April 10, 2025 • 49 mins
John Tyrrell is in the New Jersey woods when he finds a refrigerator that is wrapped in a sleeping bag, secured with blue ratchet straps, and covered with carpet. Tyrrell takes one look inside and calls police, he has just found missing mom, Laura Hughes. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss how the decomposed body is identified and what investigators do to nab the suspect in an international manhunt.
Transcription Highlights
00:03.04 Introduction
03:47.47 Using refrigerator as casket
08:29.44 Digital data solves crimes
12:29.05 Finder wont give phone to police
17:40.80 Did perp keep refrigerator plugged in?
23:05.79 "purge fluid"
28:13.49 Removing clothes from the dead
33:45.56 Positive ID of victim
38:09.70 Items used to identify the dead
43:13.15 Calender in suspect apartment with "X" marks
48:09.54 Bullet defect and trajectory
49:23.36 Conclusion
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Body bats, but Joseph's gotten more. It's kind of interesting
the world that we live in and the spaces that
we inhabit. Items within our homes or maybe our work
environment become utilized for something other than what they may
(00:25):
have been intended to be used for. Now, I'm thinking
about places that I've gone as a death investigator, where
I've gone to a woodworkers shop and a bandsaw, for instance,
was used to dismember a body, or maybe digging under
the sink at a home, and I find ant poisoning,
(00:48):
and that same ant poisoning was used poison Strike that
in three two, and that same ant poison was used
to kill a lady at the hands of her husband.
Some things just seem kind of innocuous. For instance, I
(01:09):
don't know about you guys, but I do like a
good cold beverage every now and then. I like walking
into my tiny, little galley style style kitchen. Kim and
I live in a very small home, popping up my
refrigerator and getting my jug of water out or iced
tea or maybe an adult beverage. You don't normally think
(01:36):
of a refrigerator being used as a coffin, but today
we are going to have that discussion because there is
a case that originates out of New Jersey that caught
the attention of both myself and my buddy Dave Mack,
and we wanted to have, as the British say, a
(01:57):
chin wag about it. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this
is body bags, Dave. I've currently got a refrigerator that
I don't like. I will not mention the brand name
because it came with the house when we purchased the
(02:18):
house several years ago, but to say that it is
less than superior equipment would be an insult to other
types of equipment. I don't know that the ice maker
has ever accurately worked. And every time you open the
actual door for the freezer, ice falls out, falls out,
(02:40):
you know, and it goes out from time to time.
It throws us codes up, you know, the little weird
codes that don't and I don't have an owner's manual
for it.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, Joe, you have a refrigerator that has digital readout
and computer stuff. At some point in time, you go,
where's the cold button? You know? I just need I
need my ice over here, I need my milk over here.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
We're good, Yeah, Yeah, I don't need it to fix
a drink for me. I don't need it to prepare dinner.
I just want you to keep my stuff cold. It's
kind of like the theory that I have about so
called dishwashers. Dishwashers are not technically dishwashers. They're dish heater
uppers and dishwetters and other than that. You know, it's
(03:24):
kind of a slotting scale, I guess. But I've never
encountered a really good dishwasher. I guess the best dishwasher
is me, you know, beending able to sink and using
a scrub brush.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So if you are looking for something universal appliance wise
the size of an appliance, the refrigerator slash freezer would
be much easier to use as a homemade casket than
the dishwasher would be, just because of the length. But anymore,
with all the stories we have these days about people
being hacked up, chopped up, and disposed of, I guess
(03:58):
the dishwasher could work for that well. But today we
have one of these stories that as I was trying
to build a timeline Joe, there were a couple of
issues that kept popping up, and I still haven't resolved
some of them. But bottom line always being the bottom line.
We have a woman named Lauren Hughes, Laura Hughes rather
and Laura goes missing and they start looking for her
(04:21):
because she doesn't normally just disappear. Can't find her. Now
we're talking September, October, November, finally December twenty second rolls
around and there's a man named John Tyrrell and John
is faced with a dilemma Joe. He is in New Jersey,
out in the woods, which is so weird. When you
(04:43):
think of New Jersey, I don't think of woods. I
just don't. I think of cities, and you know, pollution
because of how the reputation of the state. But the
state of New Jersey has a lot of beautiful area
that it does. It's like the hidden logy and the.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Wargest places that people don't think about.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Right, And John Tyrrell is out in the woods and
he stumbles upon an abandoned refrigerator in the middle of
the Bellplaine State Forest in Cape May, New Jersey. Now
he doesn't exactly know that it's a refrigerator. It is
something that is the size of a refrigerator, but it's
(05:20):
wrapped up. Okay, it's got a blanket or something around.
It's got tied down with straps. I mean, something has
been secured inside this refrigerator size thing. And hey, man,
you're in the woods by yourself. What are you gonna do.
You're gonna look at it, right, You're gonna look see
what's in there. Somebody getched it out here. So he
(05:40):
opens it up and immediately calls police because of what
he saw inside. And I'm thinking December twenty second in
New Jersey in the wood. It's gonna be cold, right.
This guy was breaking out in a sweat, Joe when
he saw what was inside that refrigerator. It appears to
be our victim today, and we're talking about a woman
(06:06):
who has been missing and apparently found, Laura hughes.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
By.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Joe, you always tell me to think about the finder.
The finder in this case actually gets charged with obstruction.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Now, if you're an innocent finder of something in the
middle of the woods and the police ask you, hey,
let's see your phone for a minute, you know, and
you say, no, you can't look at my phone, which
is exactly what happened. So John Terrell is the trirel
is the finder and uh, the first person charged in
(06:48):
this case. He won't turn his cell phone over to police.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
You're going to jail. Yeah, that's anybody out there that
if they're trying to give you a feel sobriety test
and they refuse, You know, you have attorneys that say,
don't don't comply. Well never, You're right, you don't have
to comply, you really don't. But guess what you're going
(07:13):
You're going to get a free ride somewhere in bracelets.
Yeah it is, and they're going to do it, but
you know that you don't want to. In this case,
they know that the man has found the body, and
they know that let's just look at it, Okay. The
(07:35):
cops know from the beginning that obviously this is not
some kind of accidental event where she happened to fall
into a refrigerator and it got you know, uh, strapped
down with these mechanical strap and yeah, and wrapped up.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
There's not a really innocent explanation for this, Joe.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah. They know. They know from Jump Street that they're
dealing with a very highly suspicious death and there's a
high likelihood even if you can't which they couldn't by
the way determine what the cause of death was. They
know that they've probably got a homicide on their hands here,
and if they allow this guy to bolt and they
don't get that data from him immediately, it could be
(08:19):
you know, lost forever and ever. And how many of
these cases have we covered and Nancy's covered where the
digital data nowadays, in particular, it's going to be the
tail of the tape in these cases where you can
go back and say, Okay, this guy, he's got an alibi,
(08:39):
he was in this location he's never been. I don't know,
for instance, the home address of Laura that you know
they've had no previous contact. There's no digital signature here
that would indicate that they're texting back and forth. They
don't even know. Maybe they don't even know one another
on social media, if this guy even on social media.
(09:01):
And look, I understand privacy. You don't want somebody digging
around in your phone and you don't know if you're
going to get it back either you know they're going
to give it to you or they're going to hold
it forever and ever. Amen is evidence, and we're so
tied to these things. I just I got to tell
you this on a side. I just had to jump
on my class. I was teaching intro to Forensics and
(09:23):
it's a big class that I've got in there. And
just today, even though I've said it over and over again,
you know, I looked out over the audience there and
I got kids that are texting while I'm lecturing. They've
only got me for fifty five minutes, and you can't
put your phone down long enough to listen to what
I have to say. And so it's you deal with that?
(09:45):
How do you deal with that?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Joe? I'm really curious as to that because you're in college.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, well, you know, I could say you embarrass them,
you know, uh, and you say, you know, are you
incapable of functioning out your without your phone? But it's
there's a callus that's built up now at this point.
They don't care, So you know, you could you know,
I could take all the phones up. I guess if
(10:12):
I wanted to, I probably couldn't do that. I know
that they do that like in high schools and things
like that. You could say you're going to take points off,
but you know that gets after that gets rather tedious
after a while. You know what I'm saying, but anyway,
my point, my point is is that you know, these
phones are so much part and parcel of our lives.
(10:34):
I'm not defending the guy, but just to understand, we
live in an almost totally cashless society. So think about
taking somebody's phone away now. Nowadays, there are people that
pay for their gas with their phone, people that pay
for groceries, going out to restaurants, going to the doctor.
You use your phone to pay with it, you know.
(10:56):
And I'm sure that there's some kind of digital driver's
licenses out there as well. I don't know. I think
i'd heard something about that, but we're almost completely moved
away from anything that's analog at this point.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
No, that's a great point, and I'm thinking, right off
the top of my head, a case you and I
have covered with on here end with Nancy, the case
of Mattisoto in Florida, because the first thing they did
before charging her, Stephan Stearns with her abduction and murder,
they got his phone, and remember the first thing he
(11:29):
did was try to delete everything on it, but there
was still enough on there that they were able to
charge him based on his phone before they found her body.
They knew, okay, we got him in.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
This particular factory resetts.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I think, oh yeah, yeah, oh, I accidentally did a
factory reset, which, by the way, you can't accidentally do
just saying, but in this case, we got the finder.
And I agree with you there when it comes to
a dui and not doing this the side of the
road sobriety test. Look, you're giving them evidence chances if
you're taking the roadside sobriety test. I've never seen anybody
(12:03):
pass that. They take you downtown and have you blow. Anyway.
You can refuse the roadside. You cannot refuse the breathalyzer.
If you refuse the breathalyzer, you immediately lose your license
for a certain period of time depending on the state
you live in. But you can refuse the roadside and
say just take me down and let me blow. You
don't get in trouble for that. But in this case,
(12:25):
you're right. They ask for his phone and he says no. Now,
we don't know what's on his phone, but I guarantee
you a couple of things if you deny the police
your phone. And you just found a dead body in
the woods that has been wrapped up in a well,
inside of a refrigerator that is wrapped in a sleeping
(12:46):
bag and a yoga matt all that is rolled up
trying to disguise this dead body inside of this refrigerator.
And you deny them your phone, they're going to get
your phone anyway, They're going to get a search warrant,
and now you're not getting it back. So just laying
it out there that maybe I'm not trying to give
(13:06):
criminals any kind of a hint, but for crying out loud,
maybe we got to become less a phone dependent, you know, because.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
That's a bridge too far at this point. The damage
is done at this point. Yeah, but yeah, And so
when we think about Laura's body out there and that
abandoned actually quite beautiful area of the state of New
Jersey near Cape May, we begin to think about what
(13:39):
brought her to that location, how did she get there,
and how did she get there being conveyed in a
household of clients. David, I'm reminded right now of a
(14:05):
conversation you and I were just having, I think this
past week. Folks that don't know David and I don't
just show up and chat on tapings of Buddy Backs
we can't get enough of each other. We'll call and
just chat, you know, about life in general, kids and
grandkids and all the sorts of things and things that
(14:27):
we see in the news. Obviously in planning shows. But
we were having a conversation the other day. I don't
know if you remember this, but we were actually talking
about the word coffin versus casket.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
You know, you said it at the beginning of the show.
I thought, heyst.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Well, I got to tell you. You know, they're saying they're
saying that this refrigerator, and I said, as well, you know,
the refrigerator is like a makeshift casket, and there is
a significant difference between coffin's and caskets. Anytime I think coffin,
(15:03):
I think of, first off, vampires because of the way
they're shaped. I also think of, perhaps, you know, something
that has to do with a very formal funeral. Because
of the way coffins are shaped. They they're actually six sided,
(15:27):
and you know, unlike a casket, which is rectangular, it's
it's foresighted. And you know, when when you look at
a refrigerator, you look at a refrigerator, I guess you
could say that that's more casket like than it is
(15:49):
coffin like my I think one of my questions is
is that if she is found inside and this is
Laura by the way, if she is found inside of
this refrigerator, I don't know about you, but how the
(16:09):
heck did somebody manage this thing? They did they have
a dolly that they could strap or I mean, I've
moved refrigerators with dollies. You know, you can run them
at U haul, you know, if you're going to be
going down the road and you want to take your
appliances with you, and yeah, it's it can be a
one man job, but it's it's very cumbersome. In order
(16:30):
to facilitate that, you know who, who would did the
individual that put them in there? Did they have a dolly?
Or did they have help? Because you're not going to
throw this thing up on your back. I guess you
could in some way drag it maybe if you had carpet,
if you could do it in a sequestered manner so
that no one would see you do it. But in
(16:53):
order to really take eyes off of this thing, anything
that you're going to do, you're going to have to
do it in privacy. Here's my big question. The refrigerator
that she was found in. My question is being the
nerd that I am, I want to know if the
refrigerator still worked. I want to know if you no, really,
(17:18):
I want to know. Well, And here's the reason.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Here's my reason, stinging cord in here in the middle
of the woods.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Yeah no, no, But let's just say, for instance, that
she was killed and then placed into the refrigerator with
the shells removed of course, and kept plugged in in
order to keep the body cool while the perpetrator is
trying to decide what they're going to do. What's the
disposition going to be here of her remains within that,
(17:49):
I know that I'm going to use the refrigerator. Where
am I going to dump this thing? There's a lot
of logistics that go into refrigerators and bodies, all right,
you this is something that I guess it could be
an item of convenience. You've got an extra refrigerator, you know,
on your property laying around the house. Maybe it's out back.
Maybe they went and singularly purchased a used refrigerator at
(18:11):
a junk store for this purpose because you got you know,
you think about it. I guess out of all household items,
a refrigerator and a deep freeze, which we've had a
case involved in a deep freeze. Remember the two women
up in Oklahoma with the skid steer you've got, that's
that's the most I don't know, casket like item that
(18:36):
you have in your.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Home, probably in this case Joe. When the body is
found inside the refrigerator in the woods in on December
twenty second, she had been missing for some time. As
I mentioned the earlier in the show, that we're not
exactly sure the last time she was seen. There is
a little bit of an issue as the last time
(19:00):
she was seen. And look, we're all mistaken from time
to time. You know, I could think I saw Joe
yesterday down at the supermarket, and in reality it was
a week ago. I mean, that does happen. So it's
a whole lot less of when she was last seen
as to where the police go in their investigation, because
as soon as this is found, you know, they couldn't
identify her right at first, Let's just say that she
(19:21):
was last seen in the middle of July. Just call
it July fifteenth for the sake of argument. We are
now in December and she has been inside this freezer
for some time now, it's not as you mentioned, this
could have been a situation where she's in the freezer,
plugged in in somebody's basement, and then you know, on
December twenty first they decide I'm getting rid of it
(19:43):
and take it out in the woods and dump it.
We don't believe that's the case because the investigation led
in a different way. But what are we talking about
in terms of a body that's been in an enclosed
environment such as an old refrigerator with no power. Let's
just say it was unplugged and that that is now
(20:04):
wrapped and it's been left in the woods. What kind
of condition is a body going to be in four months?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Question? And I'm going to be a contrarian here and
start with what if it was plugged up? And let's
just start with that one little piece first. If if
in fact, this were to happen, and we don't have
an indication of this right now. Matter of fact, if
anybody wants to see a really cool movie sometime, make
sure that you check out the movie Bernie with Jack
(20:35):
Black and Matthew McConaughey and Shirley Shirley MacLean is based
on a true story about a lady that was a
true story in Texas where she was murdered and placed
in a deep freeze and left in the deep freeze
for a protracted period of time. Believe it or not,
the money is The movie is kind of a dark comedy,
but it's a true story.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Matthew McConaughey's mother is in that movie.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
She was she a story, Yeah, she is in this fascinating.
The story itself is just mind blowing, very very Southern Gothic,
if you will.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
But with.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
The condition, let's just say that we have an individual
that's placed into a refrigerator. A refrigerator is not sufficient
enough to really retard the process of decomposition because you
can't get the thing cold enough in order to knock
down the cellular degradation that's going on. It'll slow it,
(21:36):
but it's not going to say it's not like. Let's
just say, like in the case I was just talking
about with Bernie the movie Bernie, if you place a
body into a deep freeze, all right, where things you know,
when you pull out a package of chicken or ground beef,
it looks like you could, you know, lay mortar to it.
And build a house out of it. That's how dense
(21:57):
and frozen it is. It's not like that with the refrigerator.
And everybody understands that. You know, you go the refrigerator,
you open it up. You got a pack of hot
dogs in there. They're gonna be cold, but they're gonna
be soft, all right, It's not gonna be frozen through.
So if the person the perpetrator in this case, did
in fact put her body in and leave it plugged
in for a time, it would retard the process of decomposition,
(22:23):
but it's not gonna stop it. So you would be
fighting against that when you're trying to make a determination.
This is gonna throw your timeline all off if you
get out there and she's been plugged in, unplugged, taken
out there and dumped. And I don't even know that
there is a mathematical formula that you could use in
(22:43):
order to calculate this from a post mortal interval standpoint,
there's too many variables in it. But I will say
that her body when she was found in that refrigerator
and they did open it, depended upon the position of
(23:05):
the refrigerator. I can tell you this, what's going to
come out of it. First off, you're going to have
you're going to have a considerable amount of per what
we refer to as perge fluid, decompositional fluid that will
literally come pouring out all right if because you get
these This is something I've never talked about actually on
(23:27):
body backs, but I'll go there now.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
You have.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
You know, you see bodies that are decomposing and swollen,
and that's that happens as a result of this internal
gas build up. It's primarily methane. I've actually seen a
needle inserted into the decomposing remains of an individual been
down for a while. Needle's been inserted into their abdomen
(23:55):
and a lighter. You strike a lighter and a blue
flame comes out of the open end of the needle
because it's it's bleeding off methane and it'll burn had
a friend like a cigarette off off of burning methane
off of a dead body.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Kind of makes me want to ask you about some
of your previous friendships you know.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I know, questionable of. But it's you're going to get
what are referred to as blebs on the body now
blebs b L E B S, blebs are generally associated
with COPD or inmphysema. H. When you see a person
with imphizimbitous lungs, they're going to have these bubbles on
(24:40):
the surface of their lungs that look like they actually
look like you know the things that the kids, well,
I do too. If you get packing wrap that you
like to pop, it looks like those those little kind
of blistered and it contains air. In the case of
decomposition blabs, it contains one of the nasty substances known
(25:04):
to man, and that's decompositional fluid, and that's as a
result of the cellular breakdown, and it's the blister. Some
people call it decompetitional blisters. They're actually these sacks that
are containing what's left of the breakdown of the cells
and it's leeching out. And one of the worst things
(25:24):
that happens is that these blisters rerupt and that fluid
goes everywhere and it's kind of a greenish black color
and it smells as awful as it sounds. So you
would have a tremendous amount of that in the refrigerator. Now,
would she potentially be skeletonized to some extent, Perhaps there
(25:45):
might be evidence. There might be evidence of the fact
that the soft tissue is so degraded that you're beginning
to see some of the skeletal features, particularly in the
fingers and around the chin. You'll get that presentation around
the jaw, even on the forehead. Sometimes the saving grace though,
is the fact that you're not really around any kind
(26:10):
of scavengers, are you. Now They can come and it
would not surprise me, Dave. And this is kind of
mind blowing when you think about it. Out in the
woods like that, you can have something that's seeded, that's
seeded in that location, has been placed there, and that
smell is so strong that you'll have raccoons and possums, dogs,
(26:35):
they will be drawn to that and they're going to
be really frustrated because I can't get to it. It'll
just be there and it's emanating out and I can
just imagine animals circling that area. If you were really
careful when you were working that scene, you would probably
see remnants of animal activity around that area, everything from
paw prints to scat to hair. You might even and
(27:00):
get somebody one of these animals that becomes territorial because
the smell it's ringing the dinner bell for them, and
they'll get into a fight over it, but they can't
get access to the body. You imagine how frustrating that
would be for a wild animal. But the bodies are preserved.
Now you can sometimes believe it or not. You will
if that seal, that rubber gasket seal has been compromised anyway,
(27:23):
you might you might actually get fly activity, okay, which
is kind of fascinating when you think about flies getting
into the refrigerator. But sometimes found with flies in particular
that you know, where there's a will, there's a way.
There's actually a species of fly now that we're talking
about containers or bodies. There's actually a species of fly
(27:44):
called coffin flies that burrow and they get into coffins,
and that's where the name comes from. And they'll, you know,
they'll go to work on embalmed bodies that have been preserved.
So you've got all manner of things that are being thwarted,
but you can't take anything off the table. But her
remains would be physically preserved to the extent that they're
(28:11):
not being ravaged by scavengers that are coming by. She's
not being subjected to rain. Perhaps if there's any trace
evidence on the body, if she is fully clothed that
has been preserved to a great degree. Now it's going
to be really disgusting for the people as a lab
that get this clothing. I used to think about that
(28:33):
as I would take clothing off of the dead and
you hang it up in a forensic We have these
clothed dryers that we and they're not like a tumble
dryer there. It kind of dehumidifies the air. You put
them on hangers and you hang them in this box
and if it's saturated with blood decomflu it, it'll dry,
but it drives over a period of time and it
(28:53):
doesn't compromise the evidence so much. But I always felt
sorry for the people down the road, down the road,
you know, coming out of the morgan they receive the
stuff in their very clean clinical area that they have,
you know, it's coming up out of the dirty morgue
and it lands on their desk and they have to
work with this thing and they spread this you know,
(29:15):
a bit of clothing out and they're having to lean
over this thing and look through a magnifying lens or uh,
you know, a special special lighting and treat it in
particular ways, and they're having to deal with this nasty
piece of garment, you know, and it's it's not easy work,
you know, to participat in. But if you have a
body inside of a refrigerator, a lot of that stuff
(29:36):
is going to be preserved. So you've got to bite
your lip if you're a technician and sally on four
through this process because it's therein that some of these
big questions might be answered. Years ago, I was working
(30:07):
with a pathologist and we had several bodies that have
been placed into a deep breeze, and a deep breeze
was brought into the morgue. It was just they didn't
bother trying to remove the remains from the deep freeze.
And so you've got three remains. They're commingled inside of
an old deep freeze and they're brought in on the
(30:30):
back of a flatbed truck and then wheeled into the
morgue and we had to go through the process of
removing the remains. But I remember still to this day
us opening It was tied down, not with straps, but
it was tied with rope. I remember untying that rope
and opening up opening up that the lid on that thing,
(30:56):
and the pathologists looking down in him. This is a
direct quote, A what a filthy damn the shell. No,
what a filthy damn jumbled miss is what he said.
And he was absolutely right. Because these bodies have been
in there for so long, many of the parts had disarticulated,
(31:19):
and so you've you've got them mixed up, and you've
got scalp remains that are twisted around in bits of clothing,
and it is it's one thing. It's the beauty of
it scientifically and investigatively is that you've got everything contained
in one space. That's the upside. The downside is trying
(31:41):
to fight through all of the issues with decomposition, and
that extends in this case Dave to the body and
I think probably one of the most basic things that
we work on as death investigators.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
You know, I was wondering, That's why I was really
curious as to what kind of decomposition would take in
a sealed container over a period of time like that
through the summer fall into the winter months in New Jersey.
In this particular case, when they opened the refrigerator found
her body. As they were trying to identify her. It
took a couple of days, and they actually they being
(32:17):
law enforcement, they actually released information about tattoos on her
body and jewelry. Because you know, you've got a person
of indiscriminate age who has been found in a refrigerator
out in the middle of the woods, and there are
a lot of people missing in this country, sadly, and
so it wasn't an easy one to say, hey, we've
(32:39):
been missing this woman for the last couple of months.
It wasn't even like that. They really didn't know, and
so they put on television. They created, you know, the
picture of it. But here's what the tattoos look like.
Here's the jewelry found with the body. If you know
who this is, and that's how they were able to
identify her. It took two days. But I'm really curious
as to how all of this transpires and identifying not
(33:00):
just the person, but you've got to know how they died,
right so that you can track it back to the
actual suspect and what took place before the person ended
up in the woods, because it is a person. It's
not just a junk pile in the woods. This is
somebody's mother who has been just tossed like this.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yeah, mother, mother, too correct, another too yes to young girls. Well,
first off, let's let's take it from this perspective. I
know that there are people listening to this right now
and they're going to say, well, why don't you just
run DNA? Well, you can run DNA, but what in
the heck are you going to compare it to? Okay, uh,
(33:40):
why don't you steal a dental chart? Okay, let's do
a dental chart. We've done the post mortem dental chart.
Now what are we going to compare it to? Do
you see? It leads, It leads to a dead end. Now,
if if there are police out there, police agencies that
have a missing person that they're working on, you can
(34:02):
go to the family and say, hey, can we get
we think this might be your loved one. Can we
please get can we please get her anti mortem dental
records you know from her who's her dentist, and you
issue a subpoena. Must oh, by the way, most dentists,
if you're dealing with one of their patients. I only
(34:24):
remember a couple of times where we had to get
a subpoena for a dentist. Most of the time they
are just the most obliging people, you know, because they
developed real relationships obviously with these folks, they've known them
for years. But sometimes you don't. You don't have that,
and the one thing that you can go with are
tattoos and certainly jewelry. Now, in her case, I think
(34:47):
any right thinking person would say, well, Morgan, you're going
on about how decomposed she would be over this period
of time, and she would be Her skin by this
time would be a blog green color. It's not going
to look like it did in life at all.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
What wait a minute, Joe, I've never heard this before.
I've never actually heard that it's going to turn that
kind of a color.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Yeah, it'll it'll be a mixture of black green every
now and then you'll see a hue of dark blue
in it. And I don't ask me, I can't explain it,
but that's that's how the change generally happens. You'll also
get these kind of spiderweb looking presentations that are called marbling.
And marbling happens kind of early on. You see it
(35:37):
in the face a lot, and marbling if you just imagine, well,
imagine a marble countertop, and you know how and I
don't know anything about them. I've never had a marble countertop.
I just hear people talk about them. They've got those
kind of distinct veins that run through them, you know,
that make up those unique patterns, And I think that
a lot of people put a lot of stock in
(35:58):
that sort of thing about the past pattern of the
marbling in it. You hear marbling when it comes to steak,
you know, it's really well marbled. When you think about decomposition,
this marbling that takes place with the body, that's actually
the blood setting up in the blood vessels, and so
(36:19):
it decomposes within the vessels. The vessels are decomposing, and
so you get this presentation of dark purple, dark blue,
kind of purplish color of the literally the vessels. You
can see them, the outline of them running through the face.
And interesting, I've actually seen this portrayed in horror movies.
So people have seen pictures of the dead and they're
(36:42):
trying to recreate like a zombie or something. You'll see
and I don't even know if the people that are
creating it know what they're creating, but you see it
a lot in decomposing bodies with marbling but in Lara's case,
she had she did obviously have tattoos, and you had jewelry.
You're not going to see how can I describe this
(37:06):
for okay, let's just say it was one of our
loved ones. Okay, And you know that you've got a
tattoo on the body. You don't want a picture of
the tattoo placed with the news media and say do
you recognize this tattoo. You don't want the actual image
(37:26):
of the decomposing body. So many times what will happen
is is that after it's cleaned up, and there's a
very specific way we clean suspected tattooed areas, you try
to do an artistic rendering of it. Well, it looks
like this is an eagle globe and anchor. If you've
got some marine vet that has been found dead and decomposing,
(37:47):
or you know, I don't know the word mom with
a heart, and that's unique to that individual, you would
prefer to do an artist rent of the tattoo and
then clean up the jewelry. Most time it can be
cleaned and actually take a picture of that because people,
(38:08):
you know, there's a tendency I wear one piece of jewelry,
and that's my wedding ring. I'm not a necklace guy,
all right. I've never worn one with a big fertility
horn hanging off of it or something, you know, or
an aunk. I've just never worn that sort of thing.
And I don't wear a watch anymore. But I do
(38:30):
wear my wedding ring. It never comes off my hand.
And so that's a piece of jewelry that is unique
to me. Okay, but if you have a lady who
wears multiple bits of jewelry, now you just increased the
percentage of getting her notified or identified. If she wears
(38:51):
specific types of earrings, let's say, just diamond studs, pearl studs,
you know, as opposed to something that hangs down, or
maybe she does wear stuff that hangs down. She's got
you know, I don't know, it looks like dream catchers
or something like that. She's got a necklace on that's
got an initial on it or anything like that. Every
bit of that makes it unique. Now to get the
(39:13):
tattoos in the morgue on decomposing bodies, one of the
things that we'll do. And I may have mentioned this before,
but you know, sue me. We we actually take a
scalpel blade and gently scrape across that top edge of
the skin, and it's decomposing anyway you can without scraping it.
You can kind of make it out all right. But
(39:34):
as you begin to scrape away what remains of the epidermis,
the skin will literally begin to peel off of that
the epidermal level and below in the dermas, which is
where the ink has gone into. You can still actually
appreciate the tattoo. Now, sometimes they'll be misshapen because the
limb might be swollen or that area of the body
(39:55):
might be swollen. But you can get a general idea,
you know, of what you're looking at here, and take
really good photos and you have an artist or somebody
that's really good nowadays at you know, at digital imaging,
and they create this thing, affect simile of it, and
you combine that with something unique collectualty, and you got
an id. Dave.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
You know, that's an amazing breakthrough in this case because Joe.
Once they were able to identify who this victim is,
they were able to find their main suspect. Because the
one thing that was consistent with the life of Laura
Hughes and her boyfriend, Christopher Blevins, contact with police for
domestic violence and so as soon as she was entered
(40:38):
into the system, Laura Hughes, Oh wait a minute, we
have an address, We've got police reports. So that's when
they go and investigate. Christopher Blevins becomes an immediate suspect.
He's not nowhere to be found. They can't find him
right away, So imagine this investigation. You find the body
on the December twenty second, two days later, Christmas Eve.
(40:59):
The body is identified as a missing person. Now she's
been missing for months, Laura Bevans, I mean Laura Hughes. Rather,
Christopher Blevins is her lover who they boyfriend. When they
go to his place, they find a blue ratchet strap
similar to that that was found wrapped around the refrigerator.
They also find a gun. They also find a few
(41:19):
other things in the apartment that tie him directly to
the refrigerator found in the middle of the woods. So
they're looking for Christopher Blevins. This is where you know
you mentioned a minute ago. Why don't you just run DNA,
Because until I actually got doing this show with you
on a regular I didn't realize that you you know,
(41:40):
I thought, well, we all have DNA. Boom you there,
you go, just pop it up there and all of
this exists, not a problem, because that's what it seems
like on TV. All we got to do is get DNA.
There's a you know, the Wizard of Oz has the connection,
you know, and.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
In reality that you ignore behind the curtain.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Yes, So what they did here was they actually went
and did good old fashioned police work, and they use
some current technology like license plate readers. They seem to
come in handy a good bit, and lo and behold,
they find Christopher Blevin's vehicle, a green truck. They spot
this green truck on license readers, and we got cct
(42:18):
TV cameras everywhere. So the police, now that they have
their suspect, and now that they have kind of a
rough estimate as to win Laura went missing, they start
looking and they find that wait a minute, they got
a license plate reader picking up his green Dodge Ram
truck transporting a refrigerator shaped object on two separate days
(42:40):
late in July, and lo and behold, he leaves the
state right after this little track, right after he's seen
in two days carrying around something looks like a refrigerator
instruct he bolts town. He's gone, so.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Yeah, and I wonder I wonder if he had James
Taylor's edition or rendition of Mexico Plane on the radio
as he goes down the road perfectly. Actually, I prefer
Buffett's version of Mexico to James Taylor's. But you know
that apparently is where he was headed for Dave.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, and you know Joe, he was, Well, I'm still
a little flustered over the calendar that they found in
his apartment. You know, that had an x had all
the calendar at the calendar's market exes all the way
up to July twenty fourth, which is the day they
believe he transported the refrigerator to the woods with her
body in it. I mean, was he planning it out
(43:34):
for a long time and this is due?
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Yeah, I thought about that when you said, you know,
when you mentioned the exes, because I've you know, at work,
in particular my old job, working at the I'd put
ex'es on my calendar all the time so I could
count down when my next day off was going to be.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
I just remember your wife writing down the number of
days left before retirement, you know, on her hand. Yeah,
she love it.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, Kim Carrey's a She's renowned for carrying an actual
calendar with her. She's known as my little calendar girl.
So you know, isn't that a nil area? No, I
don't know. I can't remember anyway, But.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
So they got the calendar, they got it xed out,
but they actually have the video of him. They and
lo and behold. They start looking for him and they
find out, well, he has gone to Mexico and he
confesses to Mexican authorities that he got into a bar fight.
That's his story. He was in a violent bar fight
and that's why he was fleeing. Well, I don't know
(44:35):
exactly what happened. There's a little confusion here, but he
was turning himself in. This is in late August and
when police are actually when they find him, he is
in San Diego and in jail, and again it goes
back to he told police that he had been in
(44:58):
some type of a bar fight and it led to
a violent interaction with somebody. Granted it's a lot he
killed his girlfriend at their home. He didn't he didn't
get into a crazy bar fight, but he was telling
a story. He was trying to get it off his chest,
you know, and telling somebody I killed somebody, you know,
And that's that's actually where police found him. Was in
(45:18):
a state of semi denial about killing his girlfriend. But
you know, I.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Think the Mexican authorities did not hook him up because
there was nothing in the system that came back to him.
And I'm still to clear how the communication happens between
the Mexican authorities and our authorities, but I do know
that they they're able to access this if there's an
outstanding warrant, that sort of thing. And this is fascinating
because and I'll tell you and you know, he he is.
(45:45):
Blevin's is in fact arrested, okay, and he's got multiple
charges on it, right and this is still an unadjudicated
case at this point. However, one of the one of
the big mysteries that remains with his case. Remember how
you mentioned just second ago, Dave, that when they did
they served that search warmth, they found a firearm at
his house. To me, if the cops say we've got
(46:08):
a firearm and I don't have a cause of death
that's been made public, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, Okay, well
we're talking about you know, she's been executed, you know,
or something to that effect. She's been shot. Okay, but
we've got conflicting reports. You actually came across a statement
(46:29):
that they thought that maybe she had been strangled, correct.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
And that came from Blevins. That came from his original
confession to Mexican authorities where he strangled somebody in a
bar fight, which again we know it wasn't a bar fight.
You know, we know he was telling a lie while
he was trying to tell the truth at the same time.
By the way, they actually picked up his green truck,
the one they saw the refrigerator size.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
It was a Dodge Ram I think.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Yeah, yeah, green Dodge Ram truck and they saw it
crossing the border into Mexico on August the second, and
then August he goes into in Mexico August twenty seventh,
in Mexico City. He then confesses to possibly killing somebody.
But you mentioned the gun and that I think that
is the actual telling tale. But based on the body's decomposition, Joe,
(47:15):
what we did bullet wound tell you, could you find
enough evidence with regard to that.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
Yeah, As a matter of fact, in this if I
had my druthers. I still don't know what a druther is,
but I still if I had my druthers and it
was my case, my preference would be to deal with
a gunshot wound with a decomposed body any day over
(47:41):
unasphixial death, because it's so compromised, particularly this far down range. Dave,
you know we're talking months and months that tissue in
the neck in particular that you're going to be looking at.
You might, you know, maybe three months afterwards, two months afterwards,
you really would have been able to appreciate focal areas
of hemorrhage that are associated with the squeezing of the
(48:03):
neck in some way. But Dude, the further down the
track you go with this, unless her hyoid is broken,
it becomes more and more tough. If, for instance, she
is shot, well, bullet defects hang around, because one of
the things you're thinking about here is, particularly if it's
(48:24):
a head shot, you know, bone does not decompose like this. Okay,
you're still going to be able to appreciate a bullet defect.
You can appreciate directionality front to back, left to right
to below, below to above. You can appreciate all of
those things, the trajectory issues. You might have trouble trying
to determine range of fire because the skin, if it's
(48:46):
in the scalp, the skin's compromised. Okay, But if she's
shot in the chest, you could still do range of fire.
You can see if it's up closed, you could still
possibly make out of gunpowder in the clothing. Much remains
to be written and seen about this case, and of
(49:07):
course it hasn't gone a trial yet, but we're going
to keep our eye on it because it's certainly fascinating
and hopefully, hopefully Laura will receive some justice. I'm Joseph
Scott Morgan, and this is body
Body bats, but Joseph's gotten more. It's kind of interesting
the world that we live in and the spaces that
we inhabit. Items within our homes or maybe our work
environment become utilized for something other than what they may
(00:25):
have been intended to be used for. Now, I'm thinking
about places that I've gone as a death investigator, where
I've gone to a woodworkers shop and a bandsaw, for instance,
was used to dismember a body, or maybe digging under
the sink at a home, and I find ant poisoning,
(00:48):
and that same ant poisoning was used poison Strike that
in three two, and that same ant poison was used
to kill a lady at the hands of her husband.
Some things just seem kind of innocuous. For instance, I
(01:09):
don't know about you guys, but I do like a
good cold beverage every now and then. I like walking
into my tiny, little galley style style kitchen. Kim and
I live in a very small home, popping up my
refrigerator and getting my jug of water out or iced
tea or maybe an adult beverage. You don't normally think
(01:36):
of a refrigerator being used as a coffin, but today
we are going to have that discussion because there is
a case that originates out of New Jersey that caught
the attention of both myself and my buddy Dave Mack,
and we wanted to have, as the British say, a
(01:57):
chin wag about it. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this
is body bags, Dave. I've currently got a refrigerator that
I don't like. I will not mention the brand name
because it came with the house when we purchased the
(02:18):
house several years ago, but to say that it is
less than superior equipment would be an insult to other
types of equipment. I don't know that the ice maker
has ever accurately worked. And every time you open the
actual door for the freezer, ice falls out, falls out,
(02:40):
you know, and it goes out from time to time.
It throws us codes up, you know, the little weird
codes that don't and I don't have an owner's manual
for it.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, Joe, you have a refrigerator that has digital readout
and computer stuff. At some point in time, you go,
where's the cold button? You know? I just need I
need my ice over here, I need my milk over here.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
We're good, Yeah, Yeah, I don't need it to fix
a drink for me. I don't need it to prepare dinner.
I just want you to keep my stuff cold. It's
kind of like the theory that I have about so
called dishwashers. Dishwashers are not technically dishwashers. They're dish heater
uppers and dishwetters and other than that. You know, it's
(03:24):
kind of a slotting scale, I guess. But I've never
encountered a really good dishwasher. I guess the best dishwasher
is me, you know, beending able to sink and using
a scrub brush.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So if you are looking for something universal appliance wise
the size of an appliance, the refrigerator slash freezer would
be much easier to use as a homemade casket than
the dishwasher would be, just because of the length. But anymore,
with all the stories we have these days about people
being hacked up, chopped up, and disposed of, I guess
(03:58):
the dishwasher could work for that well. But today we
have one of these stories that as I was trying
to build a timeline Joe, there were a couple of
issues that kept popping up, and I still haven't resolved
some of them. But bottom line always being the bottom line.
We have a woman named Lauren Hughes, Laura Hughes rather
and Laura goes missing and they start looking for her
(04:21):
because she doesn't normally just disappear. Can't find her. Now
we're talking September, October, November, finally December twenty second rolls
around and there's a man named John Tyrrell and John
is faced with a dilemma Joe. He is in New Jersey,
out in the woods, which is so weird. When you
(04:43):
think of New Jersey, I don't think of woods. I
just don't. I think of cities, and you know, pollution
because of how the reputation of the state. But the
state of New Jersey has a lot of beautiful area
that it does. It's like the hidden logy and the.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Wargest places that people don't think about.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Right, And John Tyrrell is out in the woods and
he stumbles upon an abandoned refrigerator in the middle of
the Bellplaine State Forest in Cape May, New Jersey. Now
he doesn't exactly know that it's a refrigerator. It is
something that is the size of a refrigerator, but it's
(05:20):
wrapped up. Okay, it's got a blanket or something around.
It's got tied down with straps. I mean, something has
been secured inside this refrigerator size thing. And hey, man,
you're in the woods by yourself. What are you gonna do.
You're gonna look at it, right, You're gonna look see
what's in there. Somebody getched it out here. So he
(05:40):
opens it up and immediately calls police because of what
he saw inside. And I'm thinking December twenty second in
New Jersey in the wood. It's gonna be cold, right.
This guy was breaking out in a sweat, Joe when
he saw what was inside that refrigerator. It appears to
be our victim today, and we're talking about a woman
(06:06):
who has been missing and apparently found, Laura hughes.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
By.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Joe, you always tell me to think about the finder.
The finder in this case actually gets charged with obstruction.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Now, if you're an innocent finder of something in the
middle of the woods and the police ask you, hey,
let's see your phone for a minute, you know, and
you say, no, you can't look at my phone, which
is exactly what happened. So John Terrell is the trirel
is the finder and uh, the first person charged in
(06:48):
this case. He won't turn his cell phone over to police.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
You're going to jail. Yeah, that's anybody out there that
if they're trying to give you a feel sobriety test
and they refuse, You know, you have attorneys that say,
don't don't comply. Well never, You're right, you don't have
to comply, you really don't. But guess what you're going
(07:13):
You're going to get a free ride somewhere in bracelets.
Yeah it is, and they're going to do it, but
you know that you don't want to. In this case,
they know that the man has found the body, and
they know that let's just look at it, Okay. The
(07:35):
cops know from the beginning that obviously this is not
some kind of accidental event where she happened to fall
into a refrigerator and it got you know, uh, strapped
down with these mechanical strap and yeah, and wrapped up.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
There's not a really innocent explanation for this, Joe.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah. They know. They know from Jump Street that they're
dealing with a very highly suspicious death and there's a
high likelihood even if you can't which they couldn't by
the way determine what the cause of death was. They
know that they've probably got a homicide on their hands here,
and if they allow this guy to bolt and they
don't get that data from him immediately, it could be
(08:19):
you know, lost forever and ever. And how many of
these cases have we covered and Nancy's covered where the
digital data nowadays, in particular, it's going to be the
tail of the tape in these cases where you can
go back and say, Okay, this guy, he's got an alibi,
(08:39):
he was in this location he's never been. I don't know,
for instance, the home address of Laura that you know
they've had no previous contact. There's no digital signature here
that would indicate that they're texting back and forth. They
don't even know. Maybe they don't even know one another
on social media, if this guy even on social media.
(09:01):
And look, I understand privacy. You don't want somebody digging
around in your phone and you don't know if you're
going to get it back either you know they're going
to give it to you or they're going to hold
it forever and ever. Amen is evidence, and we're so
tied to these things. I just I got to tell
you this on a side. I just had to jump
on my class. I was teaching intro to Forensics and
(09:23):
it's a big class that I've got in there. And
just today, even though I've said it over and over again,
you know, I looked out over the audience there and
I got kids that are texting while I'm lecturing. They've
only got me for fifty five minutes, and you can't
put your phone down long enough to listen to what
I have to say. And so it's you deal with that?
(09:45):
How do you deal with that?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Joe? I'm really curious as to that because you're in college.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, well, you know, I could say you embarrass them,
you know, uh, and you say, you know, are you
incapable of functioning out your without your phone? But it's
there's a callus that's built up now at this point.
They don't care, So you know, you could you know,
I could take all the phones up. I guess if
(10:12):
I wanted to, I probably couldn't do that. I know
that they do that like in high schools and things
like that. You could say you're going to take points off,
but you know that gets after that gets rather tedious
after a while. You know what I'm saying, but anyway,
my point, my point is is that you know, these
phones are so much part and parcel of our lives.
(10:34):
I'm not defending the guy, but just to understand, we
live in an almost totally cashless society. So think about
taking somebody's phone away now. Nowadays, there are people that
pay for their gas with their phone, people that pay
for groceries, going out to restaurants, going to the doctor.
You use your phone to pay with it, you know.
(10:56):
And I'm sure that there's some kind of digital driver's
licenses out there as well. I don't know. I think
i'd heard something about that, but we're almost completely moved
away from anything that's analog at this point.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
No, that's a great point, and I'm thinking, right off
the top of my head, a case you and I
have covered with on here end with Nancy, the case
of Mattisoto in Florida, because the first thing they did
before charging her, Stephan Stearns with her abduction and murder,
they got his phone, and remember the first thing he
(11:29):
did was try to delete everything on it, but there
was still enough on there that they were able to
charge him based on his phone before they found her body.
They knew, okay, we got him in.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
This particular factory resetts.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I think, oh yeah, yeah, oh, I accidentally did a
factory reset, which, by the way, you can't accidentally do
just saying, but in this case, we got the finder.
And I agree with you there when it comes to
a dui and not doing this the side of the
road sobriety test. Look, you're giving them evidence chances if
you're taking the roadside sobriety test. I've never seen anybody
(12:03):
pass that. They take you downtown and have you blow. Anyway.
You can refuse the roadside. You cannot refuse the breathalyzer.
If you refuse the breathalyzer, you immediately lose your license
for a certain period of time depending on the state
you live in. But you can refuse the roadside and
say just take me down and let me blow. You
don't get in trouble for that. But in this case,
(12:25):
you're right. They ask for his phone and he says no. Now,
we don't know what's on his phone, but I guarantee
you a couple of things if you deny the police
your phone. And you just found a dead body in
the woods that has been wrapped up in a well,
inside of a refrigerator that is wrapped in a sleeping
(12:46):
bag and a yoga matt all that is rolled up
trying to disguise this dead body inside of this refrigerator.
And you deny them your phone, they're going to get
your phone anyway, They're going to get a search warrant,
and now you're not getting it back. So just laying
it out there that maybe I'm not trying to give
(13:06):
criminals any kind of a hint, but for crying out loud,
maybe we got to become less a phone dependent, you know, because.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
That's a bridge too far at this point. The damage
is done at this point. Yeah, but yeah, And so
when we think about Laura's body out there and that
abandoned actually quite beautiful area of the state of New
Jersey near Cape May, we begin to think about what
(13:39):
brought her to that location, how did she get there,
and how did she get there being conveyed in a
household of clients. David, I'm reminded right now of a
(14:05):
conversation you and I were just having, I think this
past week. Folks that don't know David and I don't
just show up and chat on tapings of Buddy Backs
we can't get enough of each other. We'll call and
just chat, you know, about life in general, kids and
grandkids and all the sorts of things and things that
(14:27):
we see in the news. Obviously in planning shows. But
we were having a conversation the other day. I don't
know if you remember this, but we were actually talking
about the word coffin versus casket.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
You know, you said it at the beginning of the show.
I thought, heyst.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Well, I got to tell you. You know, they're saying they're
saying that this refrigerator, and I said, as well, you know,
the refrigerator is like a makeshift casket, and there is
a significant difference between coffin's and caskets. Anytime I think coffin,
(15:03):
I think of, first off, vampires because of the way
they're shaped. I also think of, perhaps, you know, something
that has to do with a very formal funeral. Because
of the way coffins are shaped. They they're actually six sided,
(15:27):
and you know, unlike a casket, which is rectangular, it's
it's foresighted. And you know, when when you look at
a refrigerator, you look at a refrigerator, I guess you
could say that that's more casket like than it is
(15:49):
coffin like my I think one of my questions is
is that if she is found inside and this is
Laura by the way, if she is found inside of
this refrigerator, I don't know about you, but how the
(16:09):
heck did somebody manage this thing? They did they have
a dolly that they could strap or I mean, I've
moved refrigerators with dollies. You know, you can run them
at U haul, you know, if you're going to be
going down the road and you want to take your
appliances with you, and yeah, it's it can be a
one man job, but it's it's very cumbersome. In order
(16:30):
to facilitate that, you know who, who would did the
individual that put them in there? Did they have a dolly?
Or did they have help? Because you're not going to
throw this thing up on your back. I guess you
could in some way drag it maybe if you had carpet,
if you could do it in a sequestered manner so
that no one would see you do it. But in
(16:53):
order to really take eyes off of this thing, anything
that you're going to do, you're going to have to
do it in privacy. Here's my big question. The refrigerator
that she was found in. My question is being the
nerd that I am, I want to know if the
refrigerator still worked. I want to know if you no, really,
(17:18):
I want to know. Well, And here's the reason.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Here's my reason, stinging cord in here in the middle
of the woods.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Yeah no, no, But let's just say, for instance, that
she was killed and then placed into the refrigerator with
the shells removed of course, and kept plugged in in
order to keep the body cool while the perpetrator is
trying to decide what they're going to do. What's the
disposition going to be here of her remains within that,
(17:49):
I know that I'm going to use the refrigerator. Where
am I going to dump this thing? There's a lot
of logistics that go into refrigerators and bodies, all right,
you this is something that I guess it could be
an item of convenience. You've got an extra refrigerator, you know,
on your property laying around the house. Maybe it's out back.
Maybe they went and singularly purchased a used refrigerator at
(18:11):
a junk store for this purpose because you got you know,
you think about it. I guess out of all household items,
a refrigerator and a deep freeze, which we've had a
case involved in a deep freeze. Remember the two women
up in Oklahoma with the skid steer you've got, that's
that's the most I don't know, casket like item that
(18:36):
you have in your.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Home, probably in this case Joe. When the body is
found inside the refrigerator in the woods in on December
twenty second, she had been missing for some time. As
I mentioned the earlier in the show, that we're not
exactly sure the last time she was seen. There is
a little bit of an issue as the last time
(19:00):
she was seen. And look, we're all mistaken from time
to time. You know, I could think I saw Joe
yesterday down at the supermarket, and in reality it was
a week ago. I mean, that does happen. So it's
a whole lot less of when she was last seen
as to where the police go in their investigation, because
as soon as this is found, you know, they couldn't
identify her right at first, Let's just say that she
(19:21):
was last seen in the middle of July. Just call
it July fifteenth for the sake of argument. We are
now in December and she has been inside this freezer
for some time now, it's not as you mentioned, this
could have been a situation where she's in the freezer,
plugged in in somebody's basement, and then you know, on
December twenty first they decide I'm getting rid of it
(19:43):
and take it out in the woods and dump it.
We don't believe that's the case because the investigation led
in a different way. But what are we talking about
in terms of a body that's been in an enclosed
environment such as an old refrigerator with no power. Let's
just say it was unplugged and that that is now
(20:04):
wrapped and it's been left in the woods. What kind
of condition is a body going to be in four months?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Question? And I'm going to be a contrarian here and
start with what if it was plugged up? And let's
just start with that one little piece first. If if
in fact, this were to happen, and we don't have
an indication of this right now. Matter of fact, if
anybody wants to see a really cool movie sometime, make
sure that you check out the movie Bernie with Jack
(20:35):
Black and Matthew McConaughey and Shirley Shirley MacLean is based
on a true story about a lady that was a
true story in Texas where she was murdered and placed
in a deep freeze and left in the deep freeze
for a protracted period of time. Believe it or not,
the money is The movie is kind of a dark comedy,
but it's a true story.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Matthew McConaughey's mother is in that movie.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
She was she a story, Yeah, she is in this fascinating.
The story itself is just mind blowing, very very Southern Gothic,
if you will.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
But with.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
The condition, let's just say that we have an individual
that's placed into a refrigerator. A refrigerator is not sufficient
enough to really retard the process of decomposition because you
can't get the thing cold enough in order to knock
down the cellular degradation that's going on. It'll slow it,
(21:36):
but it's not going to say it's not like. Let's
just say, like in the case I was just talking
about with Bernie the movie Bernie, if you place a
body into a deep freeze, all right, where things you know,
when you pull out a package of chicken or ground beef,
it looks like you could, you know, lay mortar to it.
And build a house out of it. That's how dense
(21:57):
and frozen it is. It's not like that with the refrigerator.
And everybody understands that. You know, you go the refrigerator,
you open it up. You got a pack of hot
dogs in there. They're gonna be cold, but they're gonna
be soft, all right, It's not gonna be frozen through.
So if the person the perpetrator in this case, did
in fact put her body in and leave it plugged
in for a time, it would retard the process of decomposition,
(22:23):
but it's not gonna stop it. So you would be
fighting against that when you're trying to make a determination.
This is gonna throw your timeline all off if you
get out there and she's been plugged in, unplugged, taken
out there and dumped. And I don't even know that
there is a mathematical formula that you could use in
(22:43):
order to calculate this from a post mortal interval standpoint,
there's too many variables in it. But I will say
that her body when she was found in that refrigerator
and they did open it, depended upon the position of
(23:05):
the refrigerator. I can tell you this, what's going to
come out of it. First off, you're going to have
you're going to have a considerable amount of per what
we refer to as perge fluid, decompositional fluid that will
literally come pouring out all right if because you get
these This is something I've never talked about actually on
(23:27):
body backs, but I'll go there now.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
You have.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
You know, you see bodies that are decomposing and swollen,
and that's that happens as a result of this internal
gas build up. It's primarily methane. I've actually seen a
needle inserted into the decomposing remains of an individual been
down for a while. Needle's been inserted into their abdomen
(23:55):
and a lighter. You strike a lighter and a blue
flame comes out of the open end of the needle
because it's it's bleeding off methane and it'll burn had
a friend like a cigarette off off of burning methane
off of a dead body.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Kind of makes me want to ask you about some
of your previous friendships you know.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I know, questionable of. But it's you're going to get
what are referred to as blebs on the body now
blebs b L E B S, blebs are generally associated
with COPD or inmphysema. H. When you see a person
with imphizimbitous lungs, they're going to have these bubbles on
(24:40):
the surface of their lungs that look like they actually
look like you know the things that the kids, well,
I do too. If you get packing wrap that you
like to pop, it looks like those those little kind
of blistered and it contains air. In the case of
decomposition blabs, it contains one of the nasty substances known
(25:04):
to man, and that's decompositional fluid, and that's as a
result of the cellular breakdown, and it's the blister. Some
people call it decompetitional blisters. They're actually these sacks that
are containing what's left of the breakdown of the cells
and it's leeching out. And one of the worst things
(25:24):
that happens is that these blisters rerupt and that fluid
goes everywhere and it's kind of a greenish black color
and it smells as awful as it sounds. So you
would have a tremendous amount of that in the refrigerator. Now,
would she potentially be skeletonized to some extent, Perhaps there
(25:45):
might be evidence. There might be evidence of the fact
that the soft tissue is so degraded that you're beginning
to see some of the skeletal features, particularly in the
fingers and around the chin. You'll get that presentation around
the jaw, even on the forehead. Sometimes the saving grace though,
is the fact that you're not really around any kind
(26:10):
of scavengers, are you. Now They can come and it
would not surprise me, Dave. And this is kind of
mind blowing when you think about it. Out in the
woods like that, you can have something that's seeded, that's
seeded in that location, has been placed there, and that
smell is so strong that you'll have raccoons and possums, dogs,
(26:35):
they will be drawn to that and they're going to
be really frustrated because I can't get to it. It'll
just be there and it's emanating out and I can
just imagine animals circling that area. If you were really
careful when you were working that scene, you would probably
see remnants of animal activity around that area, everything from
paw prints to scat to hair. You might even and
(27:00):
get somebody one of these animals that becomes territorial because
the smell it's ringing the dinner bell for them, and
they'll get into a fight over it, but they can't
get access to the body. You imagine how frustrating that
would be for a wild animal. But the bodies are preserved.
Now you can sometimes believe it or not. You will
if that seal, that rubber gasket seal has been compromised anyway,
(27:23):
you might you might actually get fly activity, okay, which
is kind of fascinating when you think about flies getting
into the refrigerator. But sometimes found with flies in particular
that you know, where there's a will, there's a way.
There's actually a species of fly now that we're talking
about containers or bodies. There's actually a species of fly
(27:44):
called coffin flies that burrow and they get into coffins,
and that's where the name comes from. And they'll, you know,
they'll go to work on embalmed bodies that have been preserved.
So you've got all manner of things that are being thwarted,
but you can't take anything off the table. But her
remains would be physically preserved to the extent that they're
(28:11):
not being ravaged by scavengers that are coming by. She's
not being subjected to rain. Perhaps if there's any trace
evidence on the body, if she is fully clothed that
has been preserved to a great degree. Now it's going
to be really disgusting for the people as a lab
that get this clothing. I used to think about that
(28:33):
as I would take clothing off of the dead and
you hang it up in a forensic We have these
clothed dryers that we and they're not like a tumble
dryer there. It kind of dehumidifies the air. You put
them on hangers and you hang them in this box
and if it's saturated with blood decomflu it, it'll dry,
but it drives over a period of time and it
(28:53):
doesn't compromise the evidence so much. But I always felt
sorry for the people down the road, down the road,
you know, coming out of the morgan they receive the
stuff in their very clean clinical area that they have,
you know, it's coming up out of the dirty morgue
and it lands on their desk and they have to
work with this thing and they spread this you know,
(29:15):
a bit of clothing out and they're having to lean
over this thing and look through a magnifying lens or uh,
you know, a special special lighting and treat it in
particular ways, and they're having to deal with this nasty
piece of garment, you know, and it's it's not easy work,
you know, to participat in. But if you have a
body inside of a refrigerator, a lot of that stuff
(29:36):
is going to be preserved. So you've got to bite
your lip if you're a technician and sally on four
through this process because it's therein that some of these
big questions might be answered. Years ago, I was working
(30:07):
with a pathologist and we had several bodies that have
been placed into a deep breeze, and a deep breeze
was brought into the morgue. It was just they didn't
bother trying to remove the remains from the deep freeze.
And so you've got three remains. They're commingled inside of
an old deep freeze and they're brought in on the
(30:30):
back of a flatbed truck and then wheeled into the
morgue and we had to go through the process of
removing the remains. But I remember still to this day
us opening It was tied down, not with straps, but
it was tied with rope. I remember untying that rope
and opening up opening up that the lid on that thing,
(30:56):
and the pathologists looking down in him. This is a
direct quote, A what a filthy damn the shell. No,
what a filthy damn jumbled miss is what he said.
And he was absolutely right. Because these bodies have been
in there for so long, many of the parts had disarticulated,
(31:19):
and so you've you've got them mixed up, and you've
got scalp remains that are twisted around in bits of clothing,
and it is it's one thing. It's the beauty of
it scientifically and investigatively is that you've got everything contained
in one space. That's the upside. The downside is trying
(31:41):
to fight through all of the issues with decomposition, and
that extends in this case Dave to the body and
I think probably one of the most basic things that
we work on as death investigators.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
You know, I was wondering, That's why I was really
curious as to what kind of decomposition would take in
a sealed container over a period of time like that
through the summer fall into the winter months in New Jersey.
In this particular case, when they opened the refrigerator found
her body. As they were trying to identify her. It
took a couple of days, and they actually they being
(32:17):
law enforcement, they actually released information about tattoos on her
body and jewelry. Because you know, you've got a person
of indiscriminate age who has been found in a refrigerator
out in the middle of the woods, and there are
a lot of people missing in this country, sadly, and
so it wasn't an easy one to say, hey, we've
(32:39):
been missing this woman for the last couple of months.
It wasn't even like that. They really didn't know, and
so they put on television. They created, you know, the
picture of it. But here's what the tattoos look like.
Here's the jewelry found with the body. If you know
who this is, and that's how they were able to
identify her. It took two days. But I'm really curious
as to how all of this transpires and identifying not
(33:00):
just the person, but you've got to know how they died,
right so that you can track it back to the
actual suspect and what took place before the person ended
up in the woods, because it is a person. It's
not just a junk pile in the woods. This is
somebody's mother who has been just tossed like this.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yeah, mother, mother, too correct, another too yes to young girls. Well,
first off, let's let's take it from this perspective. I
know that there are people listening to this right now
and they're going to say, well, why don't you just
run DNA? Well, you can run DNA, but what in
the heck are you going to compare it to? Okay, uh,
(33:40):
why don't you steal a dental chart? Okay, let's do
a dental chart. We've done the post mortem dental chart.
Now what are we going to compare it to? Do
you see? It leads, It leads to a dead end. Now,
if if there are police out there, police agencies that
have a missing person that they're working on, you can
(34:02):
go to the family and say, hey, can we get
we think this might be your loved one. Can we
please get can we please get her anti mortem dental
records you know from her who's her dentist, and you
issue a subpoena. Must oh, by the way, most dentists,
if you're dealing with one of their patients. I only
(34:24):
remember a couple of times where we had to get
a subpoena for a dentist. Most of the time they
are just the most obliging people, you know, because they
developed real relationships obviously with these folks, they've known them
for years. But sometimes you don't. You don't have that,
and the one thing that you can go with are
tattoos and certainly jewelry. Now, in her case, I think
(34:47):
any right thinking person would say, well, Morgan, you're going
on about how decomposed she would be over this period
of time, and she would be Her skin by this
time would be a blog green color. It's not going
to look like it did in life at all.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
What wait a minute, Joe, I've never heard this before.
I've never actually heard that it's going to turn that
kind of a color.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Yeah, it'll it'll be a mixture of black green every
now and then you'll see a hue of dark blue
in it. And I don't ask me, I can't explain it,
but that's that's how the change generally happens. You'll also
get these kind of spiderweb looking presentations that are called marbling.
And marbling happens kind of early on. You see it
(35:37):
in the face a lot, and marbling if you just imagine, well,
imagine a marble countertop, and you know how and I
don't know anything about them. I've never had a marble countertop.
I just hear people talk about them. They've got those
kind of distinct veins that run through them, you know,
that make up those unique patterns, And I think that
a lot of people put a lot of stock in
(35:58):
that sort of thing about the past pattern of the
marbling in it. You hear marbling when it comes to steak,
you know, it's really well marbled. When you think about decomposition,
this marbling that takes place with the body, that's actually
the blood setting up in the blood vessels, and so
(36:19):
it decomposes within the vessels. The vessels are decomposing, and
so you get this presentation of dark purple, dark blue,
kind of purplish color of the literally the vessels. You
can see them, the outline of them running through the face.
And interesting, I've actually seen this portrayed in horror movies.
So people have seen pictures of the dead and they're
(36:42):
trying to recreate like a zombie or something. You'll see
and I don't even know if the people that are
creating it know what they're creating, but you see it
a lot in decomposing bodies with marbling but in Lara's case,
she had she did obviously have tattoos, and you had jewelry.
You're not going to see how can I describe this
(37:06):
for okay, let's just say it was one of our
loved ones. Okay, And you know that you've got a
tattoo on the body. You don't want a picture of
the tattoo placed with the news media and say do
you recognize this tattoo. You don't want the actual image
(37:26):
of the decomposing body. So many times what will happen
is is that after it's cleaned up, and there's a
very specific way we clean suspected tattooed areas, you try
to do an artistic rendering of it. Well, it looks
like this is an eagle globe and anchor. If you've
got some marine vet that has been found dead and decomposing,
(37:47):
or you know, I don't know the word mom with
a heart, and that's unique to that individual, you would
prefer to do an artist rent of the tattoo and
then clean up the jewelry. Most time it can be
cleaned and actually take a picture of that because people,
(38:08):
you know, there's a tendency I wear one piece of jewelry,
and that's my wedding ring. I'm not a necklace guy,
all right. I've never worn one with a big fertility
horn hanging off of it or something, you know, or
an aunk. I've just never worn that sort of thing.
And I don't wear a watch anymore. But I do
(38:30):
wear my wedding ring. It never comes off my hand.
And so that's a piece of jewelry that is unique
to me. Okay, but if you have a lady who
wears multiple bits of jewelry, now you just increased the
percentage of getting her notified or identified. If she wears
(38:51):
specific types of earrings, let's say, just diamond studs, pearl studs,
you know, as opposed to something that hangs down, or
maybe she does wear stuff that hangs down. She's got
you know, I don't know, it looks like dream catchers
or something like that. She's got a necklace on that's
got an initial on it or anything like that. Every
bit of that makes it unique. Now to get the
(39:13):
tattoos in the morgue on decomposing bodies, one of the
things that we'll do. And I may have mentioned this before,
but you know, sue me. We we actually take a
scalpel blade and gently scrape across that top edge of
the skin, and it's decomposing anyway you can without scraping it.
You can kind of make it out all right. But
(39:34):
as you begin to scrape away what remains of the epidermis,
the skin will literally begin to peel off of that
the epidermal level and below in the dermas, which is
where the ink has gone into. You can still actually
appreciate the tattoo. Now, sometimes they'll be misshapen because the
limb might be swollen or that area of the body
(39:55):
might be swollen. But you can get a general idea,
you know, of what you're looking at here, and take
really good photos and you have an artist or somebody
that's really good nowadays at you know, at digital imaging,
and they create this thing, affect simile of it, and
you combine that with something unique collectualty, and you got
an id. Dave.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
You know, that's an amazing breakthrough in this case because Joe.
Once they were able to identify who this victim is,
they were able to find their main suspect. Because the
one thing that was consistent with the life of Laura
Hughes and her boyfriend, Christopher Blevins, contact with police for
domestic violence and so as soon as she was entered
(40:38):
into the system, Laura Hughes, Oh wait a minute, we
have an address, We've got police reports. So that's when
they go and investigate. Christopher Blevins becomes an immediate suspect.
He's not nowhere to be found. They can't find him
right away, So imagine this investigation. You find the body
on the December twenty second, two days later, Christmas Eve.
(40:59):
The body is identified as a missing person. Now she's
been missing for months, Laura Bevans, I mean Laura Hughes. Rather,
Christopher Blevins is her lover who they boyfriend. When they
go to his place, they find a blue ratchet strap
similar to that that was found wrapped around the refrigerator.
They also find a gun. They also find a few
(41:19):
other things in the apartment that tie him directly to
the refrigerator found in the middle of the woods. So
they're looking for Christopher Blevins. This is where you know
you mentioned a minute ago. Why don't you just run DNA,
Because until I actually got doing this show with you
on a regular I didn't realize that you you know,
(41:40):
I thought, well, we all have DNA. Boom you there,
you go, just pop it up there and all of
this exists, not a problem, because that's what it seems
like on TV. All we got to do is get DNA.
There's a you know, the Wizard of Oz has the connection,
you know, and.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
In reality that you ignore behind the curtain.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Yes, So what they did here was they actually went
and did good old fashioned police work, and they use
some current technology like license plate readers. They seem to
come in handy a good bit, and lo and behold,
they find Christopher Blevin's vehicle, a green truck. They spot
this green truck on license readers, and we got cct
(42:18):
TV cameras everywhere. So the police, now that they have
their suspect, and now that they have kind of a
rough estimate as to win Laura went missing, they start
looking and they find that wait a minute, they got
a license plate reader picking up his green Dodge Ram
truck transporting a refrigerator shaped object on two separate days
(42:40):
late in July, and lo and behold, he leaves the
state right after this little track, right after he's seen
in two days carrying around something looks like a refrigerator
instruct he bolts town. He's gone, so.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Yeah, and I wonder I wonder if he had James
Taylor's edition or rendition of Mexico Plane on the radio
as he goes down the road perfectly. Actually, I prefer
Buffett's version of Mexico to James Taylor's. But you know
that apparently is where he was headed for Dave.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, and you know Joe, he was, Well, I'm still
a little flustered over the calendar that they found in
his apartment. You know, that had an x had all
the calendar at the calendar's market exes all the way
up to July twenty fourth, which is the day they
believe he transported the refrigerator to the woods with her
body in it. I mean, was he planning it out
(43:34):
for a long time and this is due?
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Yeah, I thought about that when you said, you know,
when you mentioned the exes, because I've you know, at work,
in particular my old job, working at the I'd put
ex'es on my calendar all the time so I could
count down when my next day off was going to be.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
I just remember your wife writing down the number of
days left before retirement, you know, on her hand. Yeah,
she love it.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, Kim Carrey's a She's renowned for carrying an actual
calendar with her. She's known as my little calendar girl.
So you know, isn't that a nil area? No, I
don't know. I can't remember anyway, But.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
So they got the calendar, they got it xed out,
but they actually have the video of him. They and
lo and behold. They start looking for him and they
find out, well, he has gone to Mexico and he
confesses to Mexican authorities that he got into a bar fight.
That's his story. He was in a violent bar fight
and that's why he was fleeing. Well, I don't know
(44:35):
exactly what happened. There's a little confusion here, but he
was turning himself in. This is in late August and
when police are actually when they find him, he is
in San Diego and in jail, and again it goes
back to he told police that he had been in
(44:58):
some type of a bar fight and it led to
a violent interaction with somebody. Granted it's a lot he
killed his girlfriend at their home. He didn't he didn't
get into a crazy bar fight, but he was telling
a story. He was trying to get it off his chest,
you know, and telling somebody I killed somebody, you know,
And that's that's actually where police found him. Was in
(45:18):
a state of semi denial about killing his girlfriend. But
you know, I.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Think the Mexican authorities did not hook him up because
there was nothing in the system that came back to him.
And I'm still to clear how the communication happens between
the Mexican authorities and our authorities, but I do know
that they they're able to access this if there's an
outstanding warrant, that sort of thing. And this is fascinating
because and I'll tell you and you know, he he is.
(45:45):
Blevin's is in fact arrested, okay, and he's got multiple
charges on it, right and this is still an unadjudicated
case at this point. However, one of the one of
the big mysteries that remains with his case. Remember how
you mentioned just second ago, Dave, that when they did
they served that search warmth, they found a firearm at
his house. To me, if the cops say we've got
(46:08):
a firearm and I don't have a cause of death
that's been made public, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, Okay, well
we're talking about you know, she's been executed, you know,
or something to that effect. She's been shot. Okay, but
we've got conflicting reports. You actually came across a statement
(46:29):
that they thought that maybe she had been strangled, correct.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
And that came from Blevins. That came from his original
confession to Mexican authorities where he strangled somebody in a
bar fight, which again we know it wasn't a bar fight.
You know, we know he was telling a lie while
he was trying to tell the truth at the same time.
By the way, they actually picked up his green truck,
the one they saw the refrigerator size.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
It was a Dodge Ram I think.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Yeah, yeah, green Dodge Ram truck and they saw it
crossing the border into Mexico on August the second, and
then August he goes into in Mexico August twenty seventh,
in Mexico City. He then confesses to possibly killing somebody.
But you mentioned the gun and that I think that
is the actual telling tale. But based on the body's decomposition, Joe,
(47:15):
what we did bullet wound tell you, could you find
enough evidence with regard to that.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
Yeah, As a matter of fact, in this if I
had my druthers. I still don't know what a druther is,
but I still if I had my druthers and it
was my case, my preference would be to deal with
a gunshot wound with a decomposed body any day over
(47:41):
unasphixial death, because it's so compromised, particularly this far down range. Dave,
you know we're talking months and months that tissue in
the neck in particular that you're going to be looking at.
You might, you know, maybe three months afterwards, two months afterwards,
you really would have been able to appreciate focal areas
of hemorrhage that are associated with the squeezing of the
(48:03):
neck in some way. But Dude, the further down the
track you go with this, unless her hyoid is broken,
it becomes more and more tough. If, for instance, she
is shot, well, bullet defects hang around, because one of
the things you're thinking about here is, particularly if it's
(48:24):
a head shot, you know, bone does not decompose like this. Okay,
you're still going to be able to appreciate a bullet defect.
You can appreciate directionality front to back, left to right
to below, below to above. You can appreciate all of
those things, the trajectory issues. You might have trouble trying
to determine range of fire because the skin, if it's
(48:46):
in the scalp, the skin's compromised. Okay, But if she's
shot in the chest, you could still do range of fire.
You can see if it's up closed, you could still
possibly make out of gunpowder in the clothing. Much remains
to be written and seen about this case, and of
(49:07):
course it hasn't gone a trial yet, but we're going
to keep our eye on it because it's certainly fascinating
and hopefully, hopefully Laura will receive some justice. I'm Joseph
Scott Morgan, and this is body
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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