August 15, 2023 • 26 mins
Grant Solomon, an 18-year-old prodigious athlete destined for greatness, tragically loses his life in a perplexing incident. The initial account of Grant's death is filled with inconsistencies and suspicious circumstances—his father Aaron Solomon's conflicting stories, the mysterious disappearance of witnesses, and the lack of expected physical evidence all contribute to the mystery. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack dig deep into these complexities, exploring everything from family dynamics and the meticulous details of attending professional sports training facilities to the forensics of accident investigations. Through expert analysis and engaging storytelling, they unravel a case shrouded in uncertainty.
Time codes:
[00:00:20] Joseph Scott Morgan reflects on the value of relationships with children and introduces the case of a young man who tragically died at 18 years old.
00:03:20 - Dave Mack introduces Grant Solomon, a blue chip athlete with a promising future, and his parents, who are well-established in their respective careers.
00:05:20 - The mystery surrounding Grant Solomon's death and the potential motive that could be tied to family issues are shared.
00:08:02 - Dave and Joe Scott discuss the high cost and meticulous preparation involved in attending professional sports training facilities and the logistics of showing up to such a facility without an appointment, suggesting an oddity in the situation.
00:12:20 - Joe talks about young drivers' potential mistakes, leading to Grant's death, and emphasizes the importance of eyewitness testimony in car accident cases.
00:15:32 - Joe and Dave discuss the importance of experts in assessing mechanical failures and the process of examining vehicles post-accident.
00:18:00 - Dave narrates the incident as explained by Aaron Solomon, Grant’s father, the only known witness.
00:19:00 - Joe and Dave discuss the significance of a player's baseball gear, specifically the bat.
00:21:20 - Dave reveals the ongoing custody battle between Grant's divorced parents at the time of his death, a video captured unknowingly by Grant's mother, and the inconsistencies in Aaron's account of the events leading up to Grant's death.
00:23:35 - Joseph Scott Morgan provides a detailed description of the scene, including the layout of the parking lot and the building.
00:25:32 - Joseph introduces blunt force trauma, a leading injury cause in America.
00:30:16 - The condition of Grant's shoes and lack of typical accident wear and tear are discussed.
00:31:57 - Joe Scott emphasizes the likelihood of trace evidence and the unusual lack of it in Grant's case.
00:34:36 - Joe and Dave discuss the cause of Grant's death, a single injury to the back of his head, and consider alternative explanations for how it could have occurred.
00:36:30 - Questions arise about the narrative of Grant being rolled over, citing a lack of evidence.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Priority you know where
exactly do you stop your treasure? If you will, Where
is it that you put your value in this life?
(00:30):
I can only speak from my experience. I value the
time that I have with my kids. My son, who
is an adult now, is still in college. He still
comes to me for advice, which is amazing in and
of itself. But those moments that I have with him
now make me reflective of the times that I had
with him when he was younger, learning baseball for instance,
(00:53):
playing golf, traveling, and there is nothing you can do
to replace that time. Today, I want to talk about
a case involving a father and a son, a young
man named Grant Solomon, and a life that was tragically
brought to a very sudden end at eighteen years of age.
(01:15):
My name is Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Bodybacks, Dave.
I'm trying to think back right now, through the hazy
mist of time, trying to remember what my first car was.
I think if I remember correctly, yeah, I know it
(01:36):
was because I was almost killed in it. I had
a nineteen sixty nine Mustang with a three h two
three speed and It was a piece of junk that
got for six hundred bucks and had repainted, restored, not
(01:56):
to a great degree. It would not have done well
in a car show, but it was functional for a
seventeen year old, and boy was I proud of it.
And a guy, a drunk driver, blew a stoplight and
hit me in the front right side of my car
and almost killed me. I was paralyzed for a little while.
I lost the use of the less side of my body.
(02:18):
I was going to play college football and lost every
opportunity that I had because of a severe neck injury,
and thankfully recovered from that. But I remember that car
so fondly because it was my first. It was my first.
It's something that I valued, and my mom was a
big part of me possessing that car and having that car.
(02:41):
And when you're a kid that age, your identity kind
of gets tied up and that sort of thing, doesn't it.
Grant Solomon also had a vehicle. It was I think
a two thy fifteen Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. I think
a white one as a matter of fact, nice vehicle,
very nice vehicle, four door.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, Grant Solomon had just turned eighteen years old, and
he had that twenty fifteen Toyota to come, a pickup
truck four door. One of the things about Grant Solomon
that I want to point out from the very beginning,
he was blue chip athlete six foot four, two hundred
and ten pounds at eighteen, and he could play some ball.
(03:23):
He excelled in athletics. Grant Solomon's mom and dad, Aaron
Solomon and Angie Solomon. Aaron Solomon was a well known
sports anchor and then later a morning show television news
anchor of some note in the area of Tennessee where
they lived, and his mom, Angie was a doctor of pharmacology.
(03:47):
Grant has a younger sister. Now. Grant's mother and father,
Aaron and Angie had gone through a horrific divorce. It's
July twentieth of twenty twenty. Well, here's the scene. Then,
Grant Solomon and his father, Aaron Solomon, they meet at
Ward Performance Institute in Gallatin, Tennessee. This is a facility
(04:11):
for baseball players to work out, get some private coaching,
and to work on different aspects of their game. As
I mentioned, Grant Solomon is a blue chip athlete. He's
a baseball player. Many colleges are looking at him while
they were there, and it's not unusual for them to
have been at a place like this. It was about
an hour long drive for Grant to get to Ward
(04:31):
Performance Institute, but they didn't have an appointment, and you
need to have an appointment. You actually have to plan
because they have instructions for you to prepare to be there,
and you actually work on these things and you show
up ready to work, ready to learn your craft.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So what you're saying is is that if you were
under the tutelage of an instructor like this, there would
be a prescribed regimen that you would have had to
have gone through beforehand. And I would imagine there'd be
other people waiting in line too for these time slots
as well.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
But they arrive Aaron Solomon is there first. Grant Solomon
arrives second in his Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. It is
a four door model. At this point, they are both
parts side by side in the parking lot.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
He's thinking about Grant circumstances as he is arriving at
this facility. When you're a young kid and you're a
new driver, there's many times you forget to do certain things.
Maybe you forget an item that's in the vehicle, maybe
even you forget to put your vehicle in park or
even turn it off. Because you're so unsettled at that
(05:38):
point in time in your life, you don't necessarily systematically
think about things. You're reactionary. And what has been alleged
is that Grant's truck got away from him essentially as
he had stepped out of the vehicle, and of course
it led to his death. In my estimation, i'd have
(06:16):
to say, I know it's rather simplistic, but I'd have
to say that the value of an eyewitness in many
cases involving death is certainly important. But when you begin
to think about car accidents in particular, we hear a
lot of witness statements. I have over the years I've
taken witness statements. The dynamics of them can be so very,
(06:38):
very complicated because of the many layers that are involved.
The behavior of the individual. That is, particularly if they're
a pedestrian that's struck by a vehicle. Were they aware
that this was happening, did they see it coming, did
they try to avoid a vehicle? And also the behavior,
if you will, of the vehicle itself. If it's a
(07:01):
vehicle that's being driven by somebody, did somebody break, did
they swerve? But if it's a runaway vehicle, you really
want to try to understand that. And so I witnessed
testimony in cases like this are more valuable than gold
from an investigative standpoint.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Dave, this story really hit home with me because we
had an suv in our driveway at my house. It
was in park at the time. My grandson Breilan was
about two maybe maybe not even too in his car seat. Thankfully,
my wife, Lodnna was in the passenger side seat. Hannah
had put the car in park and had gotten out
(07:38):
to do something, lock the door or whatever at the house.
He's in the ignition the vehicle's in park. All of
a sudden there was a malfunction. It kicked out a
park and the car rolled down the hill. Ladonna's in
the passenger seat. Two year old grandson's in the back
in his car seat, and all LaDonna could do she
couldn't reach over to hit the brake. She couldn't do
anything except try to hear the wheel so it wouldn't
(08:01):
go out into the road and she was able to
get it enough so that the car spun and went
into our woods and it was totaled in the space
of thirty yards of my driveway. There was a malfunction,
Joe in that vehicle because I wanted to know, was
how did this happen? How is this possible? Well, we
found out there was a mechanical break in this thing.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Wait you just said you found out. Yes, well, gee, Dave,
how in fact did you find out? I would assume
you had to ask someone to take it? I mean,
God love you. I think you're a bright guy when
it comes to transmissions and all of that stuff. Are
you an expert? I mean I would assume you had
to have somebody look at it to give you an assessment.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Right, Well, you know, the insurance company made me do that.
I wondered about it. I questioned it, if there is
an investigation, you have to you realize you need a
police report, even when it happens on your property, because
insurance is not going to pay something if they don't
have to. And so we did an investigation. They determined
that something broke in the transmission that allowed this to happen.
It was a freak accident.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
For us in forensics, people don't normally think about this.
Mechanics in particular are some of our biggest resources when
it comes to accident investigation, because, yeah, you see a
state trooper for instance, or maybe a local police officer
in there out in the middle of the road, and
they are part of an accident investigation team where you
see them using the laser total station. They're taking all
(09:27):
these points of measurement. You see the if you ever
see like the bright orange paint in the middle of
the road where it's marking tire tracks and it's also
marking points of impact, you'll see all this weird coding
that's kind of painted onto the surface of a roadway.
That's part of what the accident team does. But that's
only the beginning. Many times with vehicles, those vehicles will
(09:50):
be flatbedded into a location where they can be assessed
by a mechanic and that's another big part to an investigation.
And just to understand with Grant's death, which seemingly comes
about as a result of his truck, this heavy truck.
You know, this truck. It's not some tiny little thing
(10:11):
that I don't care how powerful of an athlete. He was,
You're talking about a truck that weighs anywhere from the
curve weaves anywhere from about thirty six hundred pounds to
almost forty three hundred pounds. It's a four door truck.
It's heavy.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
This is the explanation of what happened, according to Aaron Solomon,
who was the only person we know that was sitting
right there and is there his words from the police report.
My son, Grant, and I pulled into WPI separately, parked
side by side. I was still in my car but
noticed my son got out to get his baseball gear
(10:52):
out of the back of his truck. I look down
to check a work email, and the next thing I know,
I hear the truck rolling backwards into the ditch. I
get out of my car to try to find my
son and saw that he was trapped underneath the truck
and immediately called nine to one one.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
One of the things that I was very curious about Dave.
In this case, the father alleges in his initial report
that Grant went into the bed of his truck to
retrieve his back, and somewhere along the way that story
was changed.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
It was actually five days later.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
My understanding is he normally kept it in the cab
of the truck.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
So we have the first statement to the police. The
next thing was actually a week later, five days give
or take, and it was recorded by Grant's mother, Grace.
Now remember Grace and Aaron Solomon were divorced. Bottom line
here is we had Aaron's first story to police. Looks
down in an email, looks back up, the car, truck's
(12:00):
gone rolling down the hill. Where's Grant? Now? A couple
of days later, he is explaining this to Grant's mother
the way the video. I've actually watched this. It appears
to be a video that she recorded on her phone.
You never get a full on video of his face.
You really are looking at his feet, but you can
clearly hear him rather explain to Grant's mother, Angie, what happened.
(12:22):
He said, quote, I didn't see to the point where
he gets to this. And at this point Aaron is
showing Angie how Grant was getting his baseball gear out
of the back seat of the truck, not the bet
of the truck, out of the back seat, directly behind
the driver's seat. He's standing there at the door. He says,
this is the last thing I see. Angie asked, did
(12:45):
he close that door? Aaron says, he was closing the door.
He's referring to the back door. That's what he's actually
pointing at. He was closing the door when I saw him,
and so pause, and the doors were closed when I
get out. He has changed his story in the space
of a couple of days from Grant is getting his
(13:06):
stuff out of the back bed of the truck to
out of the back seat of the truck, and the
door is now open and closed.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
It's an amazing dynamic when you look at the facility itself,
the parking lot, the parking lot, and the building. The
building is kind of a standard aluminum sided type of
building like you see where people will set up garages
and those sorts of things for their businesses on the
side of the road. It's a kind of a tall structure.
(13:35):
Maybe I don't know if I would call it a
two story, but it has to be large enough. The
building itself has to be large enough to accommodate somebody
swinging a bat in there with properly a pitching machine,
a pitching mount. With that said, there is an asphalted
parking lot in front of it. And so where the
truck winds up, the truck winds up adjacent to the
(13:57):
roadway where they have turned in to into the parking lot.
And this is like from the road to that parking area,
this is probably at minimum a twenty percent grade that
you're going up, possibly thirty. So it's pitched up. And
here's the thing. The way this dynamic appears to have
(14:18):
happened is that, according to what they're saying, is that
when this truck rolled back, it apparently captured Grant in
some way and drug him along down this pitched parking
lot down into a draining s ditch, where the truck
comes to rest facing back toward the building and Grant
(14:43):
is found beneath the truck. Dave, I don't know if
(15:06):
you know this or not, but we've covered some cases
on body bags involving bludgeoning and that goes to what's
referred to as blunt force trauma. Did you know that
the number one cause of blunt force trauma in America
is It has nothing to do with somebody wielding item
to hit somebody in the head with or anything like that.
(15:29):
It involves motor vehicle accidents. That's the number one cause
of blunt force trauma to bodies. It's what brings about death.
In Grant Solomon's case, we're talking about what would arguably
be from a dynamic standpoint, a pretty horrific event as
it applies to the trauma that would be witnessed on
(15:52):
this young man's body. And for my money, when you're
talking about this, we're missing a few things.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Here based on description of what took place. What would
we expect to find on Grant Solomon's body had he
been drug by his twenty fifteen Toyota to come a
pickup truck, if he had been dragged down the parking
lot all the way into the ditch at the truck
resting on his body, what would we expect to see?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Well, look, I'm not trying to be a smart alec
by responding to you this way, but one of the
things you would expect to see are drag marks. And
I don't mean drag marks in the sense of when
we're talking about working at crom scene where we're looking
to see if someone has drug a body off. That's
not what we're talking about. Drag marks. Everybody just kind
of take a look at your arm right now and
(16:42):
imagine you've got a superficial abrasion, say on the surface
the palmer surface of your hand, or maybe on your forearm,
and everybody knows what an abrasion looks like. And with
drag marks in particular, they're going to be what's referred
to as many times striated, which means they've got multiple
little lines that you'll see. And it's an abrasion where
(17:05):
the skin, that top layer of skin, the epidermis and
the dermis, which is just below the epidermists, begin to
kind of peel back because it's a friction kind of
injury where you're fighting to maintain one position, but yet
you're being drug along. And this is what's allegedly happened.
Remember we're talking about a thirty six hundred pounds plus
(17:28):
vehicle dragging this young man along. You would have drag
marks all over the body, any exposed area where if
you've got bare arms or bare legs, maybe he's in shorts,
you'll see him on the sides of the face. Many
times it will be the nastiest abrasion that you will
ever see. And you see them particularly where pedestrians are
(17:49):
struck by vehicles and if they are caught beneath the
undercarriage of a vehicle because the vehicle is going is
not going to stop moving into either someone breaks somebody
he puts it in park, or just the say, for instance,
the inertial energy of that potential energy that's in a
vehicle that's heavy, where you have it sitting on a
(18:12):
grade of twenty five degree save, for instance, where that
energy is going to dissipate and finally it's going to
come into a resting position. Maybe the geography is going
to dictate that where we have a ditch here, there's
no way because you're fighting against it. You're still alive,
you're trying to fight, and so that contact with these
surfaces is really going to rough your skin up. David,
(18:35):
there's nothing like that here. I mean, there's nothing like it.
You're talking about him literally being pulled along the surface
of an asphalt parking lot, which all of us can
identify with down hill, which is covered in grass, and
we still don't know how many grass stains we're on
this clothing. That's something else in dirt marks that we
(18:57):
look for, and they can be strided as well. You'll
see that kind of contacting onto the surface of clothing
and to flesh, and also where the truck has come
to rest, Dave, there is a huge collection because it
literally comes to rest in a ditch. There is a
huge collection of drainage trucks. And when I say draining trucks,
(19:20):
I'm not talking about like pea gravel. I am talking
about these big, rough edged stones. And it doesn't take
a forensic scientist to sit here and tell you what
kind of damage that could do to a body. But
yet there's something lacking when it comes to injuries on
Grant's remains.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
And what about his shoes? Would I expect to see
some kind of drag marks on the heel or bottom
or sides of those shoes.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
One of the things we try to do, you know,
is humans, when we're reacting to being kind of caught
up in the energy of something that is moving us along,
is to stop it. And I've seen images of grant shoes.
They've got wear on on them, but relatively speaking, compared
to what you would normally see at an accident scene
with a motor vehicle, you're going to have significant scuff
(20:10):
marks on them. You'll have contact trace contact that comes
that will many times ravage any kind of material that's
associated with it. The shoes are in really good condition.
Grant's mother was in possession of the shoes. And here's
one other thing that you see when it comes to
a vehicle dragging somebody along. The other thing that you
(20:33):
will see is not just injuries to the tissue where
the tissue is greatly disrupted, but you will also see
what will referred to as rollover injuries. Okay, let me
kind of run that down to you. Tell you what
happens with rollover injuries. If you are literally rolled over,
say you're you're caught beneath the undercarriage of a vehicle,
(20:56):
there is this dynamic where your body is kind of
spinning in this environment as well, clothing is getting twisted
you're moving around, your clothing will actually be torn. And
if the car completely clears an individual, say the tires
roll over a body, you've got the dynamic of the
tire spinning. You'll have tire tread marks on bodies. Many
(21:18):
times you can actually see the imprint of tire treads
on flesh and the skin will be not just the
skin will be torn, but the clothing will be torn. Dave.
And if you don't believe that cars can leave behind
trace evidence. Everybody out there hearing my voice, do yourself
a favor. Go out to your car. I wouldn't recommend
you do this after you've just shut it off, but
(21:40):
stick your hand underneath the car and press the underside
of and draw your hand out and see if your
hand what the surface of your palm looks like. After that,
you're going to have road dirt all over your hand,
You'll have grease deposition. Sometimes there's all of this kind
of contact trace that winds up on the body. And
to the best of our understanding, at this point, there's
(22:00):
really no evidence of that. But I think that Grant
did have some pretty significant injuries, if I'm not mistaken.
But they're very specific, aren't they.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Dave, you pointed out something about going out to your
car and touching the underside, and you said, don't do
it if it's hot, wait till it cools down. And
that's important to note here, because what we do know
is that Grant has just driven his car over an
hour across three counties and arrives at this facility at
(22:31):
about eight thirty in the morning. The nine to one
one call is placed at eight forty four in the morning,
so fifteen minutes after arrival, I would expect that that
car undercarriage would be hot and dirty from the hour
long drive. We also, up to this point, all we
know is the story that we're told from Aaron Solomon,
(22:52):
the father, and a couple of things of note, he
doesn't say he heard Grant's scream, just that here's the
car rolling on the nine one one call. He is
referring to three other men helping to get his son
from underneath this vehicle. When police arrive, these three men
who stopped everything to try to help this young man,
(23:14):
they're gone.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
And have the police that conducted the investigation into this case.
I think my understanding is they've never been able to
track down these three men that were there.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Nobody's come forward. Hey, that was me. I was there.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
This is aside from all of the other things that
are kind of swirling around in the world in which
this child en dwelled, because to me, he is a child.
He's eighteen. I know he's a child. You know how
I talked at when we first let in Dave about
how circumstantial evidence many times can distract in an investigation,
(23:51):
if particularly in my world if you don't focus on
the injuries. Let's focus on the injuries just for a moment,
and remember this. After having been caught beneath the vehicle,
Grant's cause of death was a single injury to the
back of his head that has been related as being
(24:13):
the fatal blow. Now, how did that blow come about?
Did it come about as a result of being struck
by a vehicle, Did it come about as a result
of being rolled over by vehicle, Did it come about
as a result of being drug by vehicle, or is
it something else? Well, it's very specific. If you'll put
(24:34):
your hand on the back of your head and go
to the left side of the rear of your head,
there was a laceration right there, and underlying that specific
area is where the fatal injury exists. Now, Grant also
had an injury to his left cheek, which would be
on the same side of the head as the injury
(24:54):
to the back of his head, and he also had
an injury a bruise on his hip. But other than that,
his body is absent much of the trauma that you
would normally associate with someone that had been struck and
drug and come to rest on a pile of rocks
(25:15):
with thirty two hundred pound plus vehicle resting a top
of the body. Because here's the thing. It has been
stated that the truck was resting atop the body, and
I guess the body was beneath the truck. But it
has also been stated that potentially he had been rolled
(25:35):
over by the tires, but there's not a lot of
evidence to back that up.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Grant Solomon's manner of death was determined to be a
tragic accident, and investigation determined Grant was killed after he
was struck by his own vehicle. Aaron Solomon adamantly denies
any wrongdoing in his son's death. He has not been
charged in connection. A petition on chain dot org calls
(26:01):
for further investigation.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is bodybacks
Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Priority you know where
exactly do you stop your treasure? If you will, Where
is it that you put your value in this life?
(00:30):
I can only speak from my experience. I value the
time that I have with my kids. My son, who
is an adult now, is still in college. He still
comes to me for advice, which is amazing in and
of itself. But those moments that I have with him
now make me reflective of the times that I had
with him when he was younger, learning baseball for instance,
(00:53):
playing golf, traveling, and there is nothing you can do
to replace that time. Today, I want to talk about
a case involving a father and a son, a young
man named Grant Solomon, and a life that was tragically
brought to a very sudden end at eighteen years of age.
(01:15):
My name is Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Bodybacks, Dave.
I'm trying to think back right now, through the hazy
mist of time, trying to remember what my first car was.
I think if I remember correctly, yeah, I know it
(01:36):
was because I was almost killed in it. I had
a nineteen sixty nine Mustang with a three h two
three speed and It was a piece of junk that
got for six hundred bucks and had repainted, restored, not
(01:56):
to a great degree. It would not have done well
in a car show, but it was functional for a
seventeen year old, and boy was I proud of it.
And a guy, a drunk driver, blew a stoplight and
hit me in the front right side of my car
and almost killed me. I was paralyzed for a little while.
I lost the use of the less side of my body.
(02:18):
I was going to play college football and lost every
opportunity that I had because of a severe neck injury,
and thankfully recovered from that. But I remember that car
so fondly because it was my first. It was my first.
It's something that I valued, and my mom was a
big part of me possessing that car and having that car.
(02:41):
And when you're a kid that age, your identity kind
of gets tied up and that sort of thing, doesn't it.
Grant Solomon also had a vehicle. It was I think
a two thy fifteen Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. I think
a white one as a matter of fact, nice vehicle,
very nice vehicle, four door.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, Grant Solomon had just turned eighteen years old, and
he had that twenty fifteen Toyota to come, a pickup
truck four door. One of the things about Grant Solomon
that I want to point out from the very beginning,
he was blue chip athlete six foot four, two hundred
and ten pounds at eighteen, and he could play some ball.
(03:23):
He excelled in athletics. Grant Solomon's mom and dad, Aaron
Solomon and Angie Solomon. Aaron Solomon was a well known
sports anchor and then later a morning show television news
anchor of some note in the area of Tennessee where
they lived, and his mom, Angie was a doctor of pharmacology.
(03:47):
Grant has a younger sister. Now. Grant's mother and father,
Aaron and Angie had gone through a horrific divorce. It's
July twentieth of twenty twenty. Well, here's the scene. Then,
Grant Solomon and his father, Aaron Solomon, they meet at
Ward Performance Institute in Gallatin, Tennessee. This is a facility
(04:11):
for baseball players to work out, get some private coaching,
and to work on different aspects of their game. As
I mentioned, Grant Solomon is a blue chip athlete. He's
a baseball player. Many colleges are looking at him while
they were there, and it's not unusual for them to
have been at a place like this. It was about
an hour long drive for Grant to get to Ward
(04:31):
Performance Institute, but they didn't have an appointment, and you
need to have an appointment. You actually have to plan
because they have instructions for you to prepare to be there,
and you actually work on these things and you show
up ready to work, ready to learn your craft.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So what you're saying is is that if you were
under the tutelage of an instructor like this, there would
be a prescribed regimen that you would have had to
have gone through beforehand. And I would imagine there'd be
other people waiting in line too for these time slots
as well.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
But they arrive Aaron Solomon is there first. Grant Solomon
arrives second in his Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. It is
a four door model. At this point, they are both
parts side by side in the parking lot.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
He's thinking about Grant circumstances as he is arriving at
this facility. When you're a young kid and you're a
new driver, there's many times you forget to do certain things.
Maybe you forget an item that's in the vehicle, maybe
even you forget to put your vehicle in park or
even turn it off. Because you're so unsettled at that
(05:38):
point in time in your life, you don't necessarily systematically
think about things. You're reactionary. And what has been alleged
is that Grant's truck got away from him essentially as
he had stepped out of the vehicle, and of course
it led to his death. In my estimation, i'd have
(06:16):
to say, I know it's rather simplistic, but I'd have
to say that the value of an eyewitness in many
cases involving death is certainly important. But when you begin
to think about car accidents in particular, we hear a
lot of witness statements. I have over the years I've
taken witness statements. The dynamics of them can be so very,
(06:38):
very complicated because of the many layers that are involved.
The behavior of the individual. That is, particularly if they're
a pedestrian that's struck by a vehicle. Were they aware
that this was happening, did they see it coming, did
they try to avoid a vehicle? And also the behavior,
if you will, of the vehicle itself. If it's a
(07:01):
vehicle that's being driven by somebody, did somebody break, did
they swerve? But if it's a runaway vehicle, you really
want to try to understand that. And so I witnessed
testimony in cases like this are more valuable than gold
from an investigative standpoint.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Dave, this story really hit home with me because we
had an suv in our driveway at my house. It
was in park at the time. My grandson Breilan was
about two maybe maybe not even too in his car seat. Thankfully,
my wife, Lodnna was in the passenger side seat. Hannah
had put the car in park and had gotten out
(07:38):
to do something, lock the door or whatever at the house.
He's in the ignition the vehicle's in park. All of
a sudden there was a malfunction. It kicked out a
park and the car rolled down the hill. Ladonna's in
the passenger seat. Two year old grandson's in the back
in his car seat, and all LaDonna could do she
couldn't reach over to hit the brake. She couldn't do
anything except try to hear the wheel so it wouldn't
(08:01):
go out into the road and she was able to
get it enough so that the car spun and went
into our woods and it was totaled in the space
of thirty yards of my driveway. There was a malfunction,
Joe in that vehicle because I wanted to know, was
how did this happen? How is this possible? Well, we
found out there was a mechanical break in this thing.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Wait you just said you found out. Yes, well, gee, Dave,
how in fact did you find out? I would assume
you had to ask someone to take it? I mean,
God love you. I think you're a bright guy when
it comes to transmissions and all of that stuff. Are
you an expert? I mean I would assume you had
to have somebody look at it to give you an assessment.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Right, Well, you know, the insurance company made me do that.
I wondered about it. I questioned it, if there is
an investigation, you have to you realize you need a
police report, even when it happens on your property, because
insurance is not going to pay something if they don't
have to. And so we did an investigation. They determined
that something broke in the transmission that allowed this to happen.
It was a freak accident.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
For us in forensics, people don't normally think about this.
Mechanics in particular are some of our biggest resources when
it comes to accident investigation, because, yeah, you see a
state trooper for instance, or maybe a local police officer
in there out in the middle of the road, and
they are part of an accident investigation team where you
see them using the laser total station. They're taking all
(09:27):
these points of measurement. You see the if you ever
see like the bright orange paint in the middle of
the road where it's marking tire tracks and it's also
marking points of impact, you'll see all this weird coding
that's kind of painted onto the surface of a roadway.
That's part of what the accident team does. But that's
only the beginning. Many times with vehicles, those vehicles will
(09:50):
be flatbedded into a location where they can be assessed
by a mechanic and that's another big part to an investigation.
And just to understand with Grant's death, which seemingly comes
about as a result of his truck, this heavy truck.
You know, this truck. It's not some tiny little thing
(10:11):
that I don't care how powerful of an athlete. He was,
You're talking about a truck that weighs anywhere from the
curve weaves anywhere from about thirty six hundred pounds to
almost forty three hundred pounds. It's a four door truck.
It's heavy.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
This is the explanation of what happened, according to Aaron Solomon,
who was the only person we know that was sitting
right there and is there his words from the police report.
My son, Grant, and I pulled into WPI separately, parked
side by side. I was still in my car but
noticed my son got out to get his baseball gear
(10:52):
out of the back of his truck. I look down
to check a work email, and the next thing I know,
I hear the truck rolling backwards into the ditch. I
get out of my car to try to find my
son and saw that he was trapped underneath the truck
and immediately called nine to one one.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
One of the things that I was very curious about Dave.
In this case, the father alleges in his initial report
that Grant went into the bed of his truck to
retrieve his back, and somewhere along the way that story
was changed.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
It was actually five days later.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
My understanding is he normally kept it in the cab
of the truck.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
So we have the first statement to the police. The
next thing was actually a week later, five days give
or take, and it was recorded by Grant's mother, Grace.
Now remember Grace and Aaron Solomon were divorced. Bottom line
here is we had Aaron's first story to police. Looks
down in an email, looks back up, the car, truck's
(12:00):
gone rolling down the hill. Where's Grant? Now? A couple
of days later, he is explaining this to Grant's mother
the way the video. I've actually watched this. It appears
to be a video that she recorded on her phone.
You never get a full on video of his face.
You really are looking at his feet, but you can
clearly hear him rather explain to Grant's mother, Angie, what happened.
(12:22):
He said, quote, I didn't see to the point where
he gets to this. And at this point Aaron is
showing Angie how Grant was getting his baseball gear out
of the back seat of the truck, not the bet
of the truck, out of the back seat, directly behind
the driver's seat. He's standing there at the door. He says,
this is the last thing I see. Angie asked, did
(12:45):
he close that door? Aaron says, he was closing the door.
He's referring to the back door. That's what he's actually
pointing at. He was closing the door when I saw him,
and so pause, and the doors were closed when I
get out. He has changed his story in the space
of a couple of days from Grant is getting his
(13:06):
stuff out of the back bed of the truck to
out of the back seat of the truck, and the
door is now open and closed.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
It's an amazing dynamic when you look at the facility itself,
the parking lot, the parking lot, and the building. The
building is kind of a standard aluminum sided type of
building like you see where people will set up garages
and those sorts of things for their businesses on the
side of the road. It's a kind of a tall structure.
(13:35):
Maybe I don't know if I would call it a
two story, but it has to be large enough. The
building itself has to be large enough to accommodate somebody
swinging a bat in there with properly a pitching machine,
a pitching mount. With that said, there is an asphalted
parking lot in front of it. And so where the
truck winds up, the truck winds up adjacent to the
(13:57):
roadway where they have turned in to into the parking lot.
And this is like from the road to that parking area,
this is probably at minimum a twenty percent grade that
you're going up, possibly thirty. So it's pitched up. And
here's the thing. The way this dynamic appears to have
(14:18):
happened is that, according to what they're saying, is that
when this truck rolled back, it apparently captured Grant in
some way and drug him along down this pitched parking
lot down into a draining s ditch, where the truck
comes to rest facing back toward the building and Grant
(14:43):
is found beneath the truck. Dave, I don't know if
(15:06):
you know this or not, but we've covered some cases
on body bags involving bludgeoning and that goes to what's
referred to as blunt force trauma. Did you know that
the number one cause of blunt force trauma in America
is It has nothing to do with somebody wielding item
to hit somebody in the head with or anything like that.
(15:29):
It involves motor vehicle accidents. That's the number one cause
of blunt force trauma to bodies. It's what brings about death.
In Grant Solomon's case, we're talking about what would arguably
be from a dynamic standpoint, a pretty horrific event as
it applies to the trauma that would be witnessed on
(15:52):
this young man's body. And for my money, when you're
talking about this, we're missing a few things.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Here based on description of what took place. What would
we expect to find on Grant Solomon's body had he
been drug by his twenty fifteen Toyota to come a
pickup truck, if he had been dragged down the parking
lot all the way into the ditch at the truck
resting on his body, what would we expect to see?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Well, look, I'm not trying to be a smart alec
by responding to you this way, but one of the
things you would expect to see are drag marks. And
I don't mean drag marks in the sense of when
we're talking about working at crom scene where we're looking
to see if someone has drug a body off. That's
not what we're talking about. Drag marks. Everybody just kind
of take a look at your arm right now and
(16:42):
imagine you've got a superficial abrasion, say on the surface
the palmer surface of your hand, or maybe on your forearm,
and everybody knows what an abrasion looks like. And with
drag marks in particular, they're going to be what's referred
to as many times striated, which means they've got multiple
little lines that you'll see. And it's an abrasion where
(17:05):
the skin, that top layer of skin, the epidermis and
the dermis, which is just below the epidermists, begin to
kind of peel back because it's a friction kind of
injury where you're fighting to maintain one position, but yet
you're being drug along. And this is what's allegedly happened.
Remember we're talking about a thirty six hundred pounds plus
(17:28):
vehicle dragging this young man along. You would have drag
marks all over the body, any exposed area where if
you've got bare arms or bare legs, maybe he's in shorts,
you'll see him on the sides of the face. Many
times it will be the nastiest abrasion that you will
ever see. And you see them particularly where pedestrians are
(17:49):
struck by vehicles and if they are caught beneath the
undercarriage of a vehicle because the vehicle is going is
not going to stop moving into either someone breaks somebody
he puts it in park, or just the say, for instance,
the inertial energy of that potential energy that's in a
vehicle that's heavy, where you have it sitting on a
(18:12):
grade of twenty five degree save, for instance, where that
energy is going to dissipate and finally it's going to
come into a resting position. Maybe the geography is going
to dictate that where we have a ditch here, there's
no way because you're fighting against it. You're still alive,
you're trying to fight, and so that contact with these
surfaces is really going to rough your skin up. David,
(18:35):
there's nothing like that here. I mean, there's nothing like it.
You're talking about him literally being pulled along the surface
of an asphalt parking lot, which all of us can
identify with down hill, which is covered in grass, and
we still don't know how many grass stains we're on
this clothing. That's something else in dirt marks that we
(18:57):
look for, and they can be strided as well. You'll
see that kind of contacting onto the surface of clothing
and to flesh, and also where the truck has come
to rest, Dave, there is a huge collection because it
literally comes to rest in a ditch. There is a
huge collection of drainage trucks. And when I say draining trucks,
(19:20):
I'm not talking about like pea gravel. I am talking
about these big, rough edged stones. And it doesn't take
a forensic scientist to sit here and tell you what
kind of damage that could do to a body. But
yet there's something lacking when it comes to injuries on
Grant's remains.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
And what about his shoes? Would I expect to see
some kind of drag marks on the heel or bottom
or sides of those shoes.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
One of the things we try to do, you know,
is humans, when we're reacting to being kind of caught
up in the energy of something that is moving us along,
is to stop it. And I've seen images of grant shoes.
They've got wear on on them, but relatively speaking, compared
to what you would normally see at an accident scene
with a motor vehicle, you're going to have significant scuff
(20:10):
marks on them. You'll have contact trace contact that comes
that will many times ravage any kind of material that's
associated with it. The shoes are in really good condition.
Grant's mother was in possession of the shoes. And here's
one other thing that you see when it comes to
a vehicle dragging somebody along. The other thing that you
(20:33):
will see is not just injuries to the tissue where
the tissue is greatly disrupted, but you will also see
what will referred to as rollover injuries. Okay, let me
kind of run that down to you. Tell you what
happens with rollover injuries. If you are literally rolled over,
say you're you're caught beneath the undercarriage of a vehicle,
(20:56):
there is this dynamic where your body is kind of
spinning in this environment as well, clothing is getting twisted
you're moving around, your clothing will actually be torn. And
if the car completely clears an individual, say the tires
roll over a body, you've got the dynamic of the
tire spinning. You'll have tire tread marks on bodies. Many
(21:18):
times you can actually see the imprint of tire treads
on flesh and the skin will be not just the
skin will be torn, but the clothing will be torn. Dave.
And if you don't believe that cars can leave behind
trace evidence. Everybody out there hearing my voice, do yourself
a favor. Go out to your car. I wouldn't recommend
you do this after you've just shut it off, but
(21:40):
stick your hand underneath the car and press the underside
of and draw your hand out and see if your
hand what the surface of your palm looks like. After that,
you're going to have road dirt all over your hand,
You'll have grease deposition. Sometimes there's all of this kind
of contact trace that winds up on the body. And
to the best of our understanding, at this point, there's
(22:00):
really no evidence of that. But I think that Grant
did have some pretty significant injuries, if I'm not mistaken.
But they're very specific, aren't they.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Dave, you pointed out something about going out to your
car and touching the underside, and you said, don't do
it if it's hot, wait till it cools down. And
that's important to note here, because what we do know
is that Grant has just driven his car over an
hour across three counties and arrives at this facility at
(22:31):
about eight thirty in the morning. The nine to one
one call is placed at eight forty four in the morning,
so fifteen minutes after arrival, I would expect that that
car undercarriage would be hot and dirty from the hour
long drive. We also, up to this point, all we
know is the story that we're told from Aaron Solomon,
(22:52):
the father, and a couple of things of note, he
doesn't say he heard Grant's scream, just that here's the
car rolling on the nine one one call. He is
referring to three other men helping to get his son
from underneath this vehicle. When police arrive, these three men
who stopped everything to try to help this young man,
(23:14):
they're gone.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
And have the police that conducted the investigation into this case.
I think my understanding is they've never been able to
track down these three men that were there.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Nobody's come forward. Hey, that was me. I was there.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
This is aside from all of the other things that
are kind of swirling around in the world in which
this child en dwelled, because to me, he is a child.
He's eighteen. I know he's a child. You know how
I talked at when we first let in Dave about
how circumstantial evidence many times can distract in an investigation,
(23:51):
if particularly in my world if you don't focus on
the injuries. Let's focus on the injuries just for a moment,
and remember this. After having been caught beneath the vehicle,
Grant's cause of death was a single injury to the
back of his head that has been related as being
(24:13):
the fatal blow. Now, how did that blow come about?
Did it come about as a result of being struck
by a vehicle, Did it come about as a result
of being rolled over by vehicle, Did it come about
as a result of being drug by vehicle, or is
it something else? Well, it's very specific. If you'll put
(24:34):
your hand on the back of your head and go
to the left side of the rear of your head,
there was a laceration right there, and underlying that specific
area is where the fatal injury exists. Now, Grant also
had an injury to his left cheek, which would be
on the same side of the head as the injury
(24:54):
to the back of his head, and he also had
an injury a bruise on his hip. But other than that,
his body is absent much of the trauma that you
would normally associate with someone that had been struck and
drug and come to rest on a pile of rocks
(25:15):
with thirty two hundred pound plus vehicle resting a top
of the body. Because here's the thing. It has been
stated that the truck was resting atop the body, and
I guess the body was beneath the truck. But it
has also been stated that potentially he had been rolled
(25:35):
over by the tires, but there's not a lot of
evidence to back that up.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Grant Solomon's manner of death was determined to be a
tragic accident, and investigation determined Grant was killed after he
was struck by his own vehicle. Aaron Solomon adamantly denies
any wrongdoing in his son's death. He has not been
charged in connection. A petition on chain dot org calls
(26:01):
for further investigation.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is bodybacks
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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