaker 1: things like that. What this all exploded to was fifty
4:15
Speaker 1: seven year old Edward Leclair as a girlfriend, Melody mel Shay,
4:21
Speaker 1: she found out about this ongoing situation between Edward Leclaire
4:25
Speaker 1: and a girl, and when Edward Leclair would not stop
4:31
Speaker 1: what he was doing, she goes to the girls said
4:33
Speaker 1: he is grooming you. When Edward Leclair didn't let up,
4:37
Speaker 1: the girlfriend went to the victim's mother, which is how
4:41
Speaker 1: all of this came about. And we ended up with
4:43
Speaker 1: fifty seven year old Edward Leclair staring at up to
4:46
Speaker 1: a one hundred years in prison. Yeah, and you think
4:51
Speaker 1: about what could that possibly hold for him, because you know,
4:54
Speaker 1: when he goes into the prison system, we've heard all
4:57
Speaker 1: of the stories for all of the years about what
4:59
Speaker 1: happens to people that abused children. Whether or not you
5:02
Speaker 1: knew she was of age, the court is going to
5:06
Speaker 1: hang that on you. That's going to be worn around
5:09
Speaker 1: your neck for ever and ever. Amen. And you're talking
5:11
Speaker 1: about one hundred years, and there's only so much isolation
5:15
Speaker 1: in the prison system that they can do relative to
5:18
Speaker 1: individuals that have been charged with crimes against children. And
5:22
Speaker 1: this guy has got a background where he doesn't really
5:25
Speaker 1: have a criminal past that all. As a matter of fact,
5:27
Speaker 1: he had been in the Navy, he had gotten out
5:29
Speaker 1: and for years he had worked as an executive or
5:32
Speaker 1: corporate recruiter and had a good career leading up to
5:36
Speaker 1: this point in time, and then he makes this decision
5:40
Speaker 1: you were mentioning he had an awareness after that first
5:43
Speaker 1: time that he engaged with her where she told him
5:47
Speaker 1: or revealed to him that she was fourteen. Now, I'm
5:50
Speaker 1: not saying that he would have gotten out of this
5:52
Speaker 1: scott free had he ceased and desisted at that moment
5:56
Speaker 1: time in the criminal activity, but the fact that he
6:00
Speaker 1: continued with knowledge that he was committing a criminal act.
6:05
Speaker 1: He continued to do this, and it's important for people
6:07
Speaker 1: to understand for every time he engages in this behavior,
6:11
Speaker 1: that's an individual count and anything that's associated with it.
6:16
Speaker 1: You got everything from enticement to the actual act itself.
6:20
Speaker 1: Each individual element of these crimes has distinct punishments that
6:24
Speaker 1: come along with it, and so the entire time, you're
6:27
Speaker 1: just piling more and more onto this thing, and he's
6:30
Speaker 1: aware of it. It doesn't surprise me that he wanted
6:32
Speaker 1: to get a bottle of water. You're nervous, and one
6:35
Speaker 1: of the physiological reactions to being anxious and being on
6:40
Speaker 1: edge is that you developed dry mouth. I don't think
6:42
Speaker 1: that for the folks in the courtroom. It was necessarily
6:46
Speaker 1: a surprise that he had a bottle of water. I
6:50
Speaker 1: think even his defense attorney at some point in time
6:53
Speaker 1: had commented on the fact that he was sweating and
6:56
Speaker 1: that he had the bottle of water, and he suddenly
6:59
Speaker 1: began to toss this thing back. The only problem is
7:01
Speaker 1: that he didn't just simply take a sip. He took
7:05
Speaker 1: the bottle and guzzled. It important to note that he
7:09
Speaker 1: did that after the judge read guilty on the first charge.
7:15
Speaker 1: Once he heard guilty on the first charge, that was
7:18
Speaker 1: when the bottle tip came off and he tipped it back.
7:21
Speaker 1: That's an awareness that you're staring into a very dark
7:24
Speaker 1: chasm at that point in time, because you know this
7:27
Speaker 1: is not going to get better. What's fascinating is that
7:31
Speaker 1: he had exhibited no kind of disengagement during the trial.
7:36
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, his attorney, his counsel there
7:39
Speaker 1: at the table with him, was saying that he was
7:41
Speaker 1: fully engaged the entire time. He was taking notes, he
7:43
Speaker 1: was asking questions, he was fully involved. He began to
7:48
Speaker 1: understand the depth and breadth of everything that was involved.
7:52
Speaker 1: Can you imagine sitting in that chair, you've committed these
7:56
Speaker 1: acts and now they're kind of slow rolling this thing
7:59
Speaker 1: out and before you every single act that you've been
8:02
Speaker 1: engaged in with this minor child, and you're watching this
8:06
Speaker 1: develop in front of you, and you can see it.
8:09
Speaker 1: It's like a house fire that kind of sweeps through
8:11
Speaker 1: your entire life and you see it just being burned
8:14
Speaker 1: down to the ground. And many times in my experience
8:18
Speaker 1: as a death investigator, this happens with people that do
8:22
Speaker 1: finally wind up taking their lives. They have these things
8:26
Speaker 1: that occur in their life that just push them to
8:28
Speaker 1: the edge. And it's not necessarily every single time, it
8:31
Speaker 1: is one single event. It is the culmination of everything
8:36
Speaker 1: over a period of time. But I think that this
8:38
Speaker 1: happened in a condensed version for him, and who knows,
8:41
Speaker 1: maybe it started from the first time that he engaged
8:44
Speaker 1: with this young girl, and maybe he was ridden with
8:49
Speaker 1: guilt to begin with, and he just decided not to stop,
8:52
Speaker 1: and it started all the way back there, and then finally,
8:55
Speaker 1: in conclusion, he decides that he's going to take his life.
9:17
Speaker 1: Being in court is kind of like it's very formal
9:20
Speaker 1: for people that have never actually been in court, And
9:22
Speaker 1: still to this day, if I have to go to
9:24
Speaker 1: court as many times as I've done it over the
9:26
Speaker 1: course of my career. It's intimidating, but how much more
9:30
Speaker 1: so for somebody that has just had a sentence passed
9:33
Speaker 1: on them, particularly when you're talking about what Leclair was
9:37
Speaker 1: faced with, and I cannot begin to imagine where his
9:42
Speaker 1: mind was going at this time. Dave, you mentioned that
9:45
Speaker 1: Edward Leclair, he's a fifty seven year old man, he
9:48
Speaker 1: had a Navy career, he was a corporate recruiter, and
9:52
Speaker 1: then he's charged with five counts of sexual assault on
9:56
Speaker 1: a person between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. He
9:59
Speaker 1: pleaded not guilty on all the charges, and he knows
10:02
Speaker 1: if he's guilty on the first count all the others
10:06
Speaker 1: he's going to be guilty on all those. So he
10:09
Speaker 1: is nervous and he knows what's coming. And I think
10:11
Speaker 1: in a case like this, it is essentially like dominoes,
10:14
Speaker 1: it's going to fall and you can kind of see
10:17
Speaker 1: the proverbial writing on the wall at that point in time,
10:20
Speaker 1: So you really wonder was this going to be the
10:22
Speaker 1: trigger event that when he heard that term, he knew
10:27
Speaker 1: that it was all over and that he was determined
10:30
Speaker 1: to take his life. When someone has found guilty like
10:33
Speaker 1: this and you know what you're facing, there are certain
10:36
Speaker 1: steps that have to take place. First off, we mentioned
10:39
Speaker 1: earlier on that he had walked into this courtroom under
10:42
Speaker 1: his own free will, so obviously it had been out
10:45
Speaker 1: on bond. He showed up and appeared at his own sentencing.
10:49
Speaker 1: He didn't try to go on the run or anything.
10:51
Speaker 1: But what witnesses later stated though, was that they did
10:54
Speaker 1: see him go to a vending machine in the courthouse
10:58
Speaker 1: and retrieve a bottle of water from it. When we
11:01
Speaker 1: think about planning, and taking one's life does require some planning.
11:06
Speaker 1: Sometimes it can be done spontaneously, but many times people
11:09
Speaker 1: will ruminate over and think about it for a protracted
11:11
Speaker 1: period of time. I find it very interesting in this
11:13
Speaker 1: case that he didn't show up with a bottle of
11:15
Speaker 1: water to begin with. He went to the vending machine
11:19
Speaker 1: to retrieve a bottle of water. I think some things
11:22
Speaker 1: can be taken away from that. Was there a chance
11:25
Speaker 1: that he might not go through with it, because you
11:29
Speaker 1: would think that if he was certainly prepared to do that.
11:32
Speaker 1: It requires two things. First off, you have to have
11:35
Speaker 1: the agent that you're going to use the poison. If
11:38
Speaker 1: you will, and then you have to have the conveyance
11:42
Speaker 1: for it. You have to have a water in order
11:44
Speaker 1: to mix this substance up with. He didn't show up
11:48
Speaker 1: prepared for that, which is quite striking when you begin
11:52
Speaker 1: to think about it. Joe, if he had come into
11:54
Speaker 1: court with a water bottle that was cloudy and didn't
11:57
Speaker 1: look like water, he would not have been allowed in
11:59
Speaker 1: with it. That is true, But why didn't he just
12:02
Speaker 1: show up with previously bought bottle of water from home?
12:06
Speaker 1: He actually went to the machine in the lobby there
12:09
Speaker 1: to purchase this thing, which is odd. Just think about this.
12:13
Speaker 1: How many times have we been to a vending machine
12:14
Speaker 1: you put your money in and it says sold out?
12:17
Speaker 1: How many times? That's an ultimate and frustration? Right, wouldn't
12:19
Speaker 1: that be something? You know, shows up, he puts his
12:21
Speaker 1: money in and things has sold out. Now what are
12:23
Speaker 1: you going to do? You're going to get a bottle
12:25
Speaker 1: of soda instead of a bottle of water. Can you
12:27
Speaker 1: predict what's going to happen if you put this agent
12:30
Speaker 1: into a carbonated beverage as opposed to just straight up water.
12:34
Speaker 1: I don't know. It just seems a bit risky on
12:37
Speaker 1: one hand to me Dave that he would show up
12:39
Speaker 1: without that element in place. But I do know this,
12:43
Speaker 1: he showed up with a substance that was very lethal. Well,
12:47
Speaker 1: let me ask you, because Joe I didn't think about that.
12:50
Speaker 1: I just looked at it as his pre planning was,
12:52
Speaker 1: I'm going to come into court, I'm gonna go through
12:54
Speaker 1: all the things that check me out, and I'll go
12:55
Speaker 1: buy a bottle of water. End. And somehow in the
12:58
Speaker 1: time period between the time he buys the bottle of
13:00
Speaker 1: water and the verdict is read, he is able to
13:04
Speaker 1: put something in the water that witnesses said it was cloudy.
13:07
Speaker 1: But it didn't occur to me if it was out,
13:10
Speaker 1: if he could have done it with another liquid. We
13:11
Speaker 1: just know that he had water and that witnesses said
13:14
Speaker 1: that water was cloudy, which again he was drinking it
13:18
Speaker 1: in such an odd fashion after the first guilty that
13:21
Speaker 1: it did draw attention. People did notice, including an investigator
13:25
Speaker 1: for the county. It's within our nature's humans when somebody
13:29
Speaker 1: is faced with this kind of charge in Leclair's case,
13:34
Speaker 1: that's so very ominous and dark when you hear this.
13:38
Speaker 1: If you're in the audience, whether you're the judge or
13:41
Speaker 1: maybe a detective that has been following the case, maybe
13:43
Speaker 1: work the case, his counsel that's sitting next to him,
13:46
Speaker 1: or maybe the prosecutor, or maybe just a reporter that
13:49
Speaker 1: showed it from the local newspaper and you're taking notes.
13:52
Speaker 1: You're going to be looking at this guy anyway, because
13:55
Speaker 1: that's what everybody wants to see. They want to see
13:57
Speaker 1: how someone is going to react. Camera will pan over
14:01
Speaker 1: to that individual in court. It's the ultimate and drama
14:05
Speaker 1: and to try to capture their reaction. How much more
14:08
Speaker 1: so in a case like this, where you've got a
14:10
Speaker 1: guy that's literally looking at spending the rest of his
14:13
Speaker 1: life in prison. He's certainly now going to be a
14:17
Speaker 1: convicted sex offender at that point in time. Then he's
14:20
Speaker 1: going to be put into the population in Texas in
14:24
Speaker 1: state penitentiary where he's going to have very rough go
14:28
Speaker 1: of it. That in and of itself is drama enough.
14:31
Speaker 1: But you're right, Dave, when you say that, suddenly it's
14:35
Speaker 1: not just taking SIPs, it's throwing this thing back and
14:38
Speaker 1: guzzling it. Some reports say that he actually grimaced a
14:42
Speaker 1: bit when this occurred. So you're thinking, why is he
14:45
Speaker 1: drinking water like this? Because all of us can kind
14:48
Speaker 1: of identify with having dry mouth. You're kind of knocked
14:51
Speaker 1: that back as best you can. But no, that's not
14:53
Speaker 1: what happened. I guess the only way to really phrase
14:55
Speaker 1: is he was drinking with a purpose. I'm going to
14:58
Speaker 1: ask you, Joe, what could he possibly mixed with water
15:02
Speaker 1: that could cause his demise? What could he do where
15:05
Speaker 1: nobody can see, because he's got to do this hidden.
15:08
Speaker 1: He's got his bottle of water there, he somehow is
15:10
Speaker 1: able to open it and put something in that water.
15:13
Speaker 1: The prosecutor believed early on that Leclaire had perhaps ingested cyanide,
15:19
Speaker 1: and I think that most people think of it's kind
15:22
Speaker 1: of a default position when you suspect that someone has
15:26
Speaker 1: taken their own life, they're ingesting something. Side is kind
15:31
Speaker 1: of this classic thing that you see in the movies.
15:33
Speaker 1: We've heard of l pills that contain cyanide, where people
15:37
Speaker 1: can take their own lives, and it's kind of what
15:40
Speaker 1: we think about. Interestingly enough, it was not cyanide. It's
15:45
Speaker 1: actually a chemical that is used sometimes to decrease the
15:50
Speaker 1: lethality of cyanide ingestion. It's kind of fascinating because he
15:54
Speaker 1: chose to use a substance called sodium nitrite. It's a
15:58
Speaker 1: salt and we most commonly associated with preservation of food.
16:03
Speaker 1: It's something that you find in any kind of food preservative. Nowadays.
16:08
Speaker 1: We've heard of how years ago they used to salt
16:11
Speaker 1: meat to store it for a protracted period of time.
16:14
Speaker 1: People have a smokehouse, they would salt their meat. We're
16:17
Speaker 1: talking about pure salt in order to do that. This
16:19
Speaker 1: is a compound sodium nitrite, and it's utilized in order
16:24
Speaker 1: to not just preserve food, but it's also facilitates maintaining
16:30
Speaker 1: kind of a healthy looking color to food. And the
16:34
Speaker 1: old day's salt would actually dry out the meat to
16:39
Speaker 1: the point where it would look brown and it would
16:41
Speaker 1: make it very unappetizing in appearance. But with this substance,
16:45
Speaker 1: it still maintains kind of a beefy red appearance. It
16:48
Speaker 1: still looks palatable, even though the salted meat in the
16:52
Speaker 1: past was palatable and preserved. But there's something to be
16:55
Speaker 1: said for something that still looks viable when we're looking
16:58
Speaker 1: to ingest something, and it will achieve the same goal.
17:01
Speaker 1: But this substance that's used for a wide variety of things.
17:05
Speaker 1: As I said, it can be used as a treatment
17:07
Speaker 1: to knock down cyanide ingestion. It's also used in treating metals.
17:13
Speaker 1: It's got a very broad spectrum utility to it. But
17:17
Speaker 1: here's the thing. When taken in very big doses, it's
17:23
Speaker 1: highly highly lethal, and of course, in the case of Claire,
17:28
Speaker 1: it ended his life. Sodium nitrite a stroke of genius,
17:52
Speaker 1: as it were. It's something that is easily accessible. It's
17:56
Speaker 1: a substance that just about anybody can get their hands on.
18:00
Speaker 1: If you try to find an agent like cyanide, you're
18:02
Speaker 1: going to draw attention to yourself. But with this particular substance,
18:06
Speaker 1: it is something that the general public can actually purchase
18:12
Speaker 1: and readily use, and in this case, that's what Leoklear
18:16
Speaker 1: decided to end his life with. Dave. Now you're kind
18:19
Speaker 1: of confusing me just a little bit because you said
18:22
Speaker 1: that sodium nitrite can be used to make meat look
18:26
Speaker 1: more appealing. Yet in the same token, the very thing
18:30
Speaker 1: that can make the food look better can kill me
18:33
Speaker 1: as well and is readily available. And you point it out,
18:36
Speaker 1: cyanide is going to draw attention, but sodium nitrite is
18:40
Speaker 1: something that is common and commonly used in many different things.
18:44
Speaker 1: How much is enough if I'm using it to make
18:46
Speaker 1: my meat look good. Is there like you can go
18:48
Speaker 1: three marshmallows, but the fourth one's going to kill you.
18:51
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'd reduce it down to marshmallows, Dave,
18:53
Speaker 1: but you have to have a significant amount of it,
18:56
Speaker 1: and you would have to have the ability to transport
19:00
Speaker 1: it as well. In appearance, it's a white crystalline substance.
19:04
Speaker 1: It's assault, so it's going to have that kind of
19:07
Speaker 1: appearance to it. It's completely odorless, so it's not necessarily
19:11
Speaker 1: going to draw attention to you. It was a real risk,
19:14
Speaker 1: I think for him to bring it into the courthouse though,
19:19
Speaker 1: because you're surrounded with law enforcement types. You've got this
19:23
Speaker 1: in some kind of conveyance, whether it be and they've
19:26
Speaker 1: never been very specific about this, but you've either got
19:29
Speaker 1: it in a bag or you've got it in some
19:32
Speaker 1: kind of vial And just imagine you're around law enforcement types,
19:36
Speaker 1: they know that you're going into criminal court and suddenly
19:39
Speaker 1: they search you. Well, the default position for the police
19:43
Speaker 1: or law enforcement is if they search you and they
19:45
Speaker 1: find a baggy with a white crystalline, non specific substance
19:49
Speaker 1: in it, they're automatically going to begin to think, well,
19:51
Speaker 1: what is this? Is it some type of illicit drug?
19:54
Speaker 1: Could it be coke? Could it be meth? Could it
19:56
Speaker 1: be any of these things? Running the risk with the
20:00
Speaker 1: bottle of water not showing up with it in hand,
20:04
Speaker 1: and then you're going to walk into the courtroom with
20:07
Speaker 1: a white crystalline substance. You're really kind of sticking your
20:10
Speaker 1: neck out here with this plan. But he decided to
20:15
Speaker 1: roll the dice, and in this case, it certainly worked.
20:17
Speaker 1: And with this particular substance, it inhibits the uptake of oxygen.
20:23
Speaker 1: Our red blood cells transport oxygen to our cells throughout
20:28
Speaker 1: our body. With the introduction of the substance into the system,
20:32
Speaker 1: it inhibits that ability, so the oxygen can't bond with
20:35
Speaker 1: the hemoglobin and transport it around, and it causes at
20:39
Speaker 1: a cellular level for the cells to begin to struggle.
20:43
Speaker 1: You have to have oxygenated blood in order to function,
20:47
Speaker 1: and essentially the cells, for lack of a better term,
20:49
Speaker 1: begin comes strangulate. At that point in time, this shocked everyone.
20:53
Speaker 1: Nobody saw this coming, knowing what he was facing, facing
20:57
Speaker 1: a hundred years in prison, Nobody thought this was going
21:01
Speaker 1: to happen. They didn't. It's not like he had gone
21:04
Speaker 1: through some type of assessment just prior to walking into court.
21:08
Speaker 1: He's here to hear the final outcome. Trial has been
21:11
Speaker 1: going on. He's living on the outside, and he's faced
21:14
Speaker 1: with the reality he knows what the evidence is. He's
21:17
Speaker 1: faced with the reality there's a chance he is not
21:19
Speaker 1: walking back out of that courtroom without bracelets on his
21:21
Speaker 1: wrist and not being shackled at this point in time,
21:24
Speaker 1: and he's got a very narrow window to work with.
21:27
Speaker 1: So in answer to your question, I'm thinking probably a
21:30
Speaker 1: five gram to ten gram dosage would probably be enough
21:34
Speaker 1: to push him over the edge, and it would certainly
21:37
Speaker 1: give that water that cloudy appearance. The water didn't appear dirty.
21:41
Speaker 1: It kind of turns it into not really bige, but
21:44
Speaker 1: kind of a white. It is water soluble, but it
21:47
Speaker 1: takes a few seconds for it to begin to break
21:49
Speaker 1: down where you would not be able to appreciate it.
21:52
Speaker 1: So he dumped it in pretty quick and use the
21:55
Speaker 1: water to ingest it. It begins to work very very quickly.
21:58
Speaker 1: When they begin to take him away, already at a
22:01
Speaker 1: cellular level, he's beginning to struggle. He becomes diphyretic, a
22:06
Speaker 1: skin is getting cold, clammy, starting to sweat, unsteady gait.
22:09
Speaker 1: They're leading him back to a holding cell where they
22:13
Speaker 1: take all of these people that have been found guilty,
22:15
Speaker 1: and once they PLoP him down in that holding cell,
22:19
Speaker 1: he begins to vomit. He begins to vomit. It's the
22:22
Speaker 1: body's reaction, at least in the initial phase to the
22:25
Speaker 1: substance being within his digestive track. At that point, his
22:29
Speaker 1: body's having the scretching event. That's kind of cleared the system,
22:33
Speaker 1: but it's too late at that point. As a matter
22:35
Speaker 1: of fact, that autopsy. One of the things that you
22:37
Speaker 1: see with a gastric mucosa, which is kind of the
22:40
Speaker 1: lining of the esophagus in the stomach. When that area
22:43
Speaker 1: is open and you've been exposed to the substance, it
22:47
Speaker 1: forms this film. It's kind of got a beige appearance
22:50
Speaker 1: to it. It's a reactive event that your body reacting
22:53
Speaker 1: to this stuff. Just from the initial onset. You've got
22:57
Speaker 1: an indication in the gastric mucause the stuff being absorbed.
23:01
Speaker 1: That's one of the quickest ways to get it into
23:03
Speaker 1: the system. So it's already being absorbed as soon as
23:06
Speaker 1: it begins to hit his mouth, that digestive process begins
23:09
Speaker 1: at that point and it's going out systemically. At this point,
23:13
Speaker 1: it's getting into his bloodstream, it's inhibiting the oxygen uptake.
23:17
Speaker 1: The body is wretching, it's trying to get rid of it.
23:19
Speaker 1: And another thing that you see with this kind of
23:22
Speaker 1: event is that individuals become hypoxic. That's an outward demonstration
23:27
Speaker 1: of a lack of oxygen. Sometimes they'll become cyanotic, and
23:32
Speaker 1: cyanotic or psygnosis is something that you see many times
23:35
Speaker 1: with congestive heart failure or respiratory failure. You see it
23:38
Speaker 1: with drug acts. Many times they'll have this eggplant colored
23:41
Speaker 1: hue that comes over them where they're purple almost. But
23:45
Speaker 1: in his case, he was in the early stages when
23:47
Speaker 1: they initially saw. The reports were that he had become
23:50
Speaker 1: very pale ashen and eventually he begins to convulse, which
23:56
Speaker 1: is again associated with ingestion of this stuff. You think
24:00
Speaker 1: about the time involved. He starts drinking. After the first
24:04
Speaker 1: guilty verdict is read, they read all five. He's chugging
24:08
Speaker 1: jing jing jing. He's taken this down. Five verdicts guilty, guilty,
24:11
Speaker 1: Yielty guilty hilding, and then the judge then sends the
24:14
Speaker 1: jury out of the room. Are convicted pedophile. They're both
24:18
Speaker 1: sent out of the room. He has moved to a
24:20
Speaker 1: holding cell adjacent to the courtroom. The jury moved to
24:23
Speaker 1: their room. He immediately goes in there and starts throwing up,
24:26
Speaker 1: which isn't going to shock anyone right away. The man
24:28
Speaker 1: was just found guilty. He's now a convicted pedophile. He
24:31
Speaker 1: knows he's staring a hundred years in prison. That's what
24:34
Speaker 1: the judge is going to now discuss with the attorneys
24:37
Speaker 1: about sentencing. So while he's in there, he starts throwing
24:41
Speaker 1: up and somebody says, hey, I believe it was the
24:43
Speaker 1: investigator for Didon County, said go check on him. Something's
24:47
Speaker 1: not right, and that's when a bailiff went and checked
24:49
Speaker 1: on him and found him unconscious. It was that quick.
24:53
Speaker 1: It is that quick that goes to the level of lethality,
24:56
Speaker 1: and this is something that he had planned out. But
24:58
Speaker 1: here's the key. Dave found this quite chilling when I
25:02
Speaker 1: was taking a look at this case. This is not
25:04
Speaker 1: the first of these cases involving someone utilizing this substance.
25:09
Speaker 1: I guess it was back in twenty one. You had
25:12
Speaker 1: this young actor, Matthew Miidler that had utilized this substance
25:17
Speaker 1: to kill himself with. There's also another actress that had
25:20
Speaker 1: utilized this substance. You've got a couple of kids out
25:23
Speaker 1: there that have used it. The fascinating thing is that
25:26
Speaker 1: Amazon company. Amazon was actually sued over the substance because
25:32
Speaker 1: people were peddling what turned out to be quote unquote
25:35
Speaker 1: suicide kids. There's no reason for anyone to be in
25:40
Speaker 1: possession of this substance unless you're preserving or curing meat
25:45
Speaker 1: at home perhaps, and it's not something that's naturally occurring
25:49
Speaker 1: in our system. At autopsy, after you've done the gross
25:53
Speaker 1: examination and we've talked about this on bodybacks before, where
25:56
Speaker 1: you're actually staring at the organs after you have the
25:59
Speaker 1: body open, then you do the dissection. You look at
26:02
Speaker 1: the changes microscopically through histological examinations, and there will be
26:07
Speaker 1: a few changes that you can notice, but nothing really specific.
26:10
Speaker 1: So the answers are traditionally going to rest in toxicology,
26:13
Speaker 1: and that's one of the reasons it took some time
26:16
Speaker 1: for them to work their way through it. They know
26:19
Speaker 1: at the medical Examiner's office that they're dealing with some
26:22
Speaker 1: kind of toxin that has brought his death about. It's
26:26
Speaker 1: not like he was just found lying out on the
26:29
Speaker 1: street deceased. They know that this is something that he
26:32
Speaker 1: has ingested. The trick is how do you begin to
26:35
Speaker 1: whittle this down? And when you're conducting an investigation like this,
26:40
Speaker 1: it's not just what you find at autopsy. You have
26:44
Speaker 1: to go back to this individual's home where they were dwelling.
26:48
Speaker 1: You have to look for receipts. You have to look
26:50
Speaker 1: for maybe a larger amount of this substance. Did they
26:54
Speaker 1: have access to it? Did they work in an industry
26:56
Speaker 1: perhaps that utilize the substance. You would look through through
27:00
Speaker 1: the computer files. You'd want to see. Had he searched
27:03
Speaker 1: out means to take my own life by some type
27:05
Speaker 1: of substance that I can ingest. He's not going to
27:07
Speaker 1: walk into the courtroom and be able to get through
27:10
Speaker 1: a metal detector with a gun. In his mind, apparently
27:13
Speaker 1: this was the next best thing. And there have been
27:15
Speaker 1: other people that have taken poisons in court. There have
27:18
Speaker 1: actually been people that have done great harm to themselves
27:21
Speaker 1: in court, But in this particular instance, he had to
27:24
Speaker 1: have something that was portable that he could simply unscrew
27:29
Speaker 1: the top of a bottle of water and pour this
27:32
Speaker 1: in very carefully without drawing any kind of notice, and
27:36
Speaker 1: shake this thing up and then ingested. This brings us
27:39
Speaker 1: to another point. He's thought about this. I wonder back
27:42
Speaker 1: at his home if when the investigators went there they
27:45
Speaker 1: found any evidence that he had been practicing, because that's
27:49
Speaker 1: something that occurs many times. Were the people that decide
27:52
Speaker 1: to take their lives, they will go through a series
27:55
Speaker 1: of exercises to see if things function. We see this
27:59
Speaker 1: with suicide by gunfire. People will do what's called test
28:03
Speaker 1: firing a weapon. We hear about test firing as it
28:05
Speaker 1: applies to ballistic examination or gunfire examination. Individuals that are
28:10
Speaker 1: bent on taking their life with a firearm, they will
28:13
Speaker 1: actually test fire weapons prior to using them on themselves.
28:17
Speaker 1: If you suspect somebody has poisoned themselves, is there something
28:21
Speaker 1: that can be done that could reverse the effects of
28:24
Speaker 1: this and maybe other poisons. For years and years, there's
28:27
Speaker 1: been the induction of vomiting that has occurred. When you
28:30
Speaker 1: hear about people having their stomachs pumped, But most of
28:33
Speaker 1: the time that's going to be with prescription medications. Many
28:35
Speaker 1: of those things will have like time releases with a
28:38
Speaker 1: substance like this. Time is a big element here. You
28:41
Speaker 1: said something very very interesting a moment ago, Dave, that
28:45
Speaker 1: had not struck me until this moment, and that was
28:49
Speaker 1: when they take him back to that holding cell and
28:52
Speaker 1: he's in there and he begins vomiting. That would not
28:56
Speaker 1: be an unexpected reaction to this kind of sentence, would it.
29:00
Speaker 1: So you have a time delay there, I think, and
29:04
Speaker 1: some people have drawn this into question in this particular case,
29:06
Speaker 1: did they delay getting the paramedics there. Well, when you
29:09
Speaker 1: see somebody begin throwing up, you don't automatically think poisoning. Okay,
29:13
Speaker 1: it's not like the guy's got to sign around his
29:15
Speaker 1: neck that says I've just ingested this. You've got a
29:18
Speaker 1: guy that is looking at a hundred years as a
29:21
Speaker 1: sex offender in a state penitentiary. At this point in time.
29:25
Speaker 1: I could see somebody throwing up. I could see somebody
29:27
Speaker 1: having severe gastrointestinal distress at this moment in time. So
29:32
Speaker 1: the bailiff, who you can only imagine these holding sales,
29:35
Speaker 1: have seen just about everything in there, and to see
29:38
Speaker 1: somebody throwing up is not beyond the pale. It's something
29:42
Speaker 1: that may have been expected. Maybe it's something they had
29:45
Speaker 1: seen before, so they're going to delay. But it's when
29:48
Speaker 1: he goes into an unconscious state, when he starts to
29:52
Speaker 1: convulse this sort of thing, they know they've got a problem.
29:55
Speaker 1: So time is of the essence. Is there an agent
29:57
Speaker 1: that they could have induced vomiting with, perhaps, but the
30:01
Speaker 1: key is there was nobody around to do that, and
30:04
Speaker 1: this agent works so very quickly Dave that he was
30:08
Speaker 1: beyond salvation at that point in time. The number to
30:11
Speaker 1: call if you or somebody you know is suffering through
30:15
Speaker 1: life right now and is really considering taking their own
30:19
Speaker 1: life or causing harm, the number to call is eight
30:22
Speaker 1: hundred two seven three Ta LK. That's eight two five
30:26
Speaker 1: five eight hundred two seven three eight two five five
30:30
Speaker 1: for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan
30:38
Speaker 1: and this is Body Backs