May 14, 2026 • 46 mins
Brigham Young Merrell calls 911 and says he found his son hanging from coaxial cable and he is unresponsive. Merrell tells 911 he is doing CPR on the boy, but when first responders arrive, Merrell is not performing CPR, he is kneeling next to his son. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack explain what was taking place in the home where an 11-year-old boy was murdered, and his death staged as a suicide by the alleged killer, his father.
Host Joseph Scott Morgan
Co-Host Dave Mack
Transcribe Highlights
00:00.35 Introduction - Life of 11-year-old
03:22.97 Utah - Child Torture charge
04:54.45 Dad tells 911 he is doing CPR on child
10:03.70 Treating child is different than adult
15:01.05 Dad changed clothes while son being treated by EMTs
19:50.02 Dad found son hanging by coaxial cable
25:08.41 Is anyone manipulating the scene?
31:49.08 Items discarded, surfaces painted
35:16.34 Years long abuse of the children
40:04.12 Mother said they switched to beating with pans to avoid leaving marks
46:02.31 Conclusion
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Body bags with Joseph's gotten More. The think back to
when you were eleven years old. The whole world is
in front of you and you don't really know it
at the time, but the world that you have it's
generally pretty cool, right. You know, you're thinking about going out,
riding your bike, hanging out with your buddies. For me,
(00:24):
it used to be able to. It used to be
going into the front yard with one of my best friends.
We were either throwing the football, throwing grounders to each other,
or shooting baskets, all right, and then we get on
our bike and we would ride, and we explore and
we just hang out. I never went inside the house.
And you know, for me, that's the way life is
(00:44):
supposed to be for a kid. Unfortunately, in the world
in which we live now, there is a thread of
evil that runs through it. And yeah, if I sound
rather down cast and ominous in my voice, understand I'm
(01:05):
about to tell you why, Because I'm going to tell
you about a case today that is so incredibly dark
that it will absolutely chill you to the bone. It's
a case that never should have happened, and unfortunately, unfortunately,
the recipient of the torture which we're going to talk
(01:29):
about is an eleven year old boy. He's not going
to have memories of being twelve because his torture actually
wound up in his death. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
this is body backs, Dave. Just indulge me just for
(01:51):
a second. This case that we're going to talk about
today is even darker than many of the things that
I prefer to go into. I don't like to cover
the deaths of children very often, but I got to
be honest with you, it's what many times is expected,
and I want to be able to interpret everything as
we should. But let's lay the groundwork here from a
(02:14):
legal standpoint, and I am in no way an attorney.
I'm not a pair legal, but I find it interesting
because we have a case today where an individual has
in fact been charged with the charge of child torture.
Now I have never heard this before. This case is
(02:35):
out of Utah, and interestingly enough, this law came into
effect back on May the seventh, twenty twenty five, and
in this case, I think that from what we're hearing
from the authorities, it's going to meet the definition. But
just indulge me. One second brother, David, let me read
this off So it's Utah Criminal Code has introduced a
(02:58):
new offense of child torture, which is defined as this
is important intentionally inflicting a serious injury upon a child
in an exceptionally cruel or depraved manner that causes extreme
(03:19):
physical or psychological pain. And just so folks understand, criminal
statutes are criminal charges are many times they have degrees
with them. You hear first degree, second agree that sort
of thing. This is a first degree felon and Dave unfortunately, unfortunately,
(03:42):
this describes, according to prosecutors who have decided to move
forward with charges in this case, this describes apparently what
has occurred involving a little boy named Maroni Maroni Merrill.
And he's no longer with us, is he.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Well, you know, when a nine one one call comes in,
we start it's almost like the finder of a body,
because it's the first indicator we need police, we need help,
and in this case, a father and I'm gonna use
that term very loosely, but this man calls nine one
one claiming he has an unresponsive child. And here's what happens. Joe.
(04:29):
First responders arrive at the door, they're knocking on the door,
it's locked, can't get in. All the while, the adult
here who called nine one one is claiming to be
doing CPR on this child on Maroni Maroney Morel is
his name. He's eleven years old, and it's his father
who is named Brigham Young Merrill. Brigham Young Merrill is
(04:53):
on nine one telling the operator he is doing CPR.
And finally, when first responders are allowed in, when they
come up the stairs and they see Merrill next to
his son, he's not doing CPR. He's kneeling next to
the body of this unresponsive child. The child is taken
(05:13):
to the hospital where he dies. Now that nine to
one one call Joe, we start there. That's because that's
your first indication of what happened. Right, I'm calling because
I have an unresponsive child, but what caused them to
become unresponsive? We're depending on the person on the phone
to tell us what transpired. And according to Brigham Young Merrill,
(05:37):
he found his eleven year old son upside up upstairs
hanging by a TV coaxial cable. You know that cable
I'm talking about. It's not like an electrical cord that
plugs into the wall, it's a little bit stiffer than that. Yeah,
a TV coacts. Of all the cables you might use
to try to hang yourself to do self harm, that
(05:59):
wouldn't be the one I would choose. Is really tough
to make that tight enough on your own to use
it like that. But that's what Brigham Young Merrill told investigators. Now,
when the first responders arrived Joe, they immediately start tending
to this child because they had been told that the
dad had been doing CPR, but he hadn't. And my
(06:24):
question for you is very simple. While they came in
and witnessed the child upstairs on the floor with the
father kneeling next to him, is there a way you
could determine if someone was performing CPR on an individual
that is unresponsive.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, yeah, it is possible, And some of the stuff
that you would look for is going to be after
the fact. You'd be surprised, Dave at autopsy. One of
the things that will find many times when individuals and
this doesn't just apply to civilians, it will actually apply
to individuals that are with ems. Did you know that
(07:03):
when compressions take place chess compressions, right, you see the
people kind of kneeling over the individual in there? Did
you know that you have associated Sometimes you have associated
external fractures as well as rib fractures in the course
of in the course of the CPR, and it's one
(07:25):
of the indicators. Many times I've actually seen in addition
to that, I've seen contusions on the surfaces of the
lungs and contusions involving the heart.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
We need to make contusions. What are you talking about, Well.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
It's a bruise. It's a bruise that you have, and
so this area is traumatized. You think, wow, that's really bad.
Couldn't you kill them? Well, if they're already flat lined? Okay,
if they're already flat lined, that is that's why you're doing.
You don't do CPR and somebody that has has a
pulse and is demonstrating rest operations. You do it on
(08:01):
somebody that is in state of death or at least
they're in a peri mortem state. But yeah, that's you know,
that's one of the things that you would look for.
But it's not going to be it's not necessarily going
to be within the purview of the e mts to
do that assessment, because what are the EMTs trying to
do well. It is emergency medicine. They're doing all right,
(08:24):
para medical work, but it's they're trying to save the
person's life. So they're not going to say to you,
is it looks like that's something that's an assessment that
we're going to do at the morgue. Now, the other
thing that that we have to factor in is that
once a code, and it's generally referred to as a code,
once a code is started when somebody is in cardio
(08:48):
respiratory arrest, there's a couple of other things that that
are going to happen to You're going to have where
they could place the paddles to do the defibrillation, and
we have paddle markings on the body as well. And
these are essentially so yeah, you'd great them. It probably
a second agree burned, oh wow, and yeah and again.
(09:12):
And these come in different forms. Now it's not like
the old days where all you have to choose from
are like these handheld paddles. You know, you can you
can put these adhesives uh on the on the chest
and it will it will pop the thing for you
and it has to it does it in a specific rhythm.
And again Wow, not a cl is qualified, but which
(09:34):
is the qualification you're looking for. But nonetheless, what you're
looking for are marketings that would come from the from
the paddles as well. So that's something that we would
assess that autopsy and listen, you have to make note
of it, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So, and when you're dealing with a child with the differences,
would there be a different injury on a child than
there would be on an adult.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
No, it's just in a tighter space. I mean, you
think about you know, some old, big, broadchested dude like me.
You know, it's just a spatial difference. You know, it'll
be more tightly confined, you know. And for a child. Also,
the manner in which a child is treated is different
(10:15):
than an adult. Okay, so that's why the people that
do this, we're talking about paramedics, we're talking about nurses,
and certainly the er staff relative to the emergency room position,
they're specifically trained and they know how to apply these
this therapeutic because it is a therapeutic event or intervention
to a child and an adult. You know, you don't
(10:37):
want to treat a child like you do an adult.
There's also drugs that are pushed in the midst of
a code, all these sorts of things that try to
get that heart beating again, and you want to do
it in a timely fashion. What's curious about this, Dave,
is that they're saying that he was taken to the
hospital and pronounced there. Now, this is kind of where
people this is kind of where people will begin to question,
(11:02):
was he still alive? Okay, this is what I know
about EMTs. And you know, we love our EMTs on
body bags. We love them, We're grateful for them. What
you will find with firefighters and EMTs. I have work
cases involving children over the years where you will have
kids that are actually well into post mortem change. Okay,
(11:24):
those bodies will still be snatched up many times because
it's not like you're dealing with an elderly patient. You know,
all of us want to have hope for a child, right,
So they're going to go and go through heroic measures
many times. If they think there is even a whisper
of a chance that they can save this child, they're
(11:45):
going to do it. So he's not pronounced until he
gets to the hospital. And this is going to be
a major issue in this case. I think and just
kind of let me explain. I've kind of laid this
out before, all right, but just so our friends understand,
there is a gulf of difference between time of death
(12:08):
and time of pronouncement. Time of death is actually when
the biological clock stops, all right. Time of pronouncement is
a governmental designation that is like, uh, you know when
they do the old thing, you know, you see it
on TV and say, uh, Doc, you're gonna call it. Yeah,
(12:29):
we're going to call it at I don't know, fifteen
thirty six hours today's date. That's a time of pronouncement.
Time of death is actually a biological finding. So this
is where the rub is how long had Maroney actually
been down?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Allowed?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Is is this something that that was staged in that
sense or is it real? Did if he's unresponsive? If
he's unresponsive, then okay, did you hop on the phone
at that moment? Tom and you initiated call with nine
to one one. We're gonna be able to tell Dave
because when he rolled through those doors. Guess what they
(13:11):
probably did in the emergency room. They probably did a
core body temperature on this kid, I would imagine, And
that's going to give us a lot of insight. They're
going to be able to tell us probably in the
doctor's notes, if we bled off any kind of tom
and just let me continue with this kind of.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
No, no, Joe, you're really helping a lot here, Okay,
Please don't think you're taking us down a path that
we're not familiar with. When I went through this with
Lodona last year and was doing the chess compressions, and
I wondered, am I doing any good? Because I've never
done them before. And when the emp's got here, they
immediately took over and they had a little machine they
(13:53):
put on her that did the chess impressions and they
were they were very fast, get her sit awaited and
out of here towards the.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Hospital as quickly as possible.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yes, and I will tell you this, and it's something
that I haven't said till now, but I did tell you.
She was turning purple. My wife was turning purple in
my arms. And when I got on the phone with
nine one one one, she was already turning. And that's
when they said, have you done compression? Like, no, I
don't know how. Tell me what to do, and they
walked me through it, and her coloring came back. So
(14:25):
you know how encouraging that is that you can see
you are, Yes, it's having an effect, and so it is.
It's really and I would tell you you see it
right away and boom, you're in this now. I mean,
it's focal time. So when the when they got here,
they took her away very quickly. We're very very quickly
in this case, Joe dealing with an eleven year old boy. Yeah,
(14:47):
when they approach upstairs, Dad had told he was, you know,
nine on one one. He was doing CPR. But when
first responders get up the stairs, they see him kneeling
next to his unresponsive son. But then when the first
responders start working the dad and again using that term loosely,
(15:07):
he keeps walking around, Joe, he leaves the room and
changes his clothes. He's walking around in and out while
this child is being tended to buy first responders that
he called, and yet he's leaving the room and changing
his clothes. Joe. When I went to the hospital with LaDonna,
(15:30):
do you realize that Hannah had somebody coming by my
house because I did not realize that my clothes were muddy.
I didn't know. I didn't know, But she did this
guy is changing his clothes, well, his eleven year old
son is on the floor unresponsive with the empts.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, and it makes me question, you know, of course,
from a forensic standpoint, what would be on the surfaces
of those Dave. I've I've conducted interviews with family members
that were trying to revive their loved ones that had
been involved in like, ah, really over the top, over
(16:12):
the top traumatic event where you've got a tremendous amount
of blood and Dave, I've been conducting conversations with them, Dave,
and they would have blood all over their face, they'd
have it on their shirt, in their hair. And the
thing about it is is that when you're in that state,
and you know, I pray that none of our friends
out there ever have to be in these states, are
(16:33):
in these circumstances, you don't you shut down. You don't
have an awareness because you're you're extending, by extension through
your actions, your love to and care to this person
who you know, you're you're trying to save their life
at this point in time. So the idea that you
would have an awareness, you know, gee wiz, hey, let
(16:55):
me go get spruced up here. You know they're working
on my kid. That's why I come back to this
idea of what did that core body temperature say with
a case like this, and again just so our friends
can get a picture of this, for the first hour
after death, okay, And I think you can go back
(17:18):
and review this because we've done a previous episode on
post mortem interval. Matter of fact, it did a crime
kond And for the first hour after death, we're at
ninety eight point six right fahrenheit. That's and not everybody's
at ninety eight point six. That's just a worldwide average,
(17:40):
all right, So I come in at ninety seven something
every now and then I checked from my own pulse anyway.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
I digress, make sure you're still alive.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, exactly. So for every hour, for the first hour
after death, you can lose up to two degrees of
body temp okay, and then or it could range down
to like one to one point five. Then the following
hours after death, for every hour after death, you lose
(18:14):
one degree of body temperature. That's kind of the rule
of thumb that we follow. That's why I come back
here to you know, a story where somebody says I
found him. I started doing CPR. Okay, Now, I guess
somebody could argue, well, you found him, so maybe he
(18:34):
had been in the state for a long time. When
was the last time you saw him? Okay? You know,
and you found him hanging. You know, you're saying that
he was suspended by this coaxial cable? So how long
you know? When was the last time you saw him?
It does this story marry up with the science? And
(18:55):
of course, as you well know, and as our friends
out there know on bodybacks, the science always leads to
the truth. So in Trimentton, Utah, we've got this eleven
(19:23):
year old boy who has been found by his dad
in their home, and he's claiming, Dave, that when he
found him, and just let me make sure that I've
got this correct. When he is found, is the dad
(19:44):
saying that he found him suspended by this cable? Is
that what he is actually saying?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
According to the affidavit, the father says that he found
his son, his eleven year old son, hanging by coaxial cable. Now,
there is some problem with the story because of what
(20:10):
interior recordings video. You know how some people have video
in their homes. Inside their homes, they had a video
inside their homes. Inside this home, do you want me
to tell you? I probably got I'll tell you what
it showed.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, I would love to hear this.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Okay, all right now, Dad says I found him hanging
and I took him down. I wouldn't be very clear
on this, yeah, because Dad said he was hanging by
this co actual cable. Dad is on the phone with
nine one one and is doing CPR. I don't know.
I'll have to go back and double check to say
(20:45):
did he say he untied him and brought him down?
Because Joe, here's the problem. Security video inside the home
shows while while the first responders are at the front door, Hey,
let us in, Bang bang bang, you called nine one one,
let us in. The security film inside the house shows
(21:08):
Dad is downstairs and carries his son past the front
door where the help is knocking, and goes upstairs and
lays his child down on the floor.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Holy smokes.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
He carried his child past the help downstairs banging at
the front door, goes up the stairs and lays his
child down. That's why I say, I'm not sure exactly
what he said, because we know everything he said was
a lie. So they don't know that law enforcement does
not have this piece of information when they're treating the
(21:46):
eleven year old boy a Maroni at the time, they
do find out fairly quickly. Again, now, as I mentioned
a few minutes ago, dear old dad here, Brigham young Merrill,
he was exhibiting certain questionable behaviors as they're attending. First
of all, he knew he was lying about doing you know,
(22:06):
doing CPR, because when they got him, he wasn't doing CPR.
He was kneeling next to his son. Second, as they're
tending to the to the boy, he keeps leaving the
room and changing clothes and washing his hands and doing
all sorts of other things. All of that struck first
responders as odd. So what we have is his story
(22:27):
that his son hung himself with the coaxial cable. But
when first responders got there, the boy was on the ground.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, And so just so folks understand, it's not EMT's
responsibility to put their hands on the father and say no,
you're not going to the bathroom, No you're not going
to change clothes. That falls within, you know, the parameters
of what the police do. So lots of toms and
this happens many times where EMT and fire will show
(22:58):
up way before cops. Do you know, that's doubly another
great example of how dangerous it is in the world
of fire and EMTs because you don't necessarily have anybody
watching your back. You're just walking right into the flames.
And so if they noted that, they would pass that
on to the responding officer at that particular time, it
(23:21):
would be incumbent upon the officer to if that's the
story they're getting, that they would need to go and
secure that area. Remember, once they take Maroni, this child
to the hospital, they're actually leaving the scene. Okay, so
when he leaves, they leave the scene. I want to
(23:44):
know did the parents accompany them, because there was a
mom too there. I know, I think there's other children
in the family, and we don't have every single tidbit
relative to that, but how was the scene left? You know,
I have had cases, and I'm reflecting back right now,
(24:04):
I've had cases where kids have been taken to hospitals
and I show up at the scene. We do what's
called a retro scene on kids because it's something you
have to do it. I mean you have to because
you want to be able to understand everything, you know,
because well, let's just face it, children are not supposed
to die. They don't die of natural causes. There are
(24:28):
those outliers, okay, but you know consistently, so we would
go I've had I know two cases in my career
where I have gone back out like within an hour
and a half, and friends and families in both cases
have come to the home and cleaned the home I walked.
I remember walking into a house trailer one time and
(24:48):
I felt like I was walking into a bottle of liesol.
The surfaces were all wet. You can smell it if
you've ever if you've ever been in the military, always
makes me think of army barracks because they would use
like cheap government issue, you know, lyesol knockoff, I guess,
and that smell gets in your nostrils. And so once
(25:12):
the individual, the victim has left the scene, is there
anybody else there that might be manipulating the scene? Is
there evidence that like goes missing, or or is there
anything that is introduced into that environment that would that
would try to put the police off. Since so, I'm
(25:33):
very curious about this coaxial cable. First off, I want
to know go ahead.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
He did tell law enforce or told nine one one
that he found his son hanging by the coaxial cable.
He did say that, which implies if he found him
hanging by the coaxial cable and first responders got there,
the child was on the on the ground that dad
had to have taken him down. Just the implication is there,
even if he doesn't say he took him down, but
(26:00):
he said he found him hanging by the coactual case.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Here's another important piece to this. Where was the suspension
actually taking place? Because you know, I find it it's
fascinating that this person is literally moving, caught moving in
front of this camera, and literally not only do they
walk past the door, they go up a set of
(26:23):
stairs right to put that kind of distance. You know,
when my kids were eleven, when Noah was eleven, I
can only imagine what to be like now. But even
back then, when he was eleven, me carrying him up
a staircase at eleven, okay for me? Would it? I'd
be exhausted at the top of where are you going
(26:44):
to do that? In your kid is without respiration? I
guess maybe he assessed and he couldn't find a heartbeat
or a pulse or whatever the case, where are you
going to move him away? You have initiated a call,
So I want to know, first off, what was the
anchor point on this coaxial cable I've had I've had
people that have gone into closets to do this sort
(27:05):
of thing on door knobs, on the tops of doors,
all over the place. I want to know was it anchored,
Like if you're in a closet and you know where
you have the clothes rack. I've had people anchored off
of that. And you made a really good point here,
because coax is so robust, and look, you've been in
(27:28):
media for so long and you've done production. You talk
about trying to wind a cord or manipulate a cord
or anything like that. It takes a lot of strength.
Now I don't know how strong Maroni was in life. Okay,
this child, but it would take if you're trying to
not just tie it off, but also get it to
(27:50):
loop it around to create a ligature. Now, could it
accidentally happen? I've had people that and children in particular.
I've had a kid that accidentally did this in a
closet with a jump rope he was trying to entertain
his younger siblings.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
And did it by accident.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, he was pretending to be Batman, and he was
swinging in and out, and his mother was turning tricks.
She was prostitute, and this ten year old boy was
left at home to take care of his eight let
me get the ages right. I think it was eight,
now seven, four and two year old siblings. And he
(28:32):
was pretending he had a batman mask. I'll never forget
this as long as I live. And it was a
really old, really old house with like thirteen foot high ceilings.
And he had taken a cloth, well really cheap jump
rope and had tied it off inside of a closet
and was pushing off from inside the closet and bouncing
off the outer wall and it got wrapped around his
(28:52):
neck and he died from his siblings. And the two
or three year old was found. And it was in
the dead of winter. I was crying out in the
street and a little old lady came out and heard
this baby crying at like eleven o'clock at night. Oh so,
and that was an accidental death. I've had that. I've
had tire swings too, which are incredibly dangerous if the
(29:14):
kids get on top of the tire swings.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
And they always get on top of them by the
way they do they do.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
That what was it they used to do the cabbage
patch you know where you you know the dance and
that's all fine, it's all you know, But that has happened,
and it's happened in several jurisdictions, and the tire will
actually pingdle them. So it is within the realm of
possibility that you can have an accidental hanging. However, if
(29:42):
you're talking about a coaxial cable, that's a completely different animal.
We're not talking about something that is like a woven
rope or even a nylon you know, kind of a
nylon strap or anything. It lacks that flexibility because you
have for folks that don't know what coax is and Dave,
(30:03):
you might do a better job. But isn't it correct.
You've got multiple, multiple wires that are and it's it's
insulated internally, and it's got a rubber coating on that.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Right right on top of everything else. Yes, it's it's
made to go through walls and up floors and to
be a semi permanent installation. You know, the coax goes
into the wall and you plug your TV and stuff
into the wall. That's what it was for back in
the day. That's what I'm saying. It's not it's not
like even an extension cord, you know, it's not. It's
much worse. And it would not be your first choice
(30:35):
if this is what you were planning to do. But Joe,
let me give you some other info here.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yeah, sure, all right.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
When the as I told you, Once the investigation began,
there were a number of red flags, and so the
police decided to have a nine to one one call
expert analyze the call, and this outside agency determined that
the nine to one one call places by the Brigham
(31:00):
young Merrill was overwhelmingly flagging on the guilty indicator's scale
they throw in while the victim is receiving medical attention,
Brigham Merrill left the room to change his clothes. No
other adults were home at the time of the incident.
There's just the dad, Brigham Merrill, and a couple other children.
(31:22):
There was a child in the home who described what
he saw. Now a week within the first week of
this child being taken to the hospital, Joe and dying
within a week. Several items were discarded from the house,
surfaces were painted, rooms were altered. The police booking affidavits
(31:48):
states this conduct is consistent with an attempt to destroy
or conceal physical evidence. Have you ever seen such as that, Joe.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Yes, I have, and it's it goes to a broader conversation. Well,
first off, let's go more specifically. If you're going through
here in such short order, the first thing I'm going
to think about as an investigator, I'm going to think, Okay,
you're trying to cover up evidence. However, with a broader discussion,
(32:21):
it begins to lean into the idea of staging. Because
our underlying supposition here is that this was a hanging. Now,
what can we conclude from that? Well, if you say hanging,
there's generally two ways that hangings take place, or the motivations.
(32:42):
It's either going to be a self harm thing, or
it's going to be an accidental thing, which we've outlined,
or something perhaps more sinister. I hate why you know that, Dave,
(33:13):
We've been at this for a long time. I hate
the why question. I guess I'd have to say, what's
the motivation here? Because as we know, right now, Dave,
both Brigham Merrill, Brigham Young Merrill, and his wife have
(33:38):
now been charged. Okay, charged, not convicted, but charged. Can
you kind of enlighten us a little bit as to
what the police are finding here relative to this poor
child and the rest of the family unit.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
What's really going to be important, Joe, is for you
to be able to explain how investigators have to put
this together because on the outside looking in, I told
you the dad was the only adult at the home.
In the home at the time, there were other children
in the home besides the eleven year old boy, Maroney,
who is dead. Dad leaves the room while they're performing
(34:16):
first the first responders are working on him. Within the
first week, things have changed inside the home. It's the
camera footage inside the home, Joe, that contradicts the story
told by the father. While first responders are knocking on
the front door, Brigham Meryl can be seen on video
moving the child upstairs, the child, who he claims he
(34:39):
is doing CPR on at the time. Meryl walks past
the front door where the first responders are knocking. Meryll
claims he found his son hanging upstairs. The boy. Once
they started the investigation to his death, the boy had
(35:02):
bruises on his back. Authority said they were consistent with
They were inconsistent with hanging. Bruises on the child's back
likely occurred immediately before or during the child's death. Investigation
revealed years long abuse and torture against the children, plural
(35:29):
by the parents. Children suffered food restriction, corporal punishment using
belts and pans, children forced to stay in an outside
dog run when they got in trouble. Now, I wanted
to know where the idea of using pans came from.
(35:49):
We're talking about cooking pans, Joe.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeah, I can tell you. I can tell you right
now why they use cooking pants. You want to know, Yeah,
because if he used a if you used a baseball
bat or a lead pipe, if you struck somebody with that,
it's going to have a very If you just get
get the vision in your mind of a piece of
(36:15):
galvanized pipe, Okay, you look at it and you see
it in terms of it being a cylinder right going
down the long axis. Well, when you contact the surface
of like a back or the neck, the arms, guess
what it comes off. As you have these you have
these parallel lines that are very well defined, and if
(36:38):
you look at it, you can actually say, wow, he
got struck by something. You know, it's like an item
if you use let's just say you've got a frying pan,
all right, or it can even be, you know, a
pot to bowl something. And we don't know specifically, but
guess what happens when when you use a pan like that?
(37:00):
It is a diffuse strike, which that energy kind of
transfers out and you might not develop a pattern from
it necessarily. Okay, And abusers actually do this. Did you
know that a lot of abusers when they strike their children,
they don't strike them in the face, they don't hit
them in the arms. I guess what they love to do.
They love to punch in the stomach. They love to
(37:22):
kick in the stomach. They love to hit on the back,
and that way from the neck up and to waist down.
You're not necessarily going to see anything. And most of
the time they do not allow their kids to be
seen by anybody else. They don't allow their kids, certainly
to be wandering around the yard with that shirt on
(37:42):
anything like that. You just don't. You don't see that.
And when you strike with a you know, telephone books
over the years have been used for tortures, you know
that old city telephone books that are really, really thick,
and plus it creates a huge, like this cacophony of sound,
you know that oh and boom like that when you
(38:03):
hear it. So it's the torture is not just in
the strike itself, it's in that sound that's coming along
with it. And yeah, you know, if you're hit with
a belt, you kind of hear that pop that occurs
like that. But that's I would think, because that's a
very specific detail, Dave, that you dug up.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
It actually came from Melinda Meryl. Remember how you mentioned
that Melinda Merrill, the mom, is also charged with torture. Yeah,
when police are investigating. And by the way, this happened
last September. The arrest has just taken place as we're
recording this today. It has just happened and we're in
(38:42):
the first week of well it's May, okay. Yeah, And
the reason that's important is it took that long to
you know, you there is no statute of limitations on murder.
So when you have a dead body and you have
children taken out of the home because there's an investigation underway.
You're keeping people safe and investigating the information about what
(39:06):
was used in the beating and what other discipline measures
were used in torturing these children that came from their mother,
Melinda Merrill. She actually told police. She specifically stated during
an interview that she was never taught that leaving marks
on her children was not acceptable. Both parents admitted to
(39:30):
the abuse. They didn't think it was abuse. They stated
they should have looked into the laws in Utah before
they moved there. Melinda said that she would examine the
children to make sure there were no marks on them
(39:50):
and that they switched to using pans, did not leave
a mark.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, precisely.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
It's not going to have more to and that's what
they did. They admitted that that's what Melinda told police. Now,
I haven't looked at these mental giants at this point.
I don't know what their background is. I just know
that we have an eleven year old child who's the
same age as my grandson Brelan, and he is not
going to see his twelfth birthday because of his own parents. Now, Joe,
(40:21):
when you get right down to this, can you tell
a cluster of bruising located on the child's back doesn't
appear to be related to the hanging, but likely occurred
immediately prior or during the death of the child. Can
you figure that out?
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Yes, yeah, And let me tell you what. Let me
tell you what this child's body would have been put
through at the morgue let that sink in. What I'm
about to say, this is not a standard what we
would call a standard pro section. They would have had
(40:56):
to go into great detail with their pro section. It's
not just they're opening the chest and looking at the
internal viscera or opening the head, which we do. They
had to flip him over, and they had they had
to do multiple, multiple incisions in order to do this assessment,
(41:17):
and they will have documented this all along the way. Well, Morgan,
what do you mean by that? Well, I can tell
you what I mean by that. And this is a
necessity that you have in cases of abuse, whether it
is children or the elderly, or or maybe spousal abuse
where you've got a long history of people that have
been getting beaten up, you know for a while, that
end that end obviously in a terminal event, and you
(41:41):
try to do you know, I've talked about the aging,
the aging of bruises before. But it kind of sounds
like we're beyond this idea of aging now. I think
that the insults on the back can be aged because
they're still presenting. One one question I have was a
child scarred in any way where maybe they were struck.
(42:07):
He was struck at some point tom where he had
an old fracture that had not completely healed. Because you know,
just think about your ribs. You know your ribs are
not just on their anterior, the lateral, you know your
brig your ribs actually all the way to your back
all right, which is the posterior chest. Did he have
any fractures back there that were old and you know,
(42:29):
had not healed effectively. Here's one other thing that they're
going to do, because Dave, this really this really wrung
out to me. You had mentioned deprivation. When you see
this child dollars to donuts. I can almost guarantee you
(42:51):
he when you look and you know you and I
have had kids. Obviously, when you go to the pediatrician,
you know they have that scale that you look at
the growth scale, right, and all the mama's out there
will know precisely what I'm talking about. Dollars to donuts.
I bet you, I bet you he's going to fall
within a percentile on that thing. That is, I'm not
(43:12):
going to stay incompatible with life, but it would make
it would give give a pediatrician pause. They would say, oh,
what what's going on here? You know, what is this
child being fed? Because that's demonstrated in muscle wasting, all right,
or atrophy, it's demonstrated in the teeth, it's demonstrated in
(43:35):
bone growth. You know, do they fit within certain height parameters?
Do you have a kid that's just kind of dragging
around and uh in a in a lethargic state because
he's in deprived of caloric deprivation at that point in time,
they're not taking on enough enough to you know, sustain themselves.
(43:55):
And is this happening throughout the family unit? Uh? Uh
guaran damn tu one thing? I bet mom and daddy
weren't going without food? What you want to bet? I
can almost promise you. I've worked enough these cases. I've
seen enough of them. Now trial hadn't ocurred yet. The
reason we want to cover this case today is because
(44:17):
they've just hooked these people up, and I think that
it's important to bring this to our friend's attention out there,
because wherever you are, there's another Maroni out there. There's
a little girl, there's a little boy, probably not too
far away from where you live, that's going through maybe
(44:41):
not this extreme, but they're going through things that little
bitty kids should not have to endure. Now an arrest
has been effected, it is our hope that Maroney's voice,
as we hope for all of the dead that we
talked about, will in fact be heard. It's not just
(45:02):
the voice of the state wanting to prosecute a case.
It's about a little boy that died at the hands
of somebody allegedly that didn't care about him. As a
matter of fact, they really cared about what the state
is framing this torture. You can ask why all you
(45:25):
want to, but I guarantee you you'll still be asking
that long after they've given you some kind of answer.
It just doesn't add up. Guys, It's a cruel world
out there. If you have a chance, you come across
a stranger, just be kind, be kind to somebody. Today, Maroney,
(45:50):
all that needed to happen was the little mercy and
kindness extended to him and Unfortunately it didn't happen. I'm
Joseph Scott Morgan and this spotty answer
Body bags with Joseph's gotten More. The think back to
when you were eleven years old. The whole world is
in front of you and you don't really know it
at the time, but the world that you have it's
generally pretty cool, right. You know, you're thinking about going out,
riding your bike, hanging out with your buddies. For me,
(00:24):
it used to be able to. It used to be
going into the front yard with one of my best friends.
We were either throwing the football, throwing grounders to each other,
or shooting baskets, all right, and then we get on
our bike and we would ride, and we explore and
we just hang out. I never went inside the house.
And you know, for me, that's the way life is
(00:44):
supposed to be for a kid. Unfortunately, in the world
in which we live now, there is a thread of
evil that runs through it. And yeah, if I sound
rather down cast and ominous in my voice, understand I'm
(01:05):
about to tell you why, Because I'm going to tell
you about a case today that is so incredibly dark
that it will absolutely chill you to the bone. It's
a case that never should have happened, and unfortunately, unfortunately,
the recipient of the torture which we're going to talk
(01:29):
about is an eleven year old boy. He's not going
to have memories of being twelve because his torture actually
wound up in his death. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
this is body backs, Dave. Just indulge me just for
(01:51):
a second. This case that we're going to talk about
today is even darker than many of the things that
I prefer to go into. I don't like to cover
the deaths of children very often, but I got to
be honest with you, it's what many times is expected,
and I want to be able to interpret everything as
we should. But let's lay the groundwork here from a
(02:14):
legal standpoint, and I am in no way an attorney.
I'm not a pair legal, but I find it interesting
because we have a case today where an individual has
in fact been charged with the charge of child torture.
Now I have never heard this before. This case is
(02:35):
out of Utah, and interestingly enough, this law came into
effect back on May the seventh, twenty twenty five, and
in this case, I think that from what we're hearing
from the authorities, it's going to meet the definition. But
just indulge me. One second brother, David, let me read
this off So it's Utah Criminal Code has introduced a
(02:58):
new offense of child torture, which is defined as this
is important intentionally inflicting a serious injury upon a child
in an exceptionally cruel or depraved manner that causes extreme
(03:19):
physical or psychological pain. And just so folks understand, criminal
statutes are criminal charges are many times they have degrees
with them. You hear first degree, second agree that sort
of thing. This is a first degree felon and Dave unfortunately, unfortunately,
(03:42):
this describes, according to prosecutors who have decided to move
forward with charges in this case, this describes apparently what
has occurred involving a little boy named Maroni Maroni Merrill.
And he's no longer with us, is he.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Well, you know, when a nine one one call comes in,
we start it's almost like the finder of a body,
because it's the first indicator we need police, we need help,
and in this case, a father and I'm gonna use
that term very loosely, but this man calls nine one
one claiming he has an unresponsive child. And here's what happens. Joe.
(04:29):
First responders arrive at the door, they're knocking on the door,
it's locked, can't get in. All the while, the adult
here who called nine one one is claiming to be
doing CPR on this child on Maroni Maroney Morel is
his name. He's eleven years old, and it's his father
who is named Brigham Young Merrill. Brigham Young Merrill is
(04:53):
on nine one telling the operator he is doing CPR.
And finally, when first responders are allowed in, when they
come up the stairs and they see Merrill next to
his son, he's not doing CPR. He's kneeling next to
the body of this unresponsive child. The child is taken
(05:13):
to the hospital where he dies. Now that nine to
one one call Joe, we start there. That's because that's
your first indication of what happened. Right, I'm calling because
I have an unresponsive child, but what caused them to
become unresponsive? We're depending on the person on the phone
to tell us what transpired. And according to Brigham Young Merrill,
(05:37):
he found his eleven year old son upside up upstairs
hanging by a TV coaxial cable. You know that cable
I'm talking about. It's not like an electrical cord that
plugs into the wall, it's a little bit stiffer than that. Yeah,
a TV coacts. Of all the cables you might use
to try to hang yourself to do self harm, that
(05:59):
wouldn't be the one I would choose. Is really tough
to make that tight enough on your own to use
it like that. But that's what Brigham Young Merrill told investigators. Now,
when the first responders arrived Joe, they immediately start tending
to this child because they had been told that the
dad had been doing CPR, but he hadn't. And my
(06:24):
question for you is very simple. While they came in
and witnessed the child upstairs on the floor with the
father kneeling next to him, is there a way you
could determine if someone was performing CPR on an individual
that is unresponsive.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, yeah, it is possible, And some of the stuff
that you would look for is going to be after
the fact. You'd be surprised, Dave at autopsy. One of
the things that will find many times when individuals and
this doesn't just apply to civilians, it will actually apply
to individuals that are with ems. Did you know that
(07:03):
when compressions take place chess compressions, right, you see the
people kind of kneeling over the individual in there? Did
you know that you have associated Sometimes you have associated
external fractures as well as rib fractures in the course
of in the course of the CPR, and it's one
(07:25):
of the indicators. Many times I've actually seen in addition
to that, I've seen contusions on the surfaces of the
lungs and contusions involving the heart.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
We need to make contusions. What are you talking about, Well.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
It's a bruise. It's a bruise that you have, and
so this area is traumatized. You think, wow, that's really bad.
Couldn't you kill them? Well, if they're already flat lined? Okay,
if they're already flat lined, that is that's why you're doing.
You don't do CPR and somebody that has has a
pulse and is demonstrating rest operations. You do it on
(08:01):
somebody that is in state of death or at least
they're in a peri mortem state. But yeah, that's you know,
that's one of the things that you would look for.
But it's not going to be it's not necessarily going
to be within the purview of the e mts to
do that assessment, because what are the EMTs trying to
do well. It is emergency medicine. They're doing all right,
(08:24):
para medical work, but it's they're trying to save the
person's life. So they're not going to say to you,
is it looks like that's something that's an assessment that
we're going to do at the morgue. Now, the other
thing that that we have to factor in is that
once a code, and it's generally referred to as a code,
once a code is started when somebody is in cardio
(08:48):
respiratory arrest, there's a couple of other things that that
are going to happen to You're going to have where
they could place the paddles to do the defibrillation, and
we have paddle markings on the body as well. And
these are essentially so yeah, you'd great them. It probably
a second agree burned, oh wow, and yeah and again.
(09:12):
And these come in different forms. Now it's not like
the old days where all you have to choose from
are like these handheld paddles. You know, you can you
can put these adhesives uh on the on the chest
and it will it will pop the thing for you
and it has to it does it in a specific rhythm.
And again Wow, not a cl is qualified, but which
(09:34):
is the qualification you're looking for. But nonetheless, what you're
looking for are marketings that would come from the from
the paddles as well. So that's something that we would
assess that autopsy and listen, you have to make note
of it, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So, and when you're dealing with a child with the differences,
would there be a different injury on a child than
there would be on an adult.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
No, it's just in a tighter space. I mean, you
think about you know, some old, big, broadchested dude like me.
You know, it's just a spatial difference. You know, it'll
be more tightly confined, you know. And for a child. Also,
the manner in which a child is treated is different
(10:15):
than an adult. Okay, so that's why the people that
do this, we're talking about paramedics, we're talking about nurses,
and certainly the er staff relative to the emergency room position,
they're specifically trained and they know how to apply these
this therapeutic because it is a therapeutic event or intervention
to a child and an adult. You know, you don't
(10:37):
want to treat a child like you do an adult.
There's also drugs that are pushed in the midst of
a code, all these sorts of things that try to
get that heart beating again, and you want to do
it in a timely fashion. What's curious about this, Dave,
is that they're saying that he was taken to the
hospital and pronounced there. Now, this is kind of where
people this is kind of where people will begin to question,
(11:02):
was he still alive? Okay, this is what I know
about EMTs. And you know, we love our EMTs on
body bags. We love them, We're grateful for them. What
you will find with firefighters and EMTs. I have work
cases involving children over the years where you will have
kids that are actually well into post mortem change. Okay,
(11:24):
those bodies will still be snatched up many times because
it's not like you're dealing with an elderly patient. You know,
all of us want to have hope for a child, right,
So they're going to go and go through heroic measures
many times. If they think there is even a whisper
of a chance that they can save this child, they're
(11:45):
going to do it. So he's not pronounced until he
gets to the hospital. And this is going to be
a major issue in this case. I think and just
kind of let me explain. I've kind of laid this
out before, all right, but just so our friends understand,
there is a gulf of difference between time of death
(12:08):
and time of pronouncement. Time of death is actually when
the biological clock stops, all right. Time of pronouncement is
a governmental designation that is like, uh, you know when
they do the old thing, you know, you see it
on TV and say, uh, Doc, you're gonna call it. Yeah,
(12:29):
we're going to call it at I don't know, fifteen
thirty six hours today's date. That's a time of pronouncement.
Time of death is actually a biological finding. So this
is where the rub is how long had Maroney actually
been down?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Allowed?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Is is this something that that was staged in that
sense or is it real? Did if he's unresponsive? If
he's unresponsive, then okay, did you hop on the phone
at that moment? Tom and you initiated call with nine
to one one. We're gonna be able to tell Dave
because when he rolled through those doors. Guess what they
(13:11):
probably did in the emergency room. They probably did a
core body temperature on this kid, I would imagine, And
that's going to give us a lot of insight. They're
going to be able to tell us probably in the
doctor's notes, if we bled off any kind of tom
and just let me continue with this kind of.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
No, no, Joe, you're really helping a lot here, Okay,
Please don't think you're taking us down a path that
we're not familiar with. When I went through this with
Lodona last year and was doing the chess compressions, and
I wondered, am I doing any good? Because I've never
done them before. And when the emp's got here, they
immediately took over and they had a little machine they
(13:53):
put on her that did the chess impressions and they
were they were very fast, get her sit awaited and
out of here towards the.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Hospital as quickly as possible.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yes, and I will tell you this, and it's something
that I haven't said till now, but I did tell you.
She was turning purple. My wife was turning purple in
my arms. And when I got on the phone with
nine one one one, she was already turning. And that's
when they said, have you done compression? Like, no, I
don't know how. Tell me what to do, and they
walked me through it, and her coloring came back. So
(14:25):
you know how encouraging that is that you can see
you are, Yes, it's having an effect, and so it is.
It's really and I would tell you you see it
right away and boom, you're in this now. I mean,
it's focal time. So when the when they got here,
they took her away very quickly. We're very very quickly
in this case, Joe dealing with an eleven year old boy. Yeah,
(14:47):
when they approach upstairs, Dad had told he was, you know,
nine on one one. He was doing CPR. But when
first responders get up the stairs, they see him kneeling
next to his unresponsive son. But then when the first
responders start working the dad and again using that term loosely,
(15:07):
he keeps walking around, Joe, he leaves the room and
changes his clothes. He's walking around in and out while
this child is being tended to buy first responders that
he called, and yet he's leaving the room and changing
his clothes. Joe. When I went to the hospital with LaDonna,
(15:30):
do you realize that Hannah had somebody coming by my
house because I did not realize that my clothes were muddy.
I didn't know. I didn't know, But she did this
guy is changing his clothes, well, his eleven year old
son is on the floor unresponsive with the empts.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, and it makes me question, you know, of course,
from a forensic standpoint, what would be on the surfaces
of those Dave. I've I've conducted interviews with family members
that were trying to revive their loved ones that had
been involved in like, ah, really over the top, over
(16:12):
the top traumatic event where you've got a tremendous amount
of blood and Dave, I've been conducting conversations with them, Dave,
and they would have blood all over their face, they'd
have it on their shirt, in their hair. And the
thing about it is is that when you're in that state,
and you know, I pray that none of our friends
out there ever have to be in these states, are
(16:33):
in these circumstances, you don't you shut down. You don't
have an awareness because you're you're extending, by extension through
your actions, your love to and care to this person
who you know, you're you're trying to save their life
at this point in time. So the idea that you
would have an awareness, you know, gee wiz, hey, let
(16:55):
me go get spruced up here. You know they're working
on my kid. That's why I come back to this
idea of what did that core body temperature say with
a case like this, and again just so our friends
can get a picture of this, for the first hour
after death, okay, And I think you can go back
(17:18):
and review this because we've done a previous episode on
post mortem interval. Matter of fact, it did a crime
kond And for the first hour after death, we're at
ninety eight point six right fahrenheit. That's and not everybody's
at ninety eight point six. That's just a worldwide average,
(17:40):
all right, So I come in at ninety seven something
every now and then I checked from my own pulse anyway.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
I digress, make sure you're still alive.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, exactly. So for every hour, for the first hour
after death, you can lose up to two degrees of
body temp okay, and then or it could range down
to like one to one point five. Then the following
hours after death, for every hour after death, you lose
(18:14):
one degree of body temperature. That's kind of the rule
of thumb that we follow. That's why I come back
here to you know, a story where somebody says I
found him. I started doing CPR. Okay, Now, I guess
somebody could argue, well, you found him, so maybe he
(18:34):
had been in the state for a long time. When
was the last time you saw him? Okay? You know,
and you found him hanging. You know, you're saying that
he was suspended by this coaxial cable? So how long
you know? When was the last time you saw him?
It does this story marry up with the science? And
(18:55):
of course, as you well know, and as our friends
out there know on bodybacks, the science always leads to
the truth. So in Trimentton, Utah, we've got this eleven
(19:23):
year old boy who has been found by his dad
in their home, and he's claiming, Dave, that when he
found him, and just let me make sure that I've
got this correct. When he is found, is the dad
(19:44):
saying that he found him suspended by this cable? Is
that what he is actually saying?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
According to the affidavit, the father says that he found
his son, his eleven year old son, hanging by coaxial cable. Now,
there is some problem with the story because of what
(20:10):
interior recordings video. You know how some people have video
in their homes. Inside their homes, they had a video
inside their homes. Inside this home, do you want me
to tell you? I probably got I'll tell you what
it showed.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, I would love to hear this.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Okay, all right now, Dad says I found him hanging
and I took him down. I wouldn't be very clear
on this, yeah, because Dad said he was hanging by
this co actual cable. Dad is on the phone with
nine one one and is doing CPR. I don't know.
I'll have to go back and double check to say
(20:45):
did he say he untied him and brought him down?
Because Joe, here's the problem. Security video inside the home
shows while while the first responders are at the front door, Hey,
let us in, Bang bang bang, you called nine one one,
let us in. The security film inside the house shows
(21:08):
Dad is downstairs and carries his son past the front
door where the help is knocking, and goes upstairs and
lays his child down on the floor.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Holy smokes.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
He carried his child past the help downstairs banging at
the front door, goes up the stairs and lays his
child down. That's why I say, I'm not sure exactly
what he said, because we know everything he said was
a lie. So they don't know that law enforcement does
not have this piece of information when they're treating the
(21:46):
eleven year old boy a Maroni at the time, they
do find out fairly quickly. Again, now, as I mentioned
a few minutes ago, dear old dad here, Brigham young Merrill,
he was exhibiting certain questionable behaviors as they're attending. First
of all, he knew he was lying about doing you know,
(22:06):
doing CPR, because when they got him, he wasn't doing CPR.
He was kneeling next to his son. Second, as they're
tending to the to the boy, he keeps leaving the
room and changing clothes and washing his hands and doing
all sorts of other things. All of that struck first
responders as odd. So what we have is his story
(22:27):
that his son hung himself with the coaxial cable. But
when first responders got there, the boy was on the ground.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, And so just so folks understand, it's not EMT's
responsibility to put their hands on the father and say no,
you're not going to the bathroom, No you're not going
to change clothes. That falls within, you know, the parameters
of what the police do. So lots of toms and
this happens many times where EMT and fire will show
(22:58):
up way before cops. Do you know, that's doubly another
great example of how dangerous it is in the world
of fire and EMTs because you don't necessarily have anybody
watching your back. You're just walking right into the flames.
And so if they noted that, they would pass that
on to the responding officer at that particular time, it
(23:21):
would be incumbent upon the officer to if that's the
story they're getting, that they would need to go and
secure that area. Remember, once they take Maroni, this child
to the hospital, they're actually leaving the scene. Okay, so
when he leaves, they leave the scene. I want to
(23:44):
know did the parents accompany them, because there was a
mom too there. I know, I think there's other children
in the family, and we don't have every single tidbit
relative to that, but how was the scene left? You know,
I have had cases, and I'm reflecting back right now,
(24:04):
I've had cases where kids have been taken to hospitals
and I show up at the scene. We do what's
called a retro scene on kids because it's something you
have to do it. I mean you have to because
you want to be able to understand everything, you know,
because well, let's just face it, children are not supposed
to die. They don't die of natural causes. There are
(24:28):
those outliers, okay, but you know consistently, so we would
go I've had I know two cases in my career
where I have gone back out like within an hour
and a half, and friends and families in both cases
have come to the home and cleaned the home I walked.
I remember walking into a house trailer one time and
(24:48):
I felt like I was walking into a bottle of liesol.
The surfaces were all wet. You can smell it if
you've ever if you've ever been in the military, always
makes me think of army barracks because they would use
like cheap government issue, you know, lyesol knockoff, I guess,
and that smell gets in your nostrils. And so once
(25:12):
the individual, the victim has left the scene, is there
anybody else there that might be manipulating the scene? Is
there evidence that like goes missing, or or is there
anything that is introduced into that environment that would that
would try to put the police off. Since so, I'm
(25:33):
very curious about this coaxial cable. First off, I want
to know go ahead.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
He did tell law enforce or told nine one one
that he found his son hanging by the coaxial cable.
He did say that, which implies if he found him
hanging by the coaxial cable and first responders got there,
the child was on the on the ground that dad
had to have taken him down. Just the implication is there,
even if he doesn't say he took him down, but
(26:00):
he said he found him hanging by the coactual case.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Here's another important piece to this. Where was the suspension
actually taking place? Because you know, I find it it's
fascinating that this person is literally moving, caught moving in
front of this camera, and literally not only do they
walk past the door, they go up a set of
(26:23):
stairs right to put that kind of distance. You know,
when my kids were eleven, when Noah was eleven, I
can only imagine what to be like now. But even
back then, when he was eleven, me carrying him up
a staircase at eleven, okay for me? Would it? I'd
be exhausted at the top of where are you going
(26:44):
to do that? In your kid is without respiration? I
guess maybe he assessed and he couldn't find a heartbeat
or a pulse or whatever the case, where are you
going to move him away? You have initiated a call,
So I want to know, first off, what was the
anchor point on this coaxial cable I've had I've had
people that have gone into closets to do this sort
(27:05):
of thing on door knobs, on the tops of doors,
all over the place. I want to know was it anchored,
Like if you're in a closet and you know where
you have the clothes rack. I've had people anchored off
of that. And you made a really good point here,
because coax is so robust, and look, you've been in
(27:28):
media for so long and you've done production. You talk
about trying to wind a cord or manipulate a cord
or anything like that. It takes a lot of strength.
Now I don't know how strong Maroni was in life. Okay,
this child, but it would take if you're trying to
not just tie it off, but also get it to
(27:50):
loop it around to create a ligature. Now, could it
accidentally happen? I've had people that and children in particular.
I've had a kid that accidentally did this in a
closet with a jump rope he was trying to entertain
his younger siblings.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
And did it by accident.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, he was pretending to be Batman, and he was
swinging in and out, and his mother was turning tricks.
She was prostitute, and this ten year old boy was
left at home to take care of his eight let
me get the ages right. I think it was eight,
now seven, four and two year old siblings. And he
(28:32):
was pretending he had a batman mask. I'll never forget
this as long as I live. And it was a
really old, really old house with like thirteen foot high ceilings.
And he had taken a cloth, well really cheap jump
rope and had tied it off inside of a closet
and was pushing off from inside the closet and bouncing
off the outer wall and it got wrapped around his
(28:52):
neck and he died from his siblings. And the two
or three year old was found. And it was in
the dead of winter. I was crying out in the
street and a little old lady came out and heard
this baby crying at like eleven o'clock at night. Oh so,
and that was an accidental death. I've had that. I've
had tire swings too, which are incredibly dangerous if the
(29:14):
kids get on top of the tire swings.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
And they always get on top of them by the
way they do they do.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
That what was it they used to do the cabbage
patch you know where you you know the dance and
that's all fine, it's all you know, But that has happened,
and it's happened in several jurisdictions, and the tire will
actually pingdle them. So it is within the realm of
possibility that you can have an accidental hanging. However, if
(29:42):
you're talking about a coaxial cable, that's a completely different animal.
We're not talking about something that is like a woven
rope or even a nylon you know, kind of a
nylon strap or anything. It lacks that flexibility because you
have for folks that don't know what coax is and Dave,
(30:03):
you might do a better job. But isn't it correct.
You've got multiple, multiple wires that are and it's it's
insulated internally, and it's got a rubber coating on that.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Right right on top of everything else. Yes, it's it's
made to go through walls and up floors and to
be a semi permanent installation. You know, the coax goes
into the wall and you plug your TV and stuff
into the wall. That's what it was for back in
the day. That's what I'm saying. It's not it's not
like even an extension cord, you know, it's not. It's
much worse. And it would not be your first choice
(30:35):
if this is what you were planning to do. But Joe,
let me give you some other info here.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yeah, sure, all right.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
When the as I told you, Once the investigation began,
there were a number of red flags, and so the
police decided to have a nine to one one call
expert analyze the call, and this outside agency determined that
the nine to one one call places by the Brigham
(31:00):
young Merrill was overwhelmingly flagging on the guilty indicator's scale
they throw in while the victim is receiving medical attention,
Brigham Merrill left the room to change his clothes. No
other adults were home at the time of the incident.
There's just the dad, Brigham Merrill, and a couple other children.
(31:22):
There was a child in the home who described what
he saw. Now a week within the first week of
this child being taken to the hospital, Joe and dying
within a week. Several items were discarded from the house,
surfaces were painted, rooms were altered. The police booking affidavits
(31:48):
states this conduct is consistent with an attempt to destroy
or conceal physical evidence. Have you ever seen such as that, Joe.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Yes, I have, and it's it goes to a broader conversation. Well,
first off, let's go more specifically. If you're going through
here in such short order, the first thing I'm going
to think about as an investigator, I'm going to think, Okay,
you're trying to cover up evidence. However, with a broader discussion,
(32:21):
it begins to lean into the idea of staging. Because
our underlying supposition here is that this was a hanging. Now,
what can we conclude from that? Well, if you say hanging,
there's generally two ways that hangings take place, or the motivations.
(32:42):
It's either going to be a self harm thing, or
it's going to be an accidental thing, which we've outlined,
or something perhaps more sinister. I hate why you know that, Dave,
(33:13):
We've been at this for a long time. I hate
the why question. I guess I'd have to say, what's
the motivation here? Because as we know, right now, Dave,
both Brigham Merrill, Brigham Young Merrill, and his wife have
(33:38):
now been charged. Okay, charged, not convicted, but charged. Can
you kind of enlighten us a little bit as to
what the police are finding here relative to this poor
child and the rest of the family unit.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
What's really going to be important, Joe, is for you
to be able to explain how investigators have to put
this together because on the outside looking in, I told
you the dad was the only adult at the home.
In the home at the time, there were other children
in the home besides the eleven year old boy, Maroney,
who is dead. Dad leaves the room while they're performing
(34:16):
first the first responders are working on him. Within the
first week, things have changed inside the home. It's the
camera footage inside the home, Joe, that contradicts the story
told by the father. While first responders are knocking on
the front door, Brigham Meryl can be seen on video
moving the child upstairs, the child, who he claims he
(34:39):
is doing CPR on at the time. Meryl walks past
the front door where the first responders are knocking. Meryll
claims he found his son hanging upstairs. The boy. Once
they started the investigation to his death, the boy had
(35:02):
bruises on his back. Authority said they were consistent with
They were inconsistent with hanging. Bruises on the child's back
likely occurred immediately before or during the child's death. Investigation
revealed years long abuse and torture against the children, plural
(35:29):
by the parents. Children suffered food restriction, corporal punishment using
belts and pans, children forced to stay in an outside
dog run when they got in trouble. Now, I wanted
to know where the idea of using pans came from.
(35:49):
We're talking about cooking pans, Joe.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeah, I can tell you. I can tell you right
now why they use cooking pants. You want to know, Yeah,
because if he used a if you used a baseball
bat or a lead pipe, if you struck somebody with that,
it's going to have a very If you just get
get the vision in your mind of a piece of
(36:15):
galvanized pipe, Okay, you look at it and you see
it in terms of it being a cylinder right going
down the long axis. Well, when you contact the surface
of like a back or the neck, the arms, guess
what it comes off. As you have these you have
these parallel lines that are very well defined, and if
(36:38):
you look at it, you can actually say, wow, he
got struck by something. You know, it's like an item
if you use let's just say you've got a frying pan,
all right, or it can even be, you know, a
pot to bowl something. And we don't know specifically, but
guess what happens when when you use a pan like that?
(37:00):
It is a diffuse strike, which that energy kind of
transfers out and you might not develop a pattern from
it necessarily. Okay, And abusers actually do this. Did you
know that a lot of abusers when they strike their children,
they don't strike them in the face, they don't hit
them in the arms. I guess what they love to do.
They love to punch in the stomach. They love to
(37:22):
kick in the stomach. They love to hit on the back,
and that way from the neck up and to waist down.
You're not necessarily going to see anything. And most of
the time they do not allow their kids to be
seen by anybody else. They don't allow their kids, certainly
to be wandering around the yard with that shirt on
(37:42):
anything like that. You just don't. You don't see that.
And when you strike with a you know, telephone books
over the years have been used for tortures, you know
that old city telephone books that are really, really thick,
and plus it creates a huge, like this cacophony of sound,
you know that oh and boom like that when you
(38:03):
hear it. So it's the torture is not just in
the strike itself, it's in that sound that's coming along
with it. And yeah, you know, if you're hit with
a belt, you kind of hear that pop that occurs
like that. But that's I would think, because that's a
very specific detail, Dave, that you dug up.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
It actually came from Melinda Meryl. Remember how you mentioned
that Melinda Merrill, the mom, is also charged with torture. Yeah,
when police are investigating. And by the way, this happened
last September. The arrest has just taken place as we're
recording this today. It has just happened and we're in
(38:42):
the first week of well it's May, okay. Yeah, And
the reason that's important is it took that long to
you know, you there is no statute of limitations on murder.
So when you have a dead body and you have
children taken out of the home because there's an investigation underway.
You're keeping people safe and investigating the information about what
(39:06):
was used in the beating and what other discipline measures
were used in torturing these children that came from their mother,
Melinda Merrill. She actually told police. She specifically stated during
an interview that she was never taught that leaving marks
on her children was not acceptable. Both parents admitted to
(39:30):
the abuse. They didn't think it was abuse. They stated
they should have looked into the laws in Utah before
they moved there. Melinda said that she would examine the
children to make sure there were no marks on them
(39:50):
and that they switched to using pans, did not leave
a mark.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, precisely.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
It's not going to have more to and that's what
they did. They admitted that that's what Melinda told police. Now,
I haven't looked at these mental giants at this point.
I don't know what their background is. I just know
that we have an eleven year old child who's the
same age as my grandson Brelan, and he is not
going to see his twelfth birthday because of his own parents. Now, Joe,
(40:21):
when you get right down to this, can you tell
a cluster of bruising located on the child's back doesn't
appear to be related to the hanging, but likely occurred
immediately prior or during the death of the child. Can
you figure that out?
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Yes, yeah, And let me tell you what. Let me
tell you what this child's body would have been put
through at the morgue let that sink in. What I'm
about to say, this is not a standard what we
would call a standard pro section. They would have had
(40:56):
to go into great detail with their pro section. It's
not just they're opening the chest and looking at the
internal viscera or opening the head, which we do. They
had to flip him over, and they had they had
to do multiple, multiple incisions in order to do this assessment,
(41:17):
and they will have documented this all along the way. Well, Morgan,
what do you mean by that? Well, I can tell
you what I mean by that. And this is a
necessity that you have in cases of abuse, whether it
is children or the elderly, or or maybe spousal abuse
where you've got a long history of people that have
been getting beaten up, you know for a while, that
end that end obviously in a terminal event, and you
(41:41):
try to do you know, I've talked about the aging,
the aging of bruises before. But it kind of sounds
like we're beyond this idea of aging now. I think
that the insults on the back can be aged because
they're still presenting. One one question I have was a
child scarred in any way where maybe they were struck.
(42:07):
He was struck at some point tom where he had
an old fracture that had not completely healed. Because you know,
just think about your ribs. You know your ribs are
not just on their anterior, the lateral, you know your
brig your ribs actually all the way to your back
all right, which is the posterior chest. Did he have
any fractures back there that were old and you know,
(42:29):
had not healed effectively. Here's one other thing that they're
going to do, because Dave, this really this really wrung
out to me. You had mentioned deprivation. When you see
this child dollars to donuts. I can almost guarantee you
(42:51):
he when you look and you know you and I
have had kids. Obviously, when you go to the pediatrician,
you know they have that scale that you look at
the growth scale, right, and all the mama's out there
will know precisely what I'm talking about. Dollars to donuts.
I bet you, I bet you he's going to fall
within a percentile on that thing. That is, I'm not
(43:12):
going to stay incompatible with life, but it would make
it would give give a pediatrician pause. They would say, oh,
what what's going on here? You know, what is this
child being fed? Because that's demonstrated in muscle wasting, all right,
or atrophy, it's demonstrated in the teeth, it's demonstrated in
(43:35):
bone growth. You know, do they fit within certain height parameters?
Do you have a kid that's just kind of dragging
around and uh in a in a lethargic state because
he's in deprived of caloric deprivation at that point in time,
they're not taking on enough enough to you know, sustain themselves.
(43:55):
And is this happening throughout the family unit? Uh? Uh
guaran damn tu one thing? I bet mom and daddy
weren't going without food? What you want to bet? I
can almost promise you. I've worked enough these cases. I've
seen enough of them. Now trial hadn't ocurred yet. The
reason we want to cover this case today is because
(44:17):
they've just hooked these people up, and I think that
it's important to bring this to our friend's attention out there,
because wherever you are, there's another Maroni out there. There's
a little girl, there's a little boy, probably not too
far away from where you live, that's going through maybe
(44:41):
not this extreme, but they're going through things that little
bitty kids should not have to endure. Now an arrest
has been effected, it is our hope that Maroney's voice,
as we hope for all of the dead that we
talked about, will in fact be heard. It's not just
(45:02):
the voice of the state wanting to prosecute a case.
It's about a little boy that died at the hands
of somebody allegedly that didn't care about him. As a
matter of fact, they really cared about what the state
is framing this torture. You can ask why all you
(45:25):
want to, but I guarantee you you'll still be asking
that long after they've given you some kind of answer.
It just doesn't add up. Guys, It's a cruel world
out there. If you have a chance, you come across
a stranger, just be kind, be kind to somebody. Today, Maroney,
(45:50):
all that needed to happen was the little mercy and
kindness extended to him and Unfortunately it didn't happen. I'm
Joseph Scott Morgan and this spotty answer
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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