December 3, 2024 • 45 mins
Joseph Scott Morgan has covered the Missing Kansas Moms story on Body Bags since it began. He continued that coverage with the autopsy report of Jillian Kelley a few weeks ago, and now Joseph Scott Morgan breaks down the 16-page autopsy report of Veronica Butler that begins with the Circumstances of death, then moves into the Assault with a knife, including THIRTY (30) Sharp Force Injuries, defensive wounds, and much more.
Transcript Highlights
00:04.93 Introduction
02:19.20 Life of Veronica Butler ending at age 27
04:27.17 Recovery from addiction issues
09:09.39 Requests to review autopsy reports
14:27.64 Defining "full thickness"
21:53.93 6 defensive injuries on Veronica's right hand
27:58.81 Autopsy report as a life road map
33:31.71 Appears someone was trying to cut her throat
38:09.54 Hemorrhages communicating, happened while alive
41:51.46 Why is Obesity mentioned in report
45:05.53 Conclusion
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Body dust. But Joseph Scott more I'm a fan of
one kind of I guess you could say he's a
niche musical artist. He's from my teen years and there
are certain songs that I particularly enjoy by, of all people,
(00:23):
Pelvis Costello, and he was just a unique artist, still
is and with a kind of an acquired taste relative
to his voice. But there was one song in particular
that I really enjoyed that he created, and it had
to do with his grandmother. And he talked about his grandmother,
(00:46):
you know, kind of slipping away in age and diminishing.
But that with her name, the name became a real
hook for the song. As the DJ types would say,
the song was called Veronica, and it always stands out
(01:07):
in my mind. There's nothing else that sounds like it.
But today I want to talk about another Veronica. I
want to talk about a Veronica who was a mother
who had children that she loved, she cared for. She
(01:29):
had hit a rough patch in her life, but her life,
after twenty seven years, came to a miserable, miserable end
in the middle of farming country in Oklahoma. I'm Joseph
(01:51):
Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks. Dave you ever listened
to any Elvis Costello or is that on your playlist
or not?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
You know, I have a very wide variety of music
I enjoy, so yes, there is some Elvis Costello in
the mix. But I was wondering how you were pulling
all this together with that and Veronica Butler being the
subject today. You know, for the most part, Joe, Kansas
Moms is how we started this story. If you remember
(02:26):
when we were covering it, they were missing. Kansas Moms
are missing. I'm glad you mentioned Veronica Butler having hit
a rough patch. I was explaining to this over the
last several days to a friend of mine. Oftentimes, when
you have custodial issues of children, it's not just the
parents that are in the mix. It's oftentimes grandparents who
(02:48):
decide to get in and star of the pot as well.
And Veronica Butler was dealing with a grandmother, her ex
her ex is mom, children's paternal grandmother. And Veronica Butler
had turned her life around. Yes she had gone through
some rough patches, and yes she did lose custody of
(03:08):
her children, but she had fought her way back hard.
She was, you know, active in recovery, she was active
in her church. She really had done a lot of
work to get herself together to be the mom her
children deserved, the mom she wanted to be, and believe
it or not, that's what cost her her life because
(03:31):
she was going to get her kids back Joe. She
was going to not have to go through visitation with
somebody watching. She was going to have her children twenty
four to seven, and for most of us would look
at that as a success story, something to be championed,
something to share, but not in this case.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Let's play junior psychologists for a second. Well, I think
I think mine would be not a junior psychologist. I
would be like a pre school psychologist.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Regious. I want to phone a friend.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
I wonder in circumstances like this, and you know, we
might have friends out there that have gone through similar circumstances,
people that are trying to get their lives back on track,
and suddenly they do and you're a new person. Now.
I really wonder if that factors into anger, because in
(04:27):
the past, if you had, say, addiction issues, perhaps you
had issues with personal responsibility, all of a sudden, you
don't You're not tethered to those people in the old
manner anyway, and those people always saw your weakness as
(04:49):
a strength for them, that kind of asymmetry that they
could control you. You know, they could say, well, you
know you've got addiction issues and you know you don't
need to be around these kids, or you can't even
show up on time, you know, how can we expect
you to take care of these kids? Is their food
in the fridge? Well, you place that dynamic into the situation,
(05:14):
you really wonder if that if that goes to incurring
the wrath of somebody that has previously controlled you, do
you what do you? What do you think about that? Then?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Nail on the head. Nail on the head. It's so tough, Joe,
when when you see somebody that has turned their life around,
and again I say many times, you like to champion them,
but there are always going to be people that say, well,
you know what you used to do, you know who
you used to be, you know, and they don't let
(05:47):
you get past that. And that's actually what happened here,
or if we're going to be very minimalistic, that's what happened.
Reality is And you know this, I've talked about it here,
I've shared this, but recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction
is it's a tough thing. Many people don't make it,
(06:08):
but when those do. In this particular case with Veronica Butler,
she turned her life around. She was a success story.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I would think that you would need a strong core
group of people to support you during this time, because
you know, you're you're kind of in a an infant
stage and development, you know, relative to a new life.
You know, you're just trying to get your legs and
then you're dealing with these really really intense, complex issues.
(06:39):
And it seems as though that it would you know,
and I know I'm kind of overstating the obvious here,
but it seems as though that it would be very
easy for somebody that had these issues to relapse. Oh
and the fact that she was still, you know, kind
of forging a head and trying to get her life online.
(07:00):
And oh, by the way, her ex husband was in jail.
You know, he he's got issues as well. But yet
she's in a you know, she's up in Kansas now,
she's part of a church group, you know, and she's
(07:21):
got somebody that's it would seem that would standing in
the gap with her and of course we all know
what happened to that poor woman, oh my, in regards
to this case, because we we actually covered her case
just a few weeks back, right, and you have to
you know, you can't climb inside the necessarily the mind
(07:46):
of the killer or killers is my suspicion in this case.
But I can tell you what we can unpeel and
unwrap here is that it's sad on one level, but
it's informative. I'm here to tell you, Dave that today
(08:08):
we have the full autopsy now on Veronica Butler that
has been issued from the Office of the Chief Medical
Examiner or Oklahoma City. I think that as we continue
to discuss this case, you will see what I have
previously stated born out that Veronica died a horrible death
(08:36):
and that yes, it did in fact surpass the injuries
that were incurred by her friend, this woman who was
with her. It was a brutal, brutal death. And I
know this that whoever perpetrated this, whoever will be named
(08:59):
in this case as being the responsible party, I don't
know if there's any way to measure the darkness in
their soul. I have a lot of folks that reach
(09:28):
out to me and I want I want me to
review autopsy reports and to take a look at them
and read over them, and other reports too, but primarily
autopsy reports, just to you know, kind of give my
two cents on the findings. I think probably the most
(09:53):
difficult thing for most people when it comes to these
post more of the big reveals, if you will, is
the fact that they're very detailed. We used to say
things like, well, this reads like stereo instructions, and if
you're if you're not used to reviewing them and reading them,
(10:18):
they can they can be rather complex. But this, this
autopsy report is actually very detailed, Dave. This is a
sixteen pager, and that gives you some indication as to
how detailed this is. It seems it goes on forever
(10:42):
and in fine detail. Relative to the insults that Veronica sustained,
these injuries all over her body, they're not all stab wounds,
but there are a plethora of them. I think that
we could say that the trauma that she sustained is.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Is horrible.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
And also, you know the other thing that really you know,
sticks with me about this case, you know, as it
did with Julian Kelly, I think is probably how both
of these women's remains were treated. That really gives you
an insight, I think, into the psyche of the individuals
(11:27):
that were involved in this case.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
A couple of quick questions. You mentioned it's sixteen pages long,
and is that the norm? Are they normally that long?
Or is this? Does the sixteen pages indicate just how
bad it was? Or is that normal? I mean, I
don't know what it takes to explain a scratch on
my elbow.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, well, okay, I can Okay. The quick answer is
it's going to be It's going to be dependent upon
the complexity of the case. And you could say that
if you're you know, if you're reading an engineering schematic,
you know, are we building you know, a tool shed
(12:14):
in the backyard or we building a twenty thousand square
foot mansion. The complexity of what you have before you
dictates the length of the report. If if you have
a a forensic pathologist that has a detailed mind. Some
have some or more more inclined to be very very detailed,
(12:41):
but you do have those that will just kind of
run over things really really quickly, and it demands, you know, interpretation.
I think I think sometimes I don't know this is
my own bias, probably. I think sometimes I've come across
reports at almost seemed as though the pathologist was leaving
(13:04):
things unexplained on purpose so that they would be drawn
into the descriptor, whether it be for a deposition or
whether it be you know, sitting sitting in court and
offering up you know, their opinion in court. You know,
it's that that's just the way my mind was. I
don't know if that's accurate or not, but it seems
(13:26):
to be. But with this case, Dave, you know, we're
we're talking about a case that you know that involves
I think thirty thirty sharp force injuries, Dave, and they're
they're all over the body. And in addition to that,
you know, she's she has sustained a really, really nasty
(13:51):
blunt force strike to her head. And that striking and
of itself is is brutal because it's what we refer to,
Dave as a full thickness laceration, which means you can
have like on the on the scalp, you can have
(14:13):
kind of a tear in the scalp that comes about
from blunt force, but when you get a full thickness,
this doesn't just break the skin. This goes all the
way through every single layer of the scalp down down
(14:34):
to the skull, so that the skull would actually you know,
bear evidence of hemorrhage you know on it, where you've
got blood that is all over the surface of the
skull and it's communicating with the overlying laceration. And in
this case, that's what she had. And here's an interesting,
a very interesting descriptor that they give to this, to
(14:58):
this strike. Dave the forensic pathologist, she actually describes this
laceration as chevron shaped. And for those that don't know
what a chevron is, if you think of sergeant Stripes
in the army or a marine corps where you have,
(15:21):
you know, the the chevron looks like a you know,
a mosquito wing essentially. It's actually that's what they're referred
to as. If you're a private you get that first stripe,
it's a mosquito wing and it you know, it has
that that point at the top and kind of you know,
slides down on both sides. Dave to me, to me,
if you've got that definitive kind of mark like that,
(15:44):
I'm really wondering if there was any way that they
could tell that there was a particular instrument that was
used here. Wow, because you know, you have to think about, well,
what would create a very specific injury like this a
chevron shape and if you think about, say the leading
(16:04):
edge of any kind of squared off object. Perhaps I've
seen chevron shapes with a brick. I've seen chevron shapes
actually with a piece of angle iron that that goes
to that that makes kind of sense. I've seen chevron
(16:26):
shapes that are associated with pistol whippings as well. Wow,
because if you think the shape, if you think about
the shape of a of a semi automatic pistol, if
you look at the end of the barrel where the
slide is and the sight the end that that sight
at the end the hard site that the iron sight
(16:47):
that's at the end, the shape of the barrel, it forms,
you know, it kind of forms this ninety degree angle
like that, and so you can generate a chevron shape
from that. So and look again, it might not necessarily
be anything specific like that, but uh, the doctor doctor
Cobb went to went into detail to drive mean that
(17:09):
this was a chevron shaped laceration. And another feature that
we look for in lacerations. And I always love to
point this out, particularly to people that that work in
the medical field. Uh, they'll call cuts many times cuts
with with sharp force injuries, they'll call them lacerations, and
(17:32):
they're not. Those are not lacerations. Those are in sized wounds.
Lacerations are generated from blunt force trauma. And in here
doctor Cobb talks about tissue bridging. So tissue bridging is
means that you've got this this item that has pounded
on the skin and has literally torn the skin. So
(17:54):
you've got these little fine fibers that are still connecting,
you know, the boat odds of the injury, and there
was no associated underlying fracture of the skull, but it
was this this blow was strong enough to generate this
chevron shaped laceration. If this had been done with a knife,
(18:18):
for instance, or an axe, okay, you wouldn't have tissue bridging, okay,
because you've got that milled edge that cuts through tissue
and it makes those margins nice and even. And here
she was struck in the head the other thing again,
just like we had with Jillian. I don't know if
(18:40):
you remember this, my friend, but do you recall there
was a unique injury that was found in Gillian's case,
and again we have with Veronica. We have also what
the me is calling burns from or a burn from
(19:03):
what appears to be a stunt gun.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I found it shocking in reading the autopsy report that, well,
I'm in the back of a minute. You mentioned the taser,
and I'm thinking about the battle that went on. This
autopsy report describes a battle for life and death and
(19:28):
Veronica Butler is outnumbered. And I was trying to in
knowing that we had done Jilly and Kelly before, and
in my mind's eye, were looking at four people attacking
these two women, and I'm trying to think of who
was taken out of commission first. They weren't piling on
(19:48):
both of There wasn't a dual fight going on like
in the movies. I don't think it seems to me
they were able to hold one steady or incapacitated in
some way while the other was killed. That was my
thought process. But now that I'm reading this and I'm
I was shocked at the number of defensive wounds.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah. Can I say something about that really? Please? Yeah? Uh,
this gives me, This gives me, This opens up my
mind as an investigator to begin to think that she
may have been taunted, she may have been taunted, that
(20:32):
they're coming around her like a pack of ravenous wolves
at this point in time. And remember, if we go
back to what we were saying earlier, or what I
will say playing you know, elementary psychologists, there's a lot
of anger involved here, and you know, you can kind
of kind of game this out in your mind where
(20:54):
you're thinking, Okay, so this individual that has decided to
perpetrate this, if it is the accused, and again, this
case is not going to trial, so nobody has been tried.
We've got individuals that have been charged, but nobody has
been tried and found guilty. But if if this was
(21:16):
an event where you've got her on the receiving end
of all of this anger, all of this hatred, there
there may have been a kind of this precursor to
the fatal attack. Because we we've got injuries that you know,
are consistent with her defending herself. You know, where she's
(21:40):
you know, lifting her arms, her hands. We've got these
what they're detailing out as as defensive style injuries. Uh,
and you know that and you can, you know, you
can begin to learn a lot about the the the
(22:04):
I don't know the dynamic of an event because there's
there's six, there's six defensive style injuries. Uh, dave that.
Uh you know, we've got them to the second and
the fifth fingers on on Veronica's hand, and these are
all again on the right hand with the six and
(22:29):
she's got a a superficial what they're calling a superficial
defensive type wound on the left proximal forearm, which is
going to be closer to the proximal means closer to
so when you say plot, if it was on the
left wrist, that would be distal. If you talk about
(22:52):
proximal left proximal, that means you're getting closer to the elbow.
So she's blocking with her left left arm and she's
grabbing a knife with her right. Do you see how
how just cruesomeness is at this point in time. And
she's even got a she's got a single defensive style
(23:14):
wound to her left palm, So at some point in
time that knife that was used was drug through you know,
her palm. Uh. She's got several of these kind of
superficial uh insized wounds, even stuff on like the inner
(23:35):
portion of her thighs, the left left eigh in particular.
So yeah, there's a huge dynamic going on here. This
is you know, this this knife being used over and
over and over again. Now she is trying. She knows
that these people at this point in time are here
to to you know, to end her life. I think
(23:57):
one of the things that's fascinating to me, you know,
kind of going back to the back to these taser
not tasting but stun gun injuries, how did you know?
You can never tell sequence about these things, and if
(24:17):
you're it's a fool's er. And if you try, if
you try to, it truly is uh. And I really
wonder about the sequencing of the you know, of these
of these stun gun injuries as compared to the strike,
the chevron strike injury that she has on her scalp
(24:38):
and also these defensive injuries. Did did they stun her
when she was in the vehicle or did they stun
her once she got out? Because the stun gun injuries
that Veronica has on her on her body there referring
(25:00):
to them are it as the upper upper back, lower neck,
So that means that unless if you're the perpetrator unless
you wrap your arms around her from the front and
stunder that way. This is being initiated by somebody being
in at your posterior and extending their arm or maybe
(25:22):
grabbing you by your forehead and jaminous thing into the
back of your and and buzzing you with it and
it knocks them down to the ground. But if you're
incapacitated as a result of a stunt gun, have you
ever seen anybody hit with a stun gun before? They Yeah, yeah,
I have. And I've seen tasers too. And when you
(25:44):
and there's all the taser videos that are online, you
know about cops going through training, the military going through training,
and you are in fact incapacity. Now, some people, as
we see in some of these remarkable videos, they get
hit with a taser and it doesn't fade. I mean,
they just keep on, you know, keep on keeping on.
But for most people, you're going to go into this
(26:05):
kind of tense rigidity where you fall to the fall
to the ground and it takes you it takes you
a minute or two to clear your head. So we
have to think that the taser wounds would not have
come at the same time the defensive wounds would have
(26:26):
come out, So the sequence there you really begin to
wonder about sequence of these insults. If she's popped with
that taser or forgive me, with stun gun, that would
be posterior. Now I don't know if she just collapsed
into a pool, you know, inside of the truck, outside
(26:46):
of the truck, or if she fell forward. You would
think falling forward be the most logical things since she's
popped on the back of the neck and then she's stabbed.
But does she have an awareness of stab wounds that
she's having she turns around or rolls over finally and
starts grabbing a knife, or is she erect when this
(27:07):
is going Did she get back because they've got to
move them around, you know, to this grave that has
been dug Either way, I know this by my account.
I don't know in recent memory if we have covered
a case with so many injuries as were sustained by
(27:32):
Veronica Butler. But when you take this and you begin
to think about the totality of injuries here and the
fact that this happened to two women approximating the same
location on the same day who wind up being in
(27:52):
the same grave, you know that there is more than
one person that have a hands. If most of us
(28:14):
will just view an autopsy report as a roadmap, it
will give you a lot of insight into both maybe
life that had been lived, the moments of death, and
(28:35):
then I think probably what happened to that individual after
they were deceased. And that's no different here in Veronica
Butler's case, Dave. But the thing about it is is
that this roadmap, so called roadmap is really like a
(28:59):
ram McNally book. Wow, so detailed. There's a blast from
the past.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
But go ahead and google it. If you're under thirty five,
you have no idea what that is.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
It is so very detailed, you know, relative to all
of the data that is contained herein before us, Dave.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I was looking at the report of autopsy that starts
with the means and it's title assault with knife, So
they start right there, and at the very beginning they've
already that they've got multiple sharp force trauma with a
total of thirty sharp force injuries, and then below that
(29:40):
heading a sharp force injuries to the head and neck
B sharp for injuries to the torso see sharp force
injuries to the extremities. In this balance of figuring out
exactly what happened scientifically, do you also take into account
which of these strikes blows cuts, what it could have
(30:04):
been fatal? Is that part of the discussion early.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's excellent because if
you look at this most of the time, you're going
to start off in these findings almost like a death
certificate where if anyone has ever read a death certificate
and you there's generally three lines on the death certificate
and it will read, you know, the cause of death,
(30:30):
and then you've got contributing factors that kind of go
down the line. When you see when you see these
contributing factors, you know they they go to an overall narrative.
But what they're going to start off with are these
things that you know would have led, you know, lead
to to death. And you know, it's like the what
(30:55):
what's the old what's what's the old saying? You know,
or though uh, Shakespeare death by a thousand cuts, Yeah,
it's not it's not quick. And some of these things
are are superficial, uh, and some of them are are deep.
I mean, for instance, she's gotten multiple and they're calling
(31:18):
these in size Dave, these are not these are not
stab ones. Just to start off the sharp force injuries
in the subheadings, you've got four and sized ones, including
one deep to the top and the back of the head.
So when we say in size, that's a cut, well
(31:42):
that cut again like the laceration that we mentioned earlier,
this is this is a full thickness cut, Dave. This
is full thickness with a knife. So just imagine, if
you will, taking the sharp edge of a knife and
dragging it across the scalp of body and cutting not
just superficially, but all the way down to the bone.
(32:07):
It's got another you know, deep deep in sized wound
that goes Now, this is this is nuts to me.
She's got a deep in sized wound to the lower
central forehead. Yeah, why would you need that? And then
there's an underlying frontal skull fracture there. How do you
(32:31):
achieve that? And again, horrible, horrible stuff, but I think
probably what led to her debts. Specifically, she's got she's
got a stab wound to the left posterior lateral upper neck.
So if you if you take your left hand and
(32:55):
essentially put it beneath your ear, your ear lobe, this
is going to be approximating the the the injury right there.
That's a stab wound. And this actually hits the left
internal juggular vein and also it goes into the oral floor.
(33:19):
Just think about is that the ral floor is where
the attachment of the tongue. That's how deep this thing goes,
all right, So you're clipping all these little vessels that
are in there. She's got another incized wound, uh, the
upper lateral neck on the left side, which implies to
(33:41):
me that somebody's trying to cut her throat. She's got
two stab wounds to the lower right anterio lateral and
lateral neck. So if you put your hand on the
right aspect of your neck, these these go. This is
very deep, Dave. These go now anterior lateral means like
(34:02):
ford and anterior forward and lateral, so it involves both aspects,
the right aspect of the neck, the anterior portion and lateral.
And Dave, this goes all the way down, uh. It
it clips the juggler vein on that side of the
(34:22):
of the neck and also goes all the way down
to the sea five vertebra clips her spinal nerve at
that point. Toime so you've got these really really deep,
deep wounds that would have required a tremendous amount of force.
And then on top of this, you've got all of
(34:42):
these defensive injuries that she sustained. So in total, you know,
we're we're looking at this. You know, this poor woman
sustained over thirty sharp force injuries, and sharp force means
that she's got stab wounds and in sized wounds, two
different things. And then she's got this, uh, this really
nasty blunt force trauma to the back of her head,
(35:07):
and she's been popped with a stun gun in addition
to this, uh this, And I hope that people understand
now the level of brutality. You combine this with Jillian,
and something that we talked about that we talked about
last time was that relative to Jillian, I really wondered,
(35:31):
and this goes along with taunting. I really wonder if
they killed Jillian uh in front of Veronica, because remember
Jillian was in the bottom, okay, and Veronica was found
on top of her inside of this container. And you
know that's enough to chill you right there. You know
(35:51):
that she was made to watch this event that took
place in front of her and and maybe maybe the
police will have more information relative to that. I don't know, brother,
it's it's certainly it paints a horrible, horrible picture.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Though, you know, there was the as you mentioned, you've
got the sharp forest trauma. The thirty again, think about
thirty stab wounds. Thirty not that's a lot, Joe, that's
a lot of sad wounds. And yeah, I'm thinking of
the pack of wolves circling. You know, she's hit on
the back of the head and I was thinking that,
(36:27):
you know, when you talked about the scalp in the front,
I was wondering if she got hit in the head
and that caused your front, the forehead to hit something
that caused this. But based on no, it was just
so much different.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yeah, and that location to me again, it's interesting because
you would think that she's got an underlying, an underlying
fracture right relative to what they're calling and in sized
an in sized wound. I don't know. I don't know
how you would achieve a a fracture, an underlying fracture
(37:03):
of an incized The insized wine is very deep. And
just to give our friends an idea where this thing is,
this is a disfigurement, Dave, if you go to your eyebrows, okay,
and essentially move up probably about an inch, that would
approximate the location of this full thickness in size woind
(37:25):
that she's got across her forehead. You know, and you
know to me, that's you don't normally see insized wounds
to a scalp like this where people you know, you've
got this other one on the back side of the head.
And also, by the way, that injury on the back,
that other inside deep insized one, it actually communicates or
the hemorrhage communicates, according to what the autopsy report says,
(37:49):
the hemorrhage from that insized injury communicates with the hemorrhage
generated from that blunt force trauma. So both of those
injuries has occurred in life. Uh, she had sustained these
that they this is this is the stuff of nightmares.
This is an attempt to to disfigure this poor woman.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
While she's alive, scalping her while she's alive.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Yeah, no, I won't say, I won't necessarily say scalping.
Oh yeah, it involves the full thickness of the scalp,
and you've got these these injuries that are involving you know,
the head. It's very curious to me, uh, what what
the purpose was for this? And you know, these are
people that are allegedly very well equipped with Uh. They
(38:41):
have the means to have a cooler, a disabled cooler. Uh,
they have a skits deer, they have the ability to
dig a hole. What in the name of the Sweet Lord,
are you going to show up with knives? Yeah, you
have to think that they they had they had firearms.
(39:02):
Do you see what I'm saying here? It's one thing
if you, as horrible as it is, to find somebody
that has been executed with gunshot one of the head.
This goes beyond that. This goes beyond that. And you're
telling me that out of not you, the universal you,
you're telling me that, out of all of these people
(39:25):
that are involved in this confederacy here, that no one
among them had a firearm in order to facilitate the death,
a merciful death. Compared to what what we see played
out here, it's it's mind boggling.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
And we know they did have a gun because we
found you know, parts of it, We found h you know,
and it might have been Varanica Butler's gun you know.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, we don't know, but you know, why not have
the utility to use it? You know, if it does
belong to the alleged perpetrators, why why does it your
Do you have no mercy left in your soul? Total torch,
none whatsoever? Because that, you know, we're really absent here
(40:13):
of of that level of humanity.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
At the same day, let me ask you, though, there
was something else on the autopsy that it just struck
me as odd because we've got the description of these
horrible injuries done to this woman, this mother, and we've
got the possible stun gun mars and the lower neck
and upper back. The bodies already are in what is
(40:40):
referred to as moderate putra Jack, I don't know how
you pronounced future active. Is that what it is? Puture
factive future factor? Okay, yeah, puture factor. It's decomposition. The
bodies are decomposing together, yeah, and so much.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
So that they took the glow off the hands. The
hands were degloving, which means okay, but they were able
to peel that top layer and they submitted that to
the state. Yes, so they were decomposing degloving.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Is that top layer of skin?
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yes, yeah, but why would.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
They have to include an actual bullet point here? Number
five right, obesity? Why that's listed on Valerie Veronica Butler's here.
You know, you start off with multiple sharp worst trauma
with a total of thirty sharp forest injuries and number
five obesity.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Yeah, I don't I don't understand that. Uh. Generally, if
and it's not uncommon to see obesity listed in an
autopsy report, but it's generally in the in the like
in the Just so, folks, I'm kind of painting a
word picture here the autopsy report when you rea that
(42:00):
has these, it's essentially a list. It's a bulleted list
with Roman numerals, with subsections and such as that that
that the data for the injuries is coming from. However,
is that final bullet is placed in there it says obesity.
Generally you'll see a mention of obesity in the external
(42:25):
examination where they'll say, today we receive the body of
I don't know, let's just pull uh you know of
John Smith, white male. He's moderately obese, morbidly obese. And
that's kind of in a general descriptor. This is literally
(42:46):
added in the area that would be considered a contributing
factor to her death, and I don't I don't understand
the rationale for that. I would I think that this
is something that perhaps might be that she would have
(43:07):
to explain on the stand when this thing finally goes
to trial, because you kind of bury the lead here.
You know, you're going through these horrific injuries and oh,
by the way, she's obese. I don't understand how that
plays into it. I can understand it as a descriptor
right in a narrative description, but it just doesn't make sense.
(43:28):
And this thing is so detailed, this autopsy report. Other
than that little point, I think that that's really the
only thing that you know, that really stands out to
me this kind of odd. The autopsy report itself is
markedly detailed, which is fantastic because I in the last
(43:50):
few years, I've come across many that have little or nothing.
I think I had. I covered one case on the air,
and I know which case it was. I do so many.
That doesn't mean that I'm great. It just means that
I'm dumb enough to keep doing. And you know, and
I was going to go on some news program and
(44:11):
I remember they sent me the autopsy report. David and
it was a multiple gunshot one where we had gunshots
all over the body. And I looked at the report
and the report was like four pages in length, and
one of those pages was the title page, and it
had nothing really a lot of detail relative to range
(44:31):
of fire or trajectories in this case. Though this took
some time, and they had They did both of these cases,
both Jillian's and Veronica's, the same day. This would have
been just to give you, guys, an idea of the
involvement in something like this. This is something that you
(44:51):
would have been in that autopsy suite all day long
and there would have been no pulling back from this.
It would have been a long, arduous, exhausting day for
the entire staff because there's a lot of detail, and
plus you've got the added factor of decomposition, and that
(45:14):
in and of itself obscures many things at autopsy. That's
why you have to be very careful and take your time.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body back
Body dust. But Joseph Scott more I'm a fan of
one kind of I guess you could say he's a
niche musical artist. He's from my teen years and there
are certain songs that I particularly enjoy by, of all people,
(00:23):
Pelvis Costello, and he was just a unique artist, still
is and with a kind of an acquired taste relative
to his voice. But there was one song in particular
that I really enjoyed that he created, and it had
to do with his grandmother. And he talked about his grandmother,
(00:46):
you know, kind of slipping away in age and diminishing.
But that with her name, the name became a real
hook for the song. As the DJ types would say,
the song was called Veronica, and it always stands out
(01:07):
in my mind. There's nothing else that sounds like it.
But today I want to talk about another Veronica. I
want to talk about a Veronica who was a mother
who had children that she loved, she cared for. She
(01:29):
had hit a rough patch in her life, but her life,
after twenty seven years, came to a miserable, miserable end
in the middle of farming country in Oklahoma. I'm Joseph
(01:51):
Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks. Dave you ever listened
to any Elvis Costello or is that on your playlist
or not?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
You know, I have a very wide variety of music
I enjoy, so yes, there is some Elvis Costello in
the mix. But I was wondering how you were pulling
all this together with that and Veronica Butler being the
subject today. You know, for the most part, Joe, Kansas
Moms is how we started this story. If you remember
(02:26):
when we were covering it, they were missing. Kansas Moms
are missing. I'm glad you mentioned Veronica Butler having hit
a rough patch. I was explaining to this over the
last several days to a friend of mine. Oftentimes, when
you have custodial issues of children, it's not just the
parents that are in the mix. It's oftentimes grandparents who
(02:48):
decide to get in and star of the pot as well.
And Veronica Butler was dealing with a grandmother, her ex
her ex is mom, children's paternal grandmother. And Veronica Butler
had turned her life around. Yes she had gone through
some rough patches, and yes she did lose custody of
(03:08):
her children, but she had fought her way back hard.
She was, you know, active in recovery, she was active
in her church. She really had done a lot of
work to get herself together to be the mom her
children deserved, the mom she wanted to be, and believe
it or not, that's what cost her her life because
(03:31):
she was going to get her kids back Joe. She
was going to not have to go through visitation with
somebody watching. She was going to have her children twenty
four to seven, and for most of us would look
at that as a success story, something to be championed,
something to share, but not in this case.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Let's play junior psychologists for a second. Well, I think
I think mine would be not a junior psychologist. I
would be like a pre school psychologist.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Regious. I want to phone a friend.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
I wonder in circumstances like this, and you know, we
might have friends out there that have gone through similar circumstances,
people that are trying to get their lives back on track,
and suddenly they do and you're a new person. Now.
I really wonder if that factors into anger, because in
(04:27):
the past, if you had, say, addiction issues, perhaps you
had issues with personal responsibility, all of a sudden, you
don't You're not tethered to those people in the old
manner anyway, and those people always saw your weakness as
(04:49):
a strength for them, that kind of asymmetry that they
could control you. You know, they could say, well, you
know you've got addiction issues and you know you don't
need to be around these kids, or you can't even
show up on time, you know, how can we expect
you to take care of these kids? Is their food
in the fridge? Well, you place that dynamic into the situation,
(05:14):
you really wonder if that if that goes to incurring
the wrath of somebody that has previously controlled you, do
you what do you? What do you think about that? Then?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Nail on the head. Nail on the head. It's so tough, Joe,
when when you see somebody that has turned their life around,
and again I say many times, you like to champion them,
but there are always going to be people that say, well,
you know what you used to do, you know who
you used to be, you know, and they don't let
(05:47):
you get past that. And that's actually what happened here,
or if we're going to be very minimalistic, that's what happened.
Reality is And you know this, I've talked about it here,
I've shared this, but recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction
is it's a tough thing. Many people don't make it,
(06:08):
but when those do. In this particular case with Veronica Butler,
she turned her life around. She was a success story.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I would think that you would need a strong core
group of people to support you during this time, because
you know, you're you're kind of in a an infant
stage and development, you know, relative to a new life.
You know, you're just trying to get your legs and
then you're dealing with these really really intense, complex issues.
(06:39):
And it seems as though that it would you know,
and I know I'm kind of overstating the obvious here,
but it seems as though that it would be very
easy for somebody that had these issues to relapse. Oh
and the fact that she was still, you know, kind
of forging a head and trying to get her life online.
(07:00):
And oh, by the way, her ex husband was in jail.
You know, he he's got issues as well. But yet
she's in a you know, she's up in Kansas now,
she's part of a church group, you know, and she's
(07:21):
got somebody that's it would seem that would standing in
the gap with her and of course we all know
what happened to that poor woman, oh my, in regards
to this case, because we we actually covered her case
just a few weeks back, right, and you have to
you know, you can't climb inside the necessarily the mind
(07:46):
of the killer or killers is my suspicion in this case.
But I can tell you what we can unpeel and
unwrap here is that it's sad on one level, but
it's informative. I'm here to tell you, Dave that today
(08:08):
we have the full autopsy now on Veronica Butler that
has been issued from the Office of the Chief Medical
Examiner or Oklahoma City. I think that as we continue
to discuss this case, you will see what I have
previously stated born out that Veronica died a horrible death
(08:36):
and that yes, it did in fact surpass the injuries
that were incurred by her friend, this woman who was
with her. It was a brutal, brutal death. And I
know this that whoever perpetrated this, whoever will be named
(08:59):
in this case as being the responsible party, I don't
know if there's any way to measure the darkness in
their soul. I have a lot of folks that reach
(09:28):
out to me and I want I want me to
review autopsy reports and to take a look at them
and read over them, and other reports too, but primarily
autopsy reports, just to you know, kind of give my
two cents on the findings. I think probably the most
(09:53):
difficult thing for most people when it comes to these
post more of the big reveals, if you will, is
the fact that they're very detailed. We used to say
things like, well, this reads like stereo instructions, and if
you're if you're not used to reviewing them and reading them,
(10:18):
they can they can be rather complex. But this, this
autopsy report is actually very detailed, Dave. This is a
sixteen pager, and that gives you some indication as to
how detailed this is. It seems it goes on forever
(10:42):
and in fine detail. Relative to the insults that Veronica sustained,
these injuries all over her body, they're not all stab wounds,
but there are a plethora of them. I think that
we could say that the trauma that she sustained is.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Is horrible.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
And also, you know the other thing that really you know,
sticks with me about this case, you know, as it
did with Julian Kelly, I think is probably how both
of these women's remains were treated. That really gives you
an insight, I think, into the psyche of the individuals
(11:27):
that were involved in this case.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
A couple of quick questions. You mentioned it's sixteen pages long,
and is that the norm? Are they normally that long?
Or is this? Does the sixteen pages indicate just how
bad it was? Or is that normal? I mean, I
don't know what it takes to explain a scratch on
my elbow.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, well, okay, I can Okay. The quick answer is
it's going to be It's going to be dependent upon
the complexity of the case. And you could say that
if you're you know, if you're reading an engineering schematic,
you know, are we building you know, a tool shed
(12:14):
in the backyard or we building a twenty thousand square
foot mansion. The complexity of what you have before you
dictates the length of the report. If if you have
a a forensic pathologist that has a detailed mind. Some
have some or more more inclined to be very very detailed,
(12:41):
but you do have those that will just kind of
run over things really really quickly, and it demands, you know, interpretation.
I think I think sometimes I don't know this is
my own bias, probably. I think sometimes I've come across
reports at almost seemed as though the pathologist was leaving
(13:04):
things unexplained on purpose so that they would be drawn
into the descriptor, whether it be for a deposition or
whether it be you know, sitting sitting in court and
offering up you know, their opinion in court. You know,
it's that that's just the way my mind was. I
don't know if that's accurate or not, but it seems
(13:26):
to be. But with this case, Dave, you know, we're
we're talking about a case that you know that involves
I think thirty thirty sharp force injuries, Dave, and they're
they're all over the body. And in addition to that,
you know, she's she has sustained a really, really nasty
(13:51):
blunt force strike to her head. And that striking and
of itself is is brutal because it's what we refer to,
Dave as a full thickness laceration, which means you can
have like on the on the scalp, you can have
(14:13):
kind of a tear in the scalp that comes about
from blunt force, but when you get a full thickness,
this doesn't just break the skin. This goes all the
way through every single layer of the scalp down down
(14:34):
to the skull, so that the skull would actually you know,
bear evidence of hemorrhage you know on it, where you've
got blood that is all over the surface of the
skull and it's communicating with the overlying laceration. And in
this case, that's what she had. And here's an interesting,
a very interesting descriptor that they give to this, to
(14:58):
this strike. Dave the forensic pathologist, she actually describes this
laceration as chevron shaped. And for those that don't know
what a chevron is, if you think of sergeant Stripes
in the army or a marine corps where you have,
(15:21):
you know, the the chevron looks like a you know,
a mosquito wing essentially. It's actually that's what they're referred
to as. If you're a private you get that first stripe,
it's a mosquito wing and it you know, it has
that that point at the top and kind of you know,
slides down on both sides. Dave to me, to me,
if you've got that definitive kind of mark like that,
(15:44):
I'm really wondering if there was any way that they
could tell that there was a particular instrument that was
used here. Wow, because you know, you have to think about, well,
what would create a very specific injury like this a
chevron shape and if you think about, say the leading
(16:04):
edge of any kind of squared off object. Perhaps I've
seen chevron shapes with a brick. I've seen chevron shapes
actually with a piece of angle iron that that goes
to that that makes kind of sense. I've seen chevron
(16:26):
shapes that are associated with pistol whippings as well. Wow,
because if you think the shape, if you think about
the shape of a of a semi automatic pistol, if
you look at the end of the barrel where the
slide is and the sight the end that that sight
at the end the hard site that the iron sight
(16:47):
that's at the end, the shape of the barrel, it forms,
you know, it kind of forms this ninety degree angle
like that, and so you can generate a chevron shape
from that. So and look again, it might not necessarily
be anything specific like that, but uh, the doctor doctor
Cobb went to went into detail to drive mean that
(17:09):
this was a chevron shaped laceration. And another feature that
we look for in lacerations. And I always love to
point this out, particularly to people that that work in
the medical field. Uh, they'll call cuts many times cuts
with with sharp force injuries, they'll call them lacerations, and
(17:32):
they're not. Those are not lacerations. Those are in sized wounds.
Lacerations are generated from blunt force trauma. And in here
doctor Cobb talks about tissue bridging. So tissue bridging is
means that you've got this this item that has pounded
on the skin and has literally torn the skin. So
(17:54):
you've got these little fine fibers that are still connecting,
you know, the boat odds of the injury, and there
was no associated underlying fracture of the skull, but it
was this this blow was strong enough to generate this
chevron shaped laceration. If this had been done with a knife,
(18:18):
for instance, or an axe, okay, you wouldn't have tissue bridging, okay,
because you've got that milled edge that cuts through tissue
and it makes those margins nice and even. And here
she was struck in the head the other thing again,
just like we had with Jillian. I don't know if
(18:40):
you remember this, my friend, but do you recall there
was a unique injury that was found in Gillian's case,
and again we have with Veronica. We have also what
the me is calling burns from or a burn from
(19:03):
what appears to be a stunt gun.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I found it shocking in reading the autopsy report that, well,
I'm in the back of a minute. You mentioned the taser,
and I'm thinking about the battle that went on. This
autopsy report describes a battle for life and death and
(19:28):
Veronica Butler is outnumbered. And I was trying to in
knowing that we had done Jilly and Kelly before, and
in my mind's eye, were looking at four people attacking
these two women, and I'm trying to think of who
was taken out of commission first. They weren't piling on
(19:48):
both of There wasn't a dual fight going on like
in the movies. I don't think it seems to me
they were able to hold one steady or incapacitated in
some way while the other was killed. That was my
thought process. But now that I'm reading this and I'm
I was shocked at the number of defensive wounds.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah. Can I say something about that really? Please? Yeah? Uh,
this gives me, This gives me, This opens up my
mind as an investigator to begin to think that she
may have been taunted, she may have been taunted, that
(20:32):
they're coming around her like a pack of ravenous wolves
at this point in time. And remember, if we go
back to what we were saying earlier, or what I
will say playing you know, elementary psychologists, there's a lot
of anger involved here, and you know, you can kind
of kind of game this out in your mind where
(20:54):
you're thinking, Okay, so this individual that has decided to
perpetrate this, if it is the accused, and again, this
case is not going to trial, so nobody has been tried.
We've got individuals that have been charged, but nobody has
been tried and found guilty. But if if this was
(21:16):
an event where you've got her on the receiving end
of all of this anger, all of this hatred, there
there may have been a kind of this precursor to
the fatal attack. Because we we've got injuries that you know,
are consistent with her defending herself. You know, where she's
(21:40):
you know, lifting her arms, her hands. We've got these
what they're detailing out as as defensive style injuries. Uh,
and you know that and you can, you know, you
can begin to learn a lot about the the the
(22:04):
I don't know the dynamic of an event because there's
there's six, there's six defensive style injuries. Uh, dave that.
Uh you know, we've got them to the second and
the fifth fingers on on Veronica's hand, and these are
all again on the right hand with the six and
(22:29):
she's got a a superficial what they're calling a superficial
defensive type wound on the left proximal forearm, which is
going to be closer to the proximal means closer to
so when you say plot, if it was on the
left wrist, that would be distal. If you talk about
(22:52):
proximal left proximal, that means you're getting closer to the elbow.
So she's blocking with her left left arm and she's
grabbing a knife with her right. Do you see how
how just cruesomeness is at this point in time. And
she's even got a she's got a single defensive style
(23:14):
wound to her left palm, So at some point in
time that knife that was used was drug through you know,
her palm. Uh. She's got several of these kind of
superficial uh insized wounds, even stuff on like the inner
(23:35):
portion of her thighs, the left left eigh in particular.
So yeah, there's a huge dynamic going on here. This
is you know, this this knife being used over and
over and over again. Now she is trying. She knows
that these people at this point in time are here
to to you know, to end her life. I think
(23:57):
one of the things that's fascinating to me, you know,
kind of going back to the back to these taser
not tasting but stun gun injuries, how did you know?
You can never tell sequence about these things, and if
(24:17):
you're it's a fool's er. And if you try, if
you try to, it truly is uh. And I really
wonder about the sequencing of the you know, of these
of these stun gun injuries as compared to the strike,
the chevron strike injury that she has on her scalp
(24:38):
and also these defensive injuries. Did did they stun her
when she was in the vehicle or did they stun
her once she got out? Because the stun gun injuries
that Veronica has on her on her body there referring
(25:00):
to them are it as the upper upper back, lower neck,
So that means that unless if you're the perpetrator unless
you wrap your arms around her from the front and
stunder that way. This is being initiated by somebody being
in at your posterior and extending their arm or maybe
(25:22):
grabbing you by your forehead and jaminous thing into the
back of your and and buzzing you with it and
it knocks them down to the ground. But if you're
incapacitated as a result of a stunt gun, have you
ever seen anybody hit with a stun gun before? They Yeah, yeah,
I have. And I've seen tasers too. And when you
(25:44):
and there's all the taser videos that are online, you
know about cops going through training, the military going through training,
and you are in fact incapacity. Now, some people, as
we see in some of these remarkable videos, they get
hit with a taser and it doesn't fade. I mean,
they just keep on, you know, keep on keeping on.
But for most people, you're going to go into this
(26:05):
kind of tense rigidity where you fall to the fall
to the ground and it takes you it takes you
a minute or two to clear your head. So we
have to think that the taser wounds would not have
come at the same time the defensive wounds would have
(26:26):
come out, So the sequence there you really begin to
wonder about sequence of these insults. If she's popped with
that taser or forgive me, with stun gun, that would
be posterior. Now I don't know if she just collapsed
into a pool, you know, inside of the truck, outside
(26:46):
of the truck, or if she fell forward. You would
think falling forward be the most logical things since she's
popped on the back of the neck and then she's stabbed.
But does she have an awareness of stab wounds that
she's having she turns around or rolls over finally and
starts grabbing a knife, or is she erect when this
(27:07):
is going Did she get back because they've got to
move them around, you know, to this grave that has
been dug Either way, I know this by my account.
I don't know in recent memory if we have covered
a case with so many injuries as were sustained by
(27:32):
Veronica Butler. But when you take this and you begin
to think about the totality of injuries here and the
fact that this happened to two women approximating the same
location on the same day who wind up being in
(27:52):
the same grave, you know that there is more than
one person that have a hands. If most of us
(28:14):
will just view an autopsy report as a roadmap, it
will give you a lot of insight into both maybe
life that had been lived, the moments of death, and
(28:35):
then I think probably what happened to that individual after
they were deceased. And that's no different here in Veronica
Butler's case, Dave. But the thing about it is is
that this roadmap, so called roadmap is really like a
(28:59):
ram McNally book. Wow, so detailed. There's a blast from
the past.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
But go ahead and google it. If you're under thirty five,
you have no idea what that is.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
It is so very detailed, you know, relative to all
of the data that is contained herein before us, Dave.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I was looking at the report of autopsy that starts
with the means and it's title assault with knife, So
they start right there, and at the very beginning they've
already that they've got multiple sharp force trauma with a
total of thirty sharp force injuries, and then below that
(29:40):
heading a sharp force injuries to the head and neck
B sharp for injuries to the torso see sharp force
injuries to the extremities. In this balance of figuring out
exactly what happened scientifically, do you also take into account
which of these strikes blows cuts, what it could have
(30:04):
been fatal? Is that part of the discussion early.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's excellent because if
you look at this most of the time, you're going
to start off in these findings almost like a death
certificate where if anyone has ever read a death certificate
and you there's generally three lines on the death certificate
and it will read, you know, the cause of death,
(30:30):
and then you've got contributing factors that kind of go
down the line. When you see when you see these
contributing factors, you know they they go to an overall narrative.
But what they're going to start off with are these
things that you know would have led, you know, lead
to to death. And you know, it's like the what
(30:55):
what's the old what's what's the old saying? You know,
or though uh, Shakespeare death by a thousand cuts, Yeah,
it's not it's not quick. And some of these things
are are superficial, uh, and some of them are are deep.
I mean, for instance, she's gotten multiple and they're calling
(31:18):
these in size Dave, these are not these are not
stab ones. Just to start off the sharp force injuries
in the subheadings, you've got four and sized ones, including
one deep to the top and the back of the head.
So when we say in size, that's a cut, well
(31:42):
that cut again like the laceration that we mentioned earlier,
this is this is a full thickness cut, Dave. This
is full thickness with a knife. So just imagine, if
you will, taking the sharp edge of a knife and
dragging it across the scalp of body and cutting not
just superficially, but all the way down to the bone.
(32:07):
It's got another you know, deep deep in sized wound
that goes Now, this is this is nuts to me.
She's got a deep in sized wound to the lower
central forehead. Yeah, why would you need that? And then
there's an underlying frontal skull fracture there. How do you
(32:31):
achieve that? And again, horrible, horrible stuff, but I think
probably what led to her debts. Specifically, she's got she's
got a stab wound to the left posterior lateral upper neck.
So if you if you take your left hand and
(32:55):
essentially put it beneath your ear, your ear lobe, this
is going to be approximating the the the injury right there.
That's a stab wound. And this actually hits the left
internal juggular vein and also it goes into the oral floor.
(33:19):
Just think about is that the ral floor is where
the attachment of the tongue. That's how deep this thing goes,
all right, So you're clipping all these little vessels that
are in there. She's got another incized wound, uh, the
upper lateral neck on the left side, which implies to
(33:41):
me that somebody's trying to cut her throat. She's got
two stab wounds to the lower right anterio lateral and
lateral neck. So if you put your hand on the
right aspect of your neck, these these go. This is
very deep, Dave. These go now anterior lateral means like
(34:02):
ford and anterior forward and lateral, so it involves both aspects,
the right aspect of the neck, the anterior portion and lateral.
And Dave, this goes all the way down, uh. It
it clips the juggler vein on that side of the
(34:22):
of the neck and also goes all the way down
to the sea five vertebra clips her spinal nerve at
that point. Toime so you've got these really really deep,
deep wounds that would have required a tremendous amount of force.
And then on top of this, you've got all of
(34:42):
these defensive injuries that she sustained. So in total, you know,
we're we're looking at this. You know, this poor woman
sustained over thirty sharp force injuries, and sharp force means
that she's got stab wounds and in sized wounds, two
different things. And then she's got this, uh, this really
nasty blunt force trauma to the back of her head,
(35:07):
and she's been popped with a stun gun in addition
to this, uh this, And I hope that people understand
now the level of brutality. You combine this with Jillian,
and something that we talked about that we talked about
last time was that relative to Jillian, I really wondered,
(35:31):
and this goes along with taunting. I really wonder if
they killed Jillian uh in front of Veronica, because remember
Jillian was in the bottom, okay, and Veronica was found
on top of her inside of this container. And you
know that's enough to chill you right there. You know
(35:51):
that she was made to watch this event that took
place in front of her and and maybe maybe the
police will have more information relative to that. I don't know, brother,
it's it's certainly it paints a horrible, horrible picture.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Though, you know, there was the as you mentioned, you've
got the sharp forest trauma. The thirty again, think about
thirty stab wounds. Thirty not that's a lot, Joe, that's
a lot of sad wounds. And yeah, I'm thinking of
the pack of wolves circling. You know, she's hit on
the back of the head and I was thinking that,
(36:27):
you know, when you talked about the scalp in the front,
I was wondering if she got hit in the head
and that caused your front, the forehead to hit something
that caused this. But based on no, it was just
so much different.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yeah, and that location to me again, it's interesting because
you would think that she's got an underlying, an underlying
fracture right relative to what they're calling and in sized
an in sized wound. I don't know. I don't know
how you would achieve a a fracture, an underlying fracture
(37:03):
of an incized The insized wine is very deep. And
just to give our friends an idea where this thing is,
this is a disfigurement, Dave, if you go to your eyebrows, okay,
and essentially move up probably about an inch, that would
approximate the location of this full thickness in size woind
(37:25):
that she's got across her forehead. You know, and you
know to me, that's you don't normally see insized wounds
to a scalp like this where people you know, you've
got this other one on the back side of the head.
And also, by the way, that injury on the back,
that other inside deep insized one, it actually communicates or
the hemorrhage communicates, according to what the autopsy report says,
(37:49):
the hemorrhage from that insized injury communicates with the hemorrhage
generated from that blunt force trauma. So both of those
injuries has occurred in life. Uh, she had sustained these
that they this is this is the stuff of nightmares.
This is an attempt to to disfigure this poor woman.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
While she's alive, scalping her while she's alive.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Yeah, no, I won't say, I won't necessarily say scalping.
Oh yeah, it involves the full thickness of the scalp,
and you've got these these injuries that are involving you know,
the head. It's very curious to me, uh, what what
the purpose was for this? And you know, these are
people that are allegedly very well equipped with Uh. They
(38:41):
have the means to have a cooler, a disabled cooler. Uh,
they have a skits deer, they have the ability to
dig a hole. What in the name of the Sweet Lord,
are you going to show up with knives? Yeah, you
have to think that they they had they had firearms.
(39:02):
Do you see what I'm saying here? It's one thing
if you, as horrible as it is, to find somebody
that has been executed with gunshot one of the head.
This goes beyond that. This goes beyond that. And you're
telling me that out of not you, the universal you,
you're telling me that, out of all of these people
(39:25):
that are involved in this confederacy here, that no one
among them had a firearm in order to facilitate the death,
a merciful death. Compared to what what we see played
out here, it's it's mind boggling.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
And we know they did have a gun because we
found you know, parts of it, We found h you know,
and it might have been Varanica Butler's gun you know.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, we don't know, but you know, why not have
the utility to use it? You know, if it does
belong to the alleged perpetrators, why why does it your
Do you have no mercy left in your soul? Total torch,
none whatsoever? Because that, you know, we're really absent here
(40:13):
of of that level of humanity.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
At the same day, let me ask you, though, there
was something else on the autopsy that it just struck
me as odd because we've got the description of these
horrible injuries done to this woman, this mother, and we've
got the possible stun gun mars and the lower neck
and upper back. The bodies already are in what is
(40:40):
referred to as moderate putra Jack, I don't know how
you pronounced future active. Is that what it is? Puture
factive future factor? Okay, yeah, puture factor. It's decomposition. The
bodies are decomposing together, yeah, and so much.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
So that they took the glow off the hands. The
hands were degloving, which means okay, but they were able
to peel that top layer and they submitted that to
the state. Yes, so they were decomposing degloving.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Is that top layer of skin?
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yes, yeah, but why would.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
They have to include an actual bullet point here? Number
five right, obesity? Why that's listed on Valerie Veronica Butler's here.
You know, you start off with multiple sharp worst trauma
with a total of thirty sharp forest injuries and number
five obesity.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Yeah, I don't I don't understand that. Uh. Generally, if
and it's not uncommon to see obesity listed in an
autopsy report, but it's generally in the in the like
in the Just so, folks, I'm kind of painting a
word picture here the autopsy report when you rea that
(42:00):
has these, it's essentially a list. It's a bulleted list
with Roman numerals, with subsections and such as that that
that the data for the injuries is coming from. However,
is that final bullet is placed in there it says obesity.
Generally you'll see a mention of obesity in the external
(42:25):
examination where they'll say, today we receive the body of
I don't know, let's just pull uh you know of
John Smith, white male. He's moderately obese, morbidly obese. And
that's kind of in a general descriptor. This is literally
(42:46):
added in the area that would be considered a contributing
factor to her death, and I don't I don't understand
the rationale for that. I would I think that this
is something that perhaps might be that she would have
(43:07):
to explain on the stand when this thing finally goes
to trial, because you kind of bury the lead here.
You know, you're going through these horrific injuries and oh,
by the way, she's obese. I don't understand how that
plays into it. I can understand it as a descriptor
right in a narrative description, but it just doesn't make sense.
(43:28):
And this thing is so detailed, this autopsy report. Other
than that little point, I think that that's really the
only thing that you know, that really stands out to
me this kind of odd. The autopsy report itself is
markedly detailed, which is fantastic because I in the last
(43:50):
few years, I've come across many that have little or nothing.
I think I had. I covered one case on the air,
and I know which case it was. I do so many.
That doesn't mean that I'm great. It just means that
I'm dumb enough to keep doing. And you know, and
I was going to go on some news program and
(44:11):
I remember they sent me the autopsy report. David and
it was a multiple gunshot one where we had gunshots
all over the body. And I looked at the report
and the report was like four pages in length, and
one of those pages was the title page, and it
had nothing really a lot of detail relative to range
(44:31):
of fire or trajectories in this case. Though this took
some time, and they had They did both of these cases,
both Jillian's and Veronica's, the same day. This would have
been just to give you, guys, an idea of the
involvement in something like this. This is something that you
(44:51):
would have been in that autopsy suite all day long
and there would have been no pulling back from this.
It would have been a long, arduous, exhausting day for
the entire staff because there's a lot of detail, and
plus you've got the added factor of decomposition, and that
(45:14):
in and of itself obscures many things at autopsy. That's
why you have to be very careful and take your time.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body back
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.