September 7, 2023 • 27 mins
Jonathan Willette is brutally murdered, his headless body discovered under mysterious circumstances and a chemical haze. The case is rife with complex family dynamics and an ever-changing narrative from the accused. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack explore the forensic complexities of identifying a headless victim, the psychology behind such gruesome acts, and the role of familial dynamics in criminal investigations. Morgan lends his expertise on death investigation, discussing everything from chemical smells at crime scenes to the increasing trend of decapitation cases. Together, they offer a comprehensive and chilling look into a murder case that defies easy explanation.
Time codes:
00:00:00 — Joseph Scott Morgan sets the stage by discussing the complexities of death investigation. He introduces the episode's focus on the perplexing case of Jonathan Willette.
00:01:00 — The unique and complicated relationship dynamics in Jonathan Willette's case are revealed by Morgan. He describes how these complexities add another layer to the already gruesome murder.
00:02:00 — Dave Mack chimes in with his perspective, likening the case to a horror movie titled "Headless in Las Vegas." He discusses the emotional toll of discovering a loved one in such a state.
00:03:40 — Morgan uses the term "familial dynamic" to express his confusion over the complex family relationships in this case. He questions how these dynamics could have played into the crime.
00:04:00 — A haunting image is painted by Morgan as he describes the moment the victim's mother discovered her son's headless body.
00:05:20 — Mack outlines the complicated relationship between the victim and his son, adding another layer of complexity to the case.
00:07:53 — Insurance could be a motive, suggests Morgan. He also alludes to a sinister confession made by the perpetrator during police questioning.
00:09:10 — A lighter moment occurs as Dave Mack recounts a humorous story from years ago. He describes a terrifying experience involving a seemingly breathing corpse.
00:11:04 — What's the protocol for a decapitated body? Mack inquires, leading Morgan to explain the crucial role of the medical examiner in such cases and elaborates on his role in crime scene investigations, particularly in cases involving severe body mutilation.
00:15:01 — The gruesome topic of decapitation in murder cases is discussed by both hosts. They ponder the mindset of the perpetrator and the circumstances under which it can happen.
00:18:42 — Mack questions the lack of a blood trail and the presence of a chemical smell at the crime scene, adding another layer of mystery.
00:19:30 — Morgan shares his experience with dangerous chemical combinations in morgues, highlighting the risks involved.
00:22:09 — Cleaning products at the crime scene? Morgan speculates on an attempt to clean up and what evidence might remain.
00:23:00 — The challenges of finding a disposed head in a garbage bin are explored by Morgan. He discusses the logistical difficulties involved.
00:23:40 — The accused admits to hitting Willette in the head, leading to a discussion on her changing narrative.
00:24:00 — Mack points out inconsistencies in the accused's story, questioning the credibility of her statements.
00:24:40 — The physical appearance of the body and a missing meat cleaver raise more questions for Mack.
00:25:20 — Morgan delves into the mechanics of using a meat cleaver for decapitation, discussing the likely injuries and marks left on the body.
00:27:00 — The episode wraps up with Morgan talking about potential tool marks that could help identify the weapon used. At the time of recording, authorities have only an accused person.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan in death Investigation. I've been
there to try to make sense at many scenes about
what the catalyst was that started the wheels in motion.
(00:30):
When you think about bodies being torn to ribbons and
you only have a remnant left behind. Many times sometimes
bodies are intact, but many times we show up at
scenes and all you're left with this evidence of horror.
Today we're going to talk about a gentleman who was
(00:52):
previously married to a lady by the name of Devin Michaels.
To make matters even more interesting, this woman is married
to this gentleman's son, this gentleman Jonathan Willet, and he
was literally butchered. I'm Joseph god Morgan and this is Bodybags.
(01:16):
So you're a young cop. You walk into a room
and probably the first thing that you're expecting to see
if you've been called out on a death, is a
dead body. Sometimes your senses are hit with the odor
of decomposition. Many times you smell things before you see them.
This does happen, but in today's case, you're hit with
(01:39):
a smell that is not decompositional, but you're actually hit
with a very strong chemical odor. And when you do
finally see the body, you see smoke what they define
or call smoke emanating from these remains. It's a real conundrum.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
As a parent, I can't imagine anything worse than finding
your child dead. But what will its mother found? Was
his body, there's no head. We don't know where the
head is. Even as we do this show today, we
still don't know. That's why we're doing the show body
Bags today. On Wonderful Devin Michaels and the relationship she
(02:18):
had with her husband and her baby daddy husband and
her husband actually was the baby of the daddy that
she's married. Well you get the picture.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, It's almost like you need a lineup card or
maybe a playbill to keep up. It's when I first
came across this case, I was dumbfounded because I couldn't
make sense of what I think sociologists like to refer
to as the familial dynamic. Don't you love that academic turn.
I hope that you're impressed and you think about this
(02:51):
dynamic that was going on in this household, and it's
to say that it is strange would be an understatement.
But what we do know, as you mentioned this poor
gentleman's mother, and no, I can't frame this in any
other way. I can't make sense of it. When she
comes into the bedroom there before her lays only who
(03:16):
she can assume is her son wrapped in a blanket.
And then you try to rouse him out of bed.
You're shake him, perhaps as maybe your mama shook you,
my mama shook me. Wake up, get ready. He's forty
six years old at this point, and there she is
attempting to wake him up. But there's something odd about
(03:38):
the shape of his body. Because even if you have
a body that is covered or obscured by some kind
of covering, there's still enough within us where we recognize
form and function that you can automatically see. I think,
if you're not looking through the mother's eyes, there's something
wrong here. And what would be wrong is that this
(03:58):
gentleman is actually absent a head. It's not going to
look right, No, it's not. It will be certainly bizarre
to try to pick up on this and try to
understand it. And how do you make sense of this
as a mom?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I'm glad you brought that up, because the mom is
going to call nine one one, and she's going to
have to explain the dynamic here. Devin Michael's forty five
year old suspect, female Jonathan Willett is forty six. He
is the victim. He is the headless man now in
the bed and by the way, chemical smell and fumes
(04:31):
seen coming from his body, his mom, Mister Willett's mother
has to explain to nine to one one what she
has just seen. And she doesn't really know because again
there is no head. She doesn't know what she's actually seen.
She just know that it's not good. Devin Michaels is
married to Jonathan Willett, the victim, married to his adult son,
and all we hear about from this standpoint is that
(04:54):
it was a marriage of convenience to help with some
medical issues that Devin Michaels has. I don't know what
these medical issues are, but that was the reason given
for why even though she has been in a married
relationship with Jonathan Willett, the victim, she married the victim's son.
Jonathan Willett and Devin Michaels have two children together. Jonathan
(05:16):
Willett's mother is dealing with her son, her grandson, and
her grandson is married to her son's wife, and there
are two children in here that are either children, grandchildren,
great grandchildren, or aunt uncle cousins. I'm not sure that's
what we've got going on.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah, and let me ask one more thing. And I
know that you're not necessarily going to have to answer
to this, but the authorities are saying that she was
married to him, or that she's married to the son,
but yet she is in a marriage like relationship with
the victim. So on top of this are all three
(05:56):
parties married have a matrimonial world relationship in the sense
of law, And is she a bigamist? I'm thinking about
why would she have perpetrated such a horrific crime that
the authorities at this point in time are pointing at
her as the primary culprit here? And you think about
(06:18):
this dynamic that's going on, being involved with the husband's
son in a matrimonial relationship. Was it just too much
to take? And you think about, well, it's for the
convenience of medical condition. Well yeah, I mean maybe she
was under insured or had no insurance in vis a
vis the victim. She had insurance being able to cover
(06:40):
whatever this issue was. But you got it, admit, just
give me this. There are a myriad of other rationales
that could come into play here that could be the
motivating factor. And there's some kind of sinister stuff that
she's told the police was the rationale for her taking
his life. I believe over the course of my career,
(07:18):
particularly in academia, I've had students that have taken my
medical legal death investigation course and they have asked me,
have I ever seen anything supernatural happen? And I tell
them no, and it's always a shock to them. I
think that they think that just because I'm around the dead,
have been around the dead all of my adult life,
that I'm somehow haunted, And no, I'm more haunted by
(07:40):
the living than I ever have been by the dead.
I can assure you.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Of that you mentioned kind of sitting up with the dead,
I will tell you very quickly. I worked for a
funeral home when I was in my first years of RadioU.
I didn't make enough money, so I actually drove caskets
around and stuff like that to make extra money so
I could eat, and one night I had to set
up with the dead. Because you can't leave a body
and home that is not guarded. There has to be
somebody in there in case there's a fire, you got
(08:03):
the ba. The body's the only thing that matters, nothing else,
Burnard all Down. I didn't know that, but I was
in there and they had a visitation, had a lot
of people show up in the body that was in
the casket. Well, his hair got a little mussed up,
and they were like, can you fix that for tomorrow.
I got an early visitation with the family, just a family,
very private, very early. Would you take care of this day? Well,
the dude was wearing a pinstripe suit. Joe, you know
what that means, The optical illusion. You find it on
(08:25):
television sets all the time when people wear certain things
and your eyes play tricks on you. You look at a
dead body wearing a pinstripe suit, and that body will
go the breathing begins, They will breathe. I saw it
with my own two eyes. I know I saw it.
And back then we didn't have cell phones. I had
a corded phone. It had a rotary dial. I took
that court as far as I could to get away
(08:46):
from that body. I'm hanging out the front door. I'm
calling the funeral home director. Dude, you got to get
I'm out, I'm leaving. And he did everything he could
to calm me down. He explained, I saw it, he's breathing. Man,
you got a live guy in the box.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
But it didn't happen though, and that's not the reality.
And look, if that man could have sat up at
that point in time, listen, first off, you wouldn't be
talking to me. You'd be a very wealthy man. This
is what I do know. I've never had the dead
speak to me. And the one thing I can confirm
to you scientifically is that the dead cannot make excuses,
(09:23):
they cannot offer up solutions, they cannot bear testimony on
their behalf.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Now the police show up, Joe and there because Mom
calls and we got a mess on our hands and
the police show up. Do they make the call immediately?
We know this, We don't have to worry about this
crime scene and we don't want anybody else here. The
dead body is here with no head, so we know
we got to deal with this. This is the elephant
in the room. Did they call you immediately and say
(09:50):
can you need to get over here? Now? What did
the police do? First things? When you find a body
with no head and you've got suspects.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, in a case like this, even if the me
the core, if we don't make immediate entry. In most
jurisdictions that I worked in, I had a very good
rapport with the police department. I was the one constant
in the universe. There would be investigators that would come
and go and would move on to new jobs, but
I would always be there. It was my job. That's
(10:16):
what I had a lot of young investigators for the
police that would say, hey, what do I do now?
And so I would be there on the shoulder the
older guys. Sometimes they would wait, hold me back, and
then I would come in and do my thing. But
in a case like this, particularly when you are absent
a significant element of the body ahead in this case,
(10:37):
I would be there, ready to rock and roll and
ready to look for any evidence that I could to
try to track down the head. I can tell you
another thing that they would probably do in a case
like this, and I don't know that they did. This
was actually it's adjacent to Vegas. It's actually in Henderson.
For people that are curious, I don't know if the
(10:57):
Henderson police actually called out a dog, but a dog
would give you an idea to be able to track
this down if they have a sample of blood, which
they would in this particular case. Heads are very bloody.
They're very bloody things because they are This is what's
so fascinating. We don't know a lot about this at
this point. The head is the most vascular area of
(11:20):
the human body, so you have the most blood flow
that is going to the head because the brain requires
so much. So even in death or even in a decapitation,
there will be blood draining, gravitational draining out of that
opening in the neck. You've got a head that is
severed away from the body. I cannot imagine under any
(11:42):
circumstances that if his head was removed at that site
that you would not at least have passive droplets of
dynamic blood flow that are like dripping on the floor
everywhere you go unless you have a catch basin. Did
this person think about that? And I know it's horrible
for me as a forensics guy if I have no
(12:03):
blood there. There's a couple of things that I'm considering
if I have a body that has been decapitated, I
want to know, First off, was this individual decapitated, There
was the blood drained from their body prior to arrival
at this location where they're deposited, and if they were
killed there, where the heck is the blood, because I
would expect there to be copious amounts of blood, not
(12:24):
just in the area where the head was removed, saying
that it's removed on a bed, the mattress, in the bed,
clothes and everything would be super saturated. But you would
have dave a trail of blood leading away. Even if
you tried to wrap it in towels, you would still
have that happen. And of course I would look for
any drains that were nearby, anything a sink, an outdoor
(12:47):
spicott or a drain that leads down the ground in
the bathroom, looking at the bathroom sink, the toilet, the tub,
just to see if people are trying to clean up.
It's a creepy kind of thing as an investment or
when you kind of step back and you think about it,
you think, I've got to put myself into the mindset
of someone that has just killed and decapitated someone, and
(13:10):
you let that sink in. And now that you know
I'm older and I talk to my students, you know
I'll have my students and I'll talk to them about
a case like this, and they'll sit back and their
eyes kind of open up, you know, and they're thinking,
oh my god, I'm in the room with a monster.
But you know, for a moment, you have to translate
yourself into that environment. And as these investigators begin to
process the scene, that's one of the things that they're
(13:31):
thinking about.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
To cut a head off the victim here, they're going
to have to already be dead. I would think you're
not going to be able to cut somebody's head off
if they're alive, right, unless it's a really I mean
like a guillotine. I'm not you know, I'm talking about it, just.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Right, a guillotine. And there are execution cases from antiquity
for a case like this where a body is in
fact decapitated, and there's any number of ways that decapitations
can can happen, certainly swords from antiquity, and there are
traumatic decapitations, and you see them, believe it or not,
with great frequency in motor vehicle accidents. It happens with
(14:08):
some frequency in those cases. But in this particular case,
you would have had to have had someone first off
that would have had the will to do this, and
it doesn't take a lot of skill in order to
do it, but you do, as in this case, have
to have someone that is compliant. And when you're talking
about an alleged female perpetrator and a grown man, there's
(14:29):
no doubt in my mind that he was already to
seize when that head came off. Dave MC, I don't
(14:54):
know if it is just the subject matter that you
and I talk about, or if it is a a
real thing, but it seems to me, and I think
I've said this on other episodes, and I will continue
to say it because it keeps slapping me. The reality
keeps slapping me in my face. It seems to me
that we are encountering more and more cases with either
(15:15):
decapitations or dismemberments. It seems like we've covered so many
of these things over the past few months. It's amazing
to me. It takes almost an iron will in order
to facilitate this, and it's almost like people are desensitized
to it.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I don't know if that's the case, if we are
desensitized and they're just more of them happening because of that.
I just remember when you and I were kids and
whenever somebody did something crazy, if it was a teenager,
it was because of TV, and then it was Dungeons
and Dragons, and then it was this in video game
and rock and roll. Yeah, oh, I forgot about those guys.
So I think there's always something, But I don't know
(15:52):
if it's where there is more happening in terms of
people being dismembered, or if we just hear about it,
because there is a twenty four hour news cycle that
has to be filled with information, and crime is a
big one. But I do think it's worthy of some
real statistical help from college professors that could make students
to a project. I'm not suggesting a class project for
(16:13):
your class, but I think you could do some independent
study where they go off on their own and study
and you if you need me, call me at the house.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
I got a cup of coffee. Yeah, light bulbs are
going off.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
So anyway, I don't know if it's happening more, but
I do know this, Joe, I have been putting more
and more of these shows together, and as I have
said many times, if anything were going to happen to
a loved one of mine and the police came and
looked at books and videos and the shows that I do.
They probably won't even bother asking me any questions. They'll
just go cuff him back of the car. I don't
know about Devin Michaels and Jonathan Willett. I don't know
(16:47):
about their relationship, but I do know that somehow Someway,
his forty six year old body ended up without a head,
and she is arrested and charged with the crime of murder.
But my questions still comes back to what are they
actually seeing on the body. We've got it from the
police report. Henderson Police wrote that his head was severed
(17:07):
and was not located at the scene, which means there's
got to be some really serious pre planning that that
body and head were separated, and they're not seeing as
you mentioned in the last segment about blood everywhere, they
don't see a trail of blood leading to wherever this
head is.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Or at least they're not saying it at this point, Tom, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Or they're not seeing blood from the body coming in,
the head being left out somewhere else. But beyond that,
the police are noting there was a chemical smell, a
chemical smell and fumes could be seen coming from his body.
What are they talking about, Joe, Have you ever had
this happen to you know what this is?
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah? Actually I have because cleaned a lot of morks
over the course of my career, and there are certain
chemical combinations that you do not want to be near.
I've actually comingled substances in the morgue where I had
to get out of the morgue and leave. A matter
of fact, I ran a forensic pathologist out of the
(18:08):
morgue one time when I was attempting to clean up
a big mess of blood that we had, and it
was quite noxious. But what they're saying, Dave, is that
there was a strong get this, there was a strong
smell ammonia and bleach. That combination of itself, Now hold
(18:30):
on to your hat. That is actually a combination that
can wind up producing chlorine gas, which is actually an
anti personnel gas that was used in World War One
and it's still used in the Middle East in certain places.
It irritates the eyes, it causes hemorrhagic reactions, and the
lungs when they are comingled like that in the right
(18:51):
order and the right amounts, it can really wind up
creating this lethal event. That's why when you are a
an investigator and you walk onto a scene, I always
keep in mind that someone has just died here, and
they probably had more value on the person's life that
died than they would on mine. As an investigator coming in,
(19:13):
I always assume that every environment is deadly, and if
you walk into this environment, the first thing you should
do if you smell this, and they didn't just smell it.
Dave the police described this as what appeared to be
smoke coming from the body. And one of the things
that happens when you get these commingled substances is that
(19:34):
they begin to kind of bubble up. It's like a
bad chemistry experiment. It's going to ry. And they don't
really comment any further about this. This is the type
of thing that you would need to call the fire
department out there. This is dangerous stuff. And the police
officers are walking into this environment. So not only are
they contending with a headless remain a mother who is grieving,
(19:55):
but they're also contending with the fact that there's some
kind of NOx odor in the air. And listen, anybody
in the sound of my voice that's ever come in
contact with ammonia, you know it's the same thing they
make smelling sauce out of to wake you up. There's
a reason it does. It's horrible, it's absolutely horrible, but
it's used in cleaning. You combine that with bleach, so
(20:15):
it begs a question, why would a headless body, and
remember we were talking about blood earlier, Why would a
headless body being obscured by bedclothing? Why would it be
emanating smoke and this odor? When I think about this,
I begin to think about was there an attempt to
clean up? That jumps to mine first, and what do
(20:38):
you associate with really getting things clean? Well, ammonia certainly
people think that bleach just makes everything disappear and vanish.
When you think about that, Okay, well they're starting to
put two and two together. Were there containers of bleach
and ammonia around there? Was there an attempt to clean up?
Had she been in this accused, had she been in
(20:58):
the room with a body long enough so that if
there was blood there, maybe there were scrub brushes as well,
or maybe there were rags, maybe there was a garbage
pail there, or just maybe every evidence of cleaning up
left along with the head in the same back. Now
that in and of itself is quite the conundrum, because
(21:19):
all you have to do is drive down the road
you find age. A matter of fact, I think my
garbage bind is still sitting out by the road because
I didn't take it in and we just had trash
pick up. But think about that, if there's a garbage
bin sitting out by the road, you could tie the
thing off, drop in a garbage bin, and the garbage
guys are going to come by and pick it up,
and no one will be any the wiser. I don't
know that they will ever find this poor man's head,
(21:41):
and that's problematic for them because this is the thing.
She apparently admits day that, by virtue of some of
the things that he had said to her that had
kind of a sexual connotation, she took a stick and
hit him in the head. This accused is actually stating
that she did this in order to knock him out,
(22:03):
in order to I can't remember, in order to make
sure the children were okay, or that she was okay
or okay.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
At first, I didn't do it. I don't know what
you're talking about. He was supposed to move in with me,
but he didn't. He's upstairs in his own bet, I
don't know what you're talking about. Then it was well,
wait a minute, yeah, I was in there with him,
and he did want me to perform a sex act.
I didn't want to do it, so I popped him
on the head. And then during the interviews, because they
are experts at this, is it possible, Devin, that you
(22:31):
maybe just spitball in here? Maybe you hit him a
little harder than you thought. Maybe, I mean, is that possible.
The minute she says, oh, yeah, that's possible, she basically
admitted I killed him. But the thing is, Joe, we
still have a body with fumes, chemicals and no head.
We know one thing that mom who found the body
(22:51):
also can't find her meat cleaver. What is it like
for somebody who is not a doctor to cut through
bone muscle send you all the stuff in your I'm
assuming that's where you're going to go.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, and that is where you're going to go. And
remember a meat cleaver, the configuration of it traditionally has
been made with a very heavy spine on it, and
the spine of the meat cleaver is meant to transfer
that energy from that weight of the spine down into
the fine blade, which is more narrow, and of course
(23:25):
the sharper the blade, the more effective it is. Meat Cleavers,
like axes, though they do have a leading sharp edge
on them, do not make clean cuts unless they are
honed to a surgical edge and you have sufficient strength.
You have to have energy in order to drive it
down onto the object that you're trying to split in two,
(23:47):
in this case with a neck, and she's going to
have to go through vertebral bodies. And it's easy for
somebody to say, oh, well, she would just go in
between the vertebral bodies. Really that's like that's like saying, Okay,
I'm going to hit a one hundred mile per hour
fastball and I'm taking over the left field fence. I'm
going to pull it down the line. You might say
(24:09):
that you're going to do that, but you're not going
to do it. The idea that you could actually swing
a meat cleaver with sufficient energy to take a head
off in one fail swoop or maybe even two is
complete fantasy. You're going to strike, you're going to misstrike,
and your strike multiple times. Even butchers, when you see
them butcher meat with a meat cleaver, they're striking that
(24:30):
multiple times. Now, if the late is sharp enough they
can drive through the meat itself. But even butchers, even
butchers have bone sauce. There's a reason they do that.
So just because you swing, it doesn't mean that you're
going to hit the disc that actually separates the spinal
vertebral bodies. That's a it's not a one in a
(24:51):
million shot, but it's hard. Particularly because the back of
the neck is covered in soft tissue. You can't appreciate
the skeletal structure beneath the neck. You're just wildly swinging
at this point in time. So when you would examine
these injuries, the skin itself will have a very jagged
edge to it. More than likely the muscle just beneath
(25:14):
will certainly be ragged to a great degree. And also
the bone. Once let's say that just that that bone,
if she went between you have the cervical for tebral bodies.
So if you think about C one is what's referred
to as the Atlas, it's like the god Atlas holding
the earth up, that classic image that we've seen in
(25:37):
antiquity C one, C two, C three, C four, C five,
C six, And so you get down to like the
C four area C five that's kind of exposed. So
as you strike it, more than likely you're going to
have a strike that's not going to go all the
way through. What's it going to strike. Well, it's going
to strike tissue, bone, any kind of sinew, and it's
(25:58):
also going to strike the vertebral body and it will
leave a mark there. Now, the head, there's a high
probability that that head, even at this point, still has
attached vertebral bodies to it, which could be examined by
a tool mark expert if they find it. What is
left behind will also have marks as well that we'll
(26:19):
have tool marks on them, and there will be multiple
strikes on that because every time this meat cleaver is
brought down, you essentially scratch that bone. You cut a
little channel that is actually, if you look at it
on as long axis, is actually V shaped all the
way down. It marries up with a blade and you'll
have these multiple V shaped strikes all the way across
(26:40):
the bone, and those can be married up to the
meat clean But the problem here is this the mother
is saying she's missing the meat clever. They don't have
that at the time of this recording. To marry those
two things up and compare them. What we do know
is that we have a body that is absent its head.
There's a high probability that there are tool marks on
(27:01):
what remains of the neck that could be married up.
We have what appears to be perhaps an attempted clean
up at a crime scene. And at this point, at
this time of the recording, we have only an accused person.
I'm Josephcott Morgan and this is body backs
Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan in death Investigation. I've been
there to try to make sense at many scenes about
what the catalyst was that started the wheels in motion.
(00:30):
When you think about bodies being torn to ribbons and
you only have a remnant left behind. Many times sometimes
bodies are intact, but many times we show up at
scenes and all you're left with this evidence of horror.
Today we're going to talk about a gentleman who was
(00:52):
previously married to a lady by the name of Devin Michaels.
To make matters even more interesting, this woman is married
to this gentleman's son, this gentleman Jonathan Willet, and he
was literally butchered. I'm Joseph god Morgan and this is Bodybags.
(01:16):
So you're a young cop. You walk into a room
and probably the first thing that you're expecting to see
if you've been called out on a death, is a
dead body. Sometimes your senses are hit with the odor
of decomposition. Many times you smell things before you see them.
This does happen, but in today's case, you're hit with
(01:39):
a smell that is not decompositional, but you're actually hit
with a very strong chemical odor. And when you do
finally see the body, you see smoke what they define
or call smoke emanating from these remains. It's a real conundrum.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
As a parent, I can't imagine anything worse than finding
your child dead. But what will its mother found? Was
his body, there's no head. We don't know where the
head is. Even as we do this show today, we
still don't know. That's why we're doing the show body
Bags today. On Wonderful Devin Michaels and the relationship she
(02:18):
had with her husband and her baby daddy husband and
her husband actually was the baby of the daddy that
she's married. Well you get the picture.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, It's almost like you need a lineup card or
maybe a playbill to keep up. It's when I first
came across this case, I was dumbfounded because I couldn't
make sense of what I think sociologists like to refer
to as the familial dynamic. Don't you love that academic turn.
I hope that you're impressed and you think about this
(02:51):
dynamic that was going on in this household, and it's
to say that it is strange would be an understatement.
But what we do know, as you mentioned this poor
gentleman's mother, and no, I can't frame this in any
other way. I can't make sense of it. When she
comes into the bedroom there before her lays only who
(03:16):
she can assume is her son wrapped in a blanket.
And then you try to rouse him out of bed.
You're shake him, perhaps as maybe your mama shook you,
my mama shook me. Wake up, get ready. He's forty
six years old at this point, and there she is
attempting to wake him up. But there's something odd about
(03:38):
the shape of his body. Because even if you have
a body that is covered or obscured by some kind
of covering, there's still enough within us where we recognize
form and function that you can automatically see. I think,
if you're not looking through the mother's eyes, there's something
wrong here. And what would be wrong is that this
(03:58):
gentleman is actually absent a head. It's not going to
look right, No, it's not. It will be certainly bizarre
to try to pick up on this and try to
understand it. And how do you make sense of this
as a mom?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I'm glad you brought that up, because the mom is
going to call nine one one, and she's going to
have to explain the dynamic here. Devin Michael's forty five
year old suspect, female Jonathan Willett is forty six. He
is the victim. He is the headless man now in
the bed and by the way, chemical smell and fumes
(04:31):
seen coming from his body, his mom, Mister Willett's mother
has to explain to nine to one one what she
has just seen. And she doesn't really know because again
there is no head. She doesn't know what she's actually seen.
She just know that it's not good. Devin Michaels is
married to Jonathan Willett, the victim, married to his adult son,
and all we hear about from this standpoint is that
(04:54):
it was a marriage of convenience to help with some
medical issues that Devin Michaels has. I don't know what
these medical issues are, but that was the reason given
for why even though she has been in a married
relationship with Jonathan Willett, the victim, she married the victim's son.
Jonathan Willett and Devin Michaels have two children together. Jonathan
(05:16):
Willett's mother is dealing with her son, her grandson, and
her grandson is married to her son's wife, and there
are two children in here that are either children, grandchildren,
great grandchildren, or aunt uncle cousins. I'm not sure that's
what we've got going on.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah, and let me ask one more thing. And I
know that you're not necessarily going to have to answer
to this, but the authorities are saying that she was
married to him, or that she's married to the son,
but yet she is in a marriage like relationship with
the victim. So on top of this are all three
(05:56):
parties married have a matrimonial world relationship in the sense
of law, And is she a bigamist? I'm thinking about
why would she have perpetrated such a horrific crime that
the authorities at this point in time are pointing at
her as the primary culprit here? And you think about
(06:18):
this dynamic that's going on, being involved with the husband's
son in a matrimonial relationship. Was it just too much
to take? And you think about, well, it's for the
convenience of medical condition. Well yeah, I mean maybe she
was under insured or had no insurance in vis a
vis the victim. She had insurance being able to cover
(06:40):
whatever this issue was. But you got it, admit, just
give me this. There are a myriad of other rationales
that could come into play here that could be the
motivating factor. And there's some kind of sinister stuff that
she's told the police was the rationale for her taking
his life. I believe over the course of my career,
(07:18):
particularly in academia, I've had students that have taken my
medical legal death investigation course and they have asked me,
have I ever seen anything supernatural happen? And I tell
them no, and it's always a shock to them. I
think that they think that just because I'm around the dead,
have been around the dead all of my adult life,
that I'm somehow haunted, And no, I'm more haunted by
(07:40):
the living than I ever have been by the dead.
I can assure you.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Of that you mentioned kind of sitting up with the dead,
I will tell you very quickly. I worked for a
funeral home when I was in my first years of RadioU.
I didn't make enough money, so I actually drove caskets
around and stuff like that to make extra money so
I could eat, and one night I had to set
up with the dead. Because you can't leave a body
and home that is not guarded. There has to be
somebody in there in case there's a fire, you got
(08:03):
the ba. The body's the only thing that matters, nothing else,
Burnard all Down. I didn't know that, but I was
in there and they had a visitation, had a lot
of people show up in the body that was in
the casket. Well, his hair got a little mussed up,
and they were like, can you fix that for tomorrow.
I got an early visitation with the family, just a family,
very private, very early. Would you take care of this day? Well,
the dude was wearing a pinstripe suit. Joe, you know
what that means, The optical illusion. You find it on
(08:25):
television sets all the time when people wear certain things
and your eyes play tricks on you. You look at a
dead body wearing a pinstripe suit, and that body will
go the breathing begins, They will breathe. I saw it
with my own two eyes. I know I saw it.
And back then we didn't have cell phones. I had
a corded phone. It had a rotary dial. I took
that court as far as I could to get away
(08:46):
from that body. I'm hanging out the front door. I'm
calling the funeral home director. Dude, you got to get
I'm out, I'm leaving. And he did everything he could
to calm me down. He explained, I saw it, he's breathing. Man,
you got a live guy in the box.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
But it didn't happen though, and that's not the reality.
And look, if that man could have sat up at
that point in time, listen, first off, you wouldn't be
talking to me. You'd be a very wealthy man. This
is what I do know. I've never had the dead
speak to me. And the one thing I can confirm
to you scientifically is that the dead cannot make excuses,
(09:23):
they cannot offer up solutions, they cannot bear testimony on
their behalf.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Now the police show up, Joe and there because Mom
calls and we got a mess on our hands and
the police show up. Do they make the call immediately?
We know this, We don't have to worry about this
crime scene and we don't want anybody else here. The
dead body is here with no head, so we know
we got to deal with this. This is the elephant
in the room. Did they call you immediately and say
(09:50):
can you need to get over here? Now? What did
the police do? First things? When you find a body
with no head and you've got suspects.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, in a case like this, even if the me
the core, if we don't make immediate entry. In most
jurisdictions that I worked in, I had a very good
rapport with the police department. I was the one constant
in the universe. There would be investigators that would come
and go and would move on to new jobs, but
I would always be there. It was my job. That's
(10:16):
what I had a lot of young investigators for the
police that would say, hey, what do I do now?
And so I would be there on the shoulder the
older guys. Sometimes they would wait, hold me back, and
then I would come in and do my thing. But
in a case like this, particularly when you are absent
a significant element of the body ahead in this case,
(10:37):
I would be there, ready to rock and roll and
ready to look for any evidence that I could to
try to track down the head. I can tell you
another thing that they would probably do in a case
like this, and I don't know that they did. This
was actually it's adjacent to Vegas. It's actually in Henderson.
For people that are curious, I don't know if the
(10:57):
Henderson police actually called out a dog, but a dog
would give you an idea to be able to track
this down if they have a sample of blood, which
they would in this particular case. Heads are very bloody.
They're very bloody things because they are This is what's
so fascinating. We don't know a lot about this at
this point. The head is the most vascular area of
(11:20):
the human body, so you have the most blood flow
that is going to the head because the brain requires
so much. So even in death or even in a decapitation,
there will be blood draining, gravitational draining out of that
opening in the neck. You've got a head that is
severed away from the body. I cannot imagine under any
(11:42):
circumstances that if his head was removed at that site
that you would not at least have passive droplets of
dynamic blood flow that are like dripping on the floor
everywhere you go unless you have a catch basin. Did
this person think about that? And I know it's horrible
for me as a forensics guy if I have no
(12:03):
blood there. There's a couple of things that I'm considering
if I have a body that has been decapitated, I
want to know, First off, was this individual decapitated, There
was the blood drained from their body prior to arrival
at this location where they're deposited, and if they were
killed there, where the heck is the blood, because I
would expect there to be copious amounts of blood, not
(12:24):
just in the area where the head was removed, saying
that it's removed on a bed, the mattress, in the bed,
clothes and everything would be super saturated. But you would
have dave a trail of blood leading away. Even if
you tried to wrap it in towels, you would still
have that happen. And of course I would look for
any drains that were nearby, anything a sink, an outdoor
(12:47):
spicott or a drain that leads down the ground in
the bathroom, looking at the bathroom sink, the toilet, the tub,
just to see if people are trying to clean up.
It's a creepy kind of thing as an investment or
when you kind of step back and you think about it,
you think, I've got to put myself into the mindset
of someone that has just killed and decapitated someone, and
(13:10):
you let that sink in. And now that you know
I'm older and I talk to my students, you know
I'll have my students and I'll talk to them about
a case like this, and they'll sit back and their
eyes kind of open up, you know, and they're thinking,
oh my god, I'm in the room with a monster.
But you know, for a moment, you have to translate
yourself into that environment. And as these investigators begin to
process the scene, that's one of the things that they're
(13:31):
thinking about.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
To cut a head off the victim here, they're going
to have to already be dead. I would think you're
not going to be able to cut somebody's head off
if they're alive, right, unless it's a really I mean
like a guillotine. I'm not you know, I'm talking about it, just.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Right, a guillotine. And there are execution cases from antiquity
for a case like this where a body is in
fact decapitated, and there's any number of ways that decapitations
can can happen, certainly swords from antiquity, and there are
traumatic decapitations, and you see them, believe it or not,
with great frequency in motor vehicle accidents. It happens with
(14:08):
some frequency in those cases. But in this particular case,
you would have had to have had someone first off
that would have had the will to do this, and
it doesn't take a lot of skill in order to
do it, but you do, as in this case, have
to have someone that is compliant. And when you're talking
about an alleged female perpetrator and a grown man, there's
(14:29):
no doubt in my mind that he was already to
seize when that head came off. Dave MC, I don't
(14:54):
know if it is just the subject matter that you
and I talk about, or if it is a a
real thing, but it seems to me, and I think
I've said this on other episodes, and I will continue
to say it because it keeps slapping me. The reality
keeps slapping me in my face. It seems to me
that we are encountering more and more cases with either
(15:15):
decapitations or dismemberments. It seems like we've covered so many
of these things over the past few months. It's amazing
to me. It takes almost an iron will in order
to facilitate this, and it's almost like people are desensitized
to it.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I don't know if that's the case, if we are
desensitized and they're just more of them happening because of that.
I just remember when you and I were kids and
whenever somebody did something crazy, if it was a teenager,
it was because of TV, and then it was Dungeons
and Dragons, and then it was this in video game
and rock and roll. Yeah, oh, I forgot about those guys.
So I think there's always something, But I don't know
(15:52):
if it's where there is more happening in terms of
people being dismembered, or if we just hear about it,
because there is a twenty four hour news cycle that
has to be filled with information, and crime is a
big one. But I do think it's worthy of some
real statistical help from college professors that could make students
to a project. I'm not suggesting a class project for
(16:13):
your class, but I think you could do some independent
study where they go off on their own and study
and you if you need me, call me at the house.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
I got a cup of coffee. Yeah, light bulbs are
going off.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
So anyway, I don't know if it's happening more, but
I do know this, Joe, I have been putting more
and more of these shows together, and as I have
said many times, if anything were going to happen to
a loved one of mine and the police came and
looked at books and videos and the shows that I do.
They probably won't even bother asking me any questions. They'll
just go cuff him back of the car. I don't
know about Devin Michaels and Jonathan Willett. I don't know
(16:47):
about their relationship, but I do know that somehow Someway,
his forty six year old body ended up without a head,
and she is arrested and charged with the crime of murder.
But my questions still comes back to what are they
actually seeing on the body. We've got it from the
police report. Henderson Police wrote that his head was severed
(17:07):
and was not located at the scene, which means there's
got to be some really serious pre planning that that
body and head were separated, and they're not seeing as
you mentioned in the last segment about blood everywhere, they
don't see a trail of blood leading to wherever this
head is.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Or at least they're not saying it at this point, Tom, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Or they're not seeing blood from the body coming in,
the head being left out somewhere else. But beyond that,
the police are noting there was a chemical smell, a
chemical smell and fumes could be seen coming from his body.
What are they talking about, Joe, Have you ever had
this happen to you know what this is?
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah? Actually I have because cleaned a lot of morks
over the course of my career, and there are certain
chemical combinations that you do not want to be near.
I've actually comingled substances in the morgue where I had
to get out of the morgue and leave. A matter
of fact, I ran a forensic pathologist out of the
(18:08):
morgue one time when I was attempting to clean up
a big mess of blood that we had, and it
was quite noxious. But what they're saying, Dave, is that
there was a strong get this, there was a strong
smell ammonia and bleach. That combination of itself, Now hold
(18:30):
on to your hat. That is actually a combination that
can wind up producing chlorine gas, which is actually an
anti personnel gas that was used in World War One
and it's still used in the Middle East in certain places.
It irritates the eyes, it causes hemorrhagic reactions, and the
lungs when they are comingled like that in the right
(18:51):
order and the right amounts, it can really wind up
creating this lethal event. That's why when you are a
an investigator and you walk onto a scene, I always
keep in mind that someone has just died here, and
they probably had more value on the person's life that
died than they would on mine. As an investigator coming in,
(19:13):
I always assume that every environment is deadly, and if
you walk into this environment, the first thing you should
do if you smell this, and they didn't just smell it.
Dave the police described this as what appeared to be
smoke coming from the body. And one of the things
that happens when you get these commingled substances is that
(19:34):
they begin to kind of bubble up. It's like a
bad chemistry experiment. It's going to ry. And they don't
really comment any further about this. This is the type
of thing that you would need to call the fire
department out there. This is dangerous stuff. And the police
officers are walking into this environment. So not only are
they contending with a headless remain a mother who is grieving,
(19:55):
but they're also contending with the fact that there's some
kind of NOx odor in the air. And listen, anybody
in the sound of my voice that's ever come in
contact with ammonia, you know it's the same thing they
make smelling sauce out of to wake you up. There's
a reason it does. It's horrible, it's absolutely horrible, but
it's used in cleaning. You combine that with bleach, so
(20:15):
it begs a question, why would a headless body, and
remember we were talking about blood earlier, Why would a
headless body being obscured by bedclothing? Why would it be
emanating smoke and this odor? When I think about this,
I begin to think about was there an attempt to
clean up? That jumps to mine first, and what do
(20:38):
you associate with really getting things clean? Well, ammonia certainly
people think that bleach just makes everything disappear and vanish.
When you think about that, Okay, well they're starting to
put two and two together. Were there containers of bleach
and ammonia around there? Was there an attempt to clean up?
Had she been in this accused, had she been in
(20:58):
the room with a body long enough so that if
there was blood there, maybe there were scrub brushes as well,
or maybe there were rags, maybe there was a garbage
pail there, or just maybe every evidence of cleaning up
left along with the head in the same back. Now
that in and of itself is quite the conundrum, because
(21:19):
all you have to do is drive down the road
you find age. A matter of fact, I think my
garbage bind is still sitting out by the road because
I didn't take it in and we just had trash
pick up. But think about that, if there's a garbage
bin sitting out by the road, you could tie the
thing off, drop in a garbage bin, and the garbage
guys are going to come by and pick it up,
and no one will be any the wiser. I don't
know that they will ever find this poor man's head,
(21:41):
and that's problematic for them because this is the thing.
She apparently admits day that, by virtue of some of
the things that he had said to her that had
kind of a sexual connotation, she took a stick and
hit him in the head. This accused is actually stating
that she did this in order to knock him out,
(22:03):
in order to I can't remember, in order to make
sure the children were okay, or that she was okay
or okay.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
At first, I didn't do it. I don't know what
you're talking about. He was supposed to move in with me,
but he didn't. He's upstairs in his own bet, I
don't know what you're talking about. Then it was well,
wait a minute, yeah, I was in there with him,
and he did want me to perform a sex act.
I didn't want to do it, so I popped him
on the head. And then during the interviews, because they
are experts at this, is it possible, Devin, that you
(22:31):
maybe just spitball in here? Maybe you hit him a
little harder than you thought. Maybe, I mean, is that possible.
The minute she says, oh, yeah, that's possible, she basically
admitted I killed him. But the thing is, Joe, we
still have a body with fumes, chemicals and no head.
We know one thing that mom who found the body
(22:51):
also can't find her meat cleaver. What is it like
for somebody who is not a doctor to cut through
bone muscle send you all the stuff in your I'm
assuming that's where you're going to go.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, and that is where you're going to go. And
remember a meat cleaver, the configuration of it traditionally has
been made with a very heavy spine on it, and
the spine of the meat cleaver is meant to transfer
that energy from that weight of the spine down into
the fine blade, which is more narrow, and of course
(23:25):
the sharper the blade, the more effective it is. Meat Cleavers,
like axes, though they do have a leading sharp edge
on them, do not make clean cuts unless they are
honed to a surgical edge and you have sufficient strength.
You have to have energy in order to drive it
down onto the object that you're trying to split in two,
(23:47):
in this case with a neck, and she's going to
have to go through vertebral bodies. And it's easy for
somebody to say, oh, well, she would just go in
between the vertebral bodies. Really that's like that's like saying, Okay,
I'm going to hit a one hundred mile per hour
fastball and I'm taking over the left field fence. I'm
going to pull it down the line. You might say
(24:09):
that you're going to do that, but you're not going
to do it. The idea that you could actually swing
a meat cleaver with sufficient energy to take a head
off in one fail swoop or maybe even two is
complete fantasy. You're going to strike, you're going to misstrike,
and your strike multiple times. Even butchers, when you see
them butcher meat with a meat cleaver, they're striking that
(24:30):
multiple times. Now, if the late is sharp enough they
can drive through the meat itself. But even butchers, even
butchers have bone sauce. There's a reason they do that.
So just because you swing, it doesn't mean that you're
going to hit the disc that actually separates the spinal
vertebral bodies. That's a it's not a one in a
(24:51):
million shot, but it's hard. Particularly because the back of
the neck is covered in soft tissue. You can't appreciate
the skeletal structure beneath the neck. You're just wildly swinging
at this point in time. So when you would examine
these injuries, the skin itself will have a very jagged
edge to it. More than likely the muscle just beneath
(25:14):
will certainly be ragged to a great degree. And also
the bone. Once let's say that just that that bone,
if she went between you have the cervical for tebral bodies.
So if you think about C one is what's referred
to as the Atlas, it's like the god Atlas holding
the earth up, that classic image that we've seen in
(25:37):
antiquity C one, C two, C three, C four, C five,
C six, And so you get down to like the
C four area C five that's kind of exposed. So
as you strike it, more than likely you're going to
have a strike that's not going to go all the
way through. What's it going to strike. Well, it's going
to strike tissue, bone, any kind of sinew, and it's
(25:58):
also going to strike the vertebral body and it will
leave a mark there. Now, the head, there's a high
probability that that head, even at this point, still has
attached vertebral bodies to it, which could be examined by
a tool mark expert if they find it. What is
left behind will also have marks as well that we'll
(26:19):
have tool marks on them, and there will be multiple
strikes on that because every time this meat cleaver is
brought down, you essentially scratch that bone. You cut a
little channel that is actually, if you look at it
on as long axis, is actually V shaped all the
way down. It marries up with a blade and you'll
have these multiple V shaped strikes all the way across
(26:40):
the bone, and those can be married up to the
meat clean But the problem here is this the mother
is saying she's missing the meat clever. They don't have
that at the time of this recording. To marry those
two things up and compare them. What we do know
is that we have a body that is absent its head.
There's a high probability that there are tool marks on
(27:01):
what remains of the neck that could be married up.
We have what appears to be perhaps an attempted clean
up at a crime scene. And at this point, at
this time of the recording, we have only an accused person.
I'm Josephcott Morgan and this is body backs
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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