April 30, 2025 • 44 mins
Is A Serial Killer Hunting Women in New England? Between March 6, 2025, and April 10, 2025, in an area of the United States known as "New England", the remains of 6 women have been found. This information has caused social media to claim a Serial Killer is on the loose and have named him the "New England Serial Killer". Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack take a look at what we know about the cases so far and discuss what a Serial Killer is from a investigative standpoint as opposed to the thoughts and ideas of armchair detectives and social media influencers. Should women in the Northeast be afraid? Is there really a new serial killer on the loose?
Transcribe Highlights
00:02.04 Introduction
01:22.25 Why do some murders get attention?
05:22.15 Remains of 6 women recovered over 8 weeks
10:00.24 What number makes a person a "Serial Killer"?
14:53.23 Weapons used by serial killers
20:15.95 BTK Serial Killer - First Killing was of a family
25:02.88 Who are the missing women whose remains recovered
29:57.23 Could it be an accident?
35:29.97 Mental Illness impact on life of victim
39:47.81 Physical description, similarities
43:17.07 Conclusion
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Quality times, but Joseph's gotten more. I've often thought about
this because I see such a broad swath of true
crime coverage and information about a variety of different deaths.
You know, the country might be focused on, say, for instance,
(00:21):
one thing that's going on like right now at the
time of this taping, and we've got like the Karen
Reid trial going on. We've got a variety of other
things involving Coburger and Hureman and all these things that
are waiting in the wings. There's a lot of ink
being slung about. And I've often thought over the years,
(00:46):
do we develop patterns as a consumer consumer public as
it applies to true crime. And the reason I ask
that to my cell is that do we get so
caught up in cases where because they're in the public
(01:10):
I that maybe other things will be forgotten. I'll give
you a great example, and I've talked about this case
extensively and been on various television shows and stuff, And
that's a piked and masker back from sixteen up in
southern Ohio. You had eight family members killed in that case,
(01:33):
and hardly an ounce of ink was spilt over it.
But yet you had other things that were singular deaths
where the coverage was just intense, you know, things like
I don't know the Jody Arias case going back to
twenty thirteen. It all depends on what hits, you know
what I mean. Right now, we're in the middle of
(01:56):
the Hureman case, which is lisk in Gilgo Beach, and
it's all the rage. Everybody wants to talk about it,
as well as should. But you know, there's another group
of deaths that have made their way into the news cycle,
(02:19):
and some people are hinting that there might be a
serial killer on the loose in a specific region of
our country. Now are these deaths related, I don't know.
Is that a consequence of maybe all of the news
about human I don't know, or is their validity to this?
(02:44):
Are people putting two and two together? Let's chat about it.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body bags. I
think that as humans day, our lives are all about patterns.
You know, there's certain ways that we go about things.
(03:05):
There's certain things that we view, there's certain things that
we consume and read and all of those and you know,
I think about things that you know, for instance, that
I watch on YouTube. I watch generally nothing political. I
watch nothing about true crime unless it's something that i'm studying.
(03:28):
Most of the time, the stuff that I direct myself
toward is history. You know, I love to study history
in the classics, and that's a pattern I've developed over
the years. You've been in media for a long time,
and you've been I don't know, I love this old term.
I would classify you as a newsman. You were, You
(03:51):
were a news reader for many years and have covered
news all over the country, and I'm just I'm curious.
Do you do you think the media develops pattern.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yes, I'm more of a I am more of a
commentator than a news reader. And the reason is real basics.
I've had to explain this to my family recently, and
that is as far as reading goes, I'm a voracious reader.
I read a lot, but I don't read word for word.
I paraphrase as I read, and you can't do that
when you're a news anchorman. I'm not a news anchorman.
(04:21):
I am actually a reporter, journalist, and a commentator. So
I ended up on Nancy Show to start with. You know,
you have an expertise that very few people possess. And
because it comes from an education in the classroom, and
it comes in from work in the field and by
the way, being successful at both at the academics and
(04:42):
in the field, and you're able to bring that together
and then you have that next level talent of being
able to make people like me understand what it is
you're talking about. And I don't even think you realize
how good you are at what you do. And I'm
coming from broadcasting end of it, Joe, You're able to
take like I'm excited about doing this particular show because
(05:07):
it has the broadcasting end of it, the angle. We've
named it already, Nesk. You mentioned the Long Island serial
killer RECs hereman calling it LISK. This one has already
been named NESK. The New England serial Killer is their one.
And this story has gotten legs because of social media.
There are Facebook pages devoted to it, and Twitter accounts
(05:32):
and x accounts and tiktoks are being devoted and we're
talking thousands of people by the day asking questions about
this story. We have right now six six female bodies
recovered between March sixth and April tenth in one area
(05:57):
of the northeast.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
So wow, we've only tight that's a very tight window
from yes, Tom sequencing as far as it is, and it's.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Recent, it's right now. I mean it's like, you know,
we're talking two weeks ago, Joe, when you and I
were up in East Hampton, right, what was the name
of the place that we landed in ice Lip?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Right? The Long Island.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, one of our victims actually is from there, and
we were just there a couple of weeks ago as
a couple of these bodies were being recovered on April
ninth and April tenth. So this is a somewhat media
generated event, but it's coming from the ground swell of
(06:42):
true crime people, armchair detectives, if you will. Something you
and I talked about at a conn a conference, how
not important, but how impactful it is that some stories
get attention while others don't. And now you know you
mentioned piked in I. Until you and I talked about it,
(07:04):
I did nothing about it. I knew nothing about that story.
And then when I got into it, I'm like, how
do we.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Not know about this?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
But Joe, there are stories that you and I have
covered and spent many hours on that other people are
going When did that happen was that and you're going
it happened three weeks ago, you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
So it's hit and missed with a lot of You have.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
To run, You have to run to keep up many times.
And it's I don't know if you concur with this,
but it's almost like there are rarely cases where a
gigantic gate comes down and you have to stop what
you're doing and you focus everything on those cases. You know,
you look at lisk with Long Island, Long Island serial
(07:49):
Killer so called, you think about that, and you might
if you look at it chronologically, you know, from the
first body that was found until the very life asked.
I don't know that there was like some huge gait
that descended and everybody stopped and looked. It took a
long time and a lot of people grinding over the scene,
(08:10):
and not just not just the law enforcement people, but
people in the media that knew that something was up
and they tried to keep the story alive. And I
think the one it's I think, I'm just curious if
this is if this is fertile ground for a cautionary tale,
(08:31):
because I'm worried. I'm worried about this based upon somebody
that has assessed cerial homicides, okay, over the course of
my career, and I'm trying to understand is because there's
just certain things that we look for now. I just
want to know if those elements are there.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
And that's why I am so thankful that you have
the time to do this, because I'm watching members of
the media and they are salivating over Nesk the New
England serial killer. And my first question, Joe, is this
something that you're familiar with, not the way it's being covered,
but are you familiar with serial killers and figuring out
(09:12):
what happened? Is this something you've worked before, Is it
something you can teach? Is it What are we actually
doing when it comes to this, because we've got armchair
detectives with no education and no background that are making
accusations and casting us versions and creating a media serial killer.
Yet we've got three females identified that remains identified. We're
(09:37):
talking about somebody's mother, somebody's daughter, somebody's sister that we
didn't find, a body we found remains Yeah, I think
there's a bit of a difference. I need you to
help me. I need you to explain to me what
a serial killer is, how do you identify that? And
does this fit?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah? Well, if okay, let's just say if all of
the these cases are related, Yeah, it meets the classic
definition three or more, and that number has varied for years.
I think at one point in time the number was
higher and then they reduced it. And I think it
was reduced by the people at the Behavioral Sciences Unit
(10:17):
in Quantico with FBI, they pulled it back down to three.
I might be wrong about that, but I think initially
the number was higher. So yeah, from that, from that
basic precept, yeah, this would be this would qualify as
a series of serialized homicides. But we still we're just
(10:44):
this case. We don't even know that these are homicides
at this point in time. We don't because I got
to be honest with you, I don't know about you.
Everything I've read, I haven't seen a cause of death yet,
I Joe, you know, and I just you know, what
I know is that we've got there's a big similarity here,
because well, let's just look at it geographically. You know,
(11:09):
it's the northeast, and you can I don't know, I
guess you could say that you could proverbial throw a
proverbial hat over the areas. I think that most of
the areas where these women's bodies have been found are
like in a one hundred mile radius or maybe a
(11:29):
little bit more. Yeah, so, yeah, geographically it could fit,
but we're missing huge pieces here. You know, every serialized
homicide I've ever worked, and I'm thinking back right now,
over the course of my career in New Orleans, I
(11:49):
think I worked three sets of serial killings down there
somewhere somewhere. On one case in particular, I just knew
that there were probably hundreds of bodies up and down
(12:09):
IT ten and the guy had been called the IT
ten killer a variety of names. I had another set
that guy killed six women and he was caught actually
dumping the body in the same location where he dumped
all the other ones. The sheriff's office finally set up
a hide and was watching literally saw it caught him
pulling a body out of the trunk of a car.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
That's kind of like Wayne will Williams in Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yeah, yeah, with splashing the water. Yeah. And then there
were there was another set and my memory fails me
on that one. But when I got to Atlanta. Yeah,
we had several Memorial Drive killer was killing prostitutes. We
had the Von City Killer. There were like two or
three other ones too that we thought were cereal serial related.
(12:58):
And you know, the thing about it is is that
you have to establish a pattern. And I think one
of the big missing pieces here is that we don't
if we don't have a causal statement relative to what
brought about these deaths. That's a big piece, okay, because
most serial killers, they have a preference for how they
(13:20):
take people's lives. I'll give you an example. The guy
was telling me about it was pulling the bodies out
of the trunk of the car. He loved to use
wire to use as a groat around the necks of
these prostitutes, and he would drug them beforehand, and then
(13:40):
the groat is essentially got a one little handle and
you can tighten it down, loosen it, and he would
loosen it multiple times. He was driving pleasure from this
guy was a sadist and filled with a lot of anger.
He'd kill women. Every time he got into a fight
with his fiance. He wouldn't attack her. You go out
and find it prostituct killer, Oh.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
My gosh, yeah, no, using the garroat like that.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, the guy, the clown in Chicago that buried the
gay sy.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
That's what he used.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
He would play all kinds of little tricks and things
to get the handcuff.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Trick and all of that. And yeah, and he and
again he was another guy that hadn't come to terms
with his own homosexuality. Is very angry.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
And he would use ligatures, which a groat is a
form of a ligature, or bare hands. But you know,
you're thinking about suffocation or strangulation. I've you know, And
it's interesting, Dave. You know that the line share of
the cases that I worked involved a SIXIA. I never
(14:45):
had like a I don't know what's the guy's name
up in New York, Son, Sam, I never had, you know,
they called him the forty four caliber killer. I never
worked serial killings that involved handguns or rifles even you know,
it's just firearms. I don't think I ever worked Yeah,
I don't think I ever worked a case involved in
(15:07):
serial killing with an edged weapon. They now, I've had
multiple people killed by one person wielding an edge weapon,
but not like a series of going out and stabbing
somebody or cutting their throats and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I didn't realize you'd worked so many, Okay, I didn't
think there were that many serial killings, like when you
started naming them off, you know, Yeah, I didn't realize
there were that many, And I certainly didn't know you
had had this was part and parcel of your Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
And I think about it with serial killings dependent upon
their geographic positioning, I think that it's more the exception.
And somebody's going to gig me on this, I know,
it seems to me that it's more the exception than
the norm to have somebody that's like a BTK that's
settled in a community, has been there for years and
(15:55):
years and is not moving about to hunt prey. You know,
they're hunting in the one little area. And I know
people say that they hunt with areas they're familiar with,
But if you look at long haul truckers, where are
they familiar with, Well, they're familiar with their truck, that's
their moving house, and they're familiar with truck stops, and
so you get that, you know, quite a bit. So
there's kind of a mish mash out there. Just like
(16:16):
over the years, there's been a a mish mash or
not not a mishmash, but kind of a confusion about
the number of kills that it takes to be classified
as a serial killer. This area that we're talking about
in the Northeast day, my gosh, there are interstates running everywhere,
(16:37):
and so, you know, I was talking about, you know,
kind of throwing the proverbial hat on this. If you're
thinking about, you know, an area that's kind of circling
a particular location. How can they get in, how can
they get out? What's the geography like, where are they
found relative to roadways, what's the terrain like where they're recovered.
(17:02):
Are they just being dumped out inside the road? Are
they being placed in water? Which one of these cases
I know was found in a river. So there's a
lot to consider here, But this is what I do
know at this point in time. I do know that
I don't have a cause of death on these victims,
(17:23):
and I also know that to that end, I don't
know if there is a connectivity between the types of death,
the instrumentality that may or may not have been used,
and also is there a common denominator relative to the
(17:44):
perpetrator thing being called again, David was Immedia.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
It's being called NESTS stands for New England serial Killer.
One thing I did want to pop in here with
Joe because I looked it up. You were and I
were talking about I twenty and you were right. It
ends in Texas at the intersection of I ten and
I thought it was in West Texas.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
So there you go. But yeah, the law there you
got the.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Long Island serial killer, which has been in the news now,
to be honest with you, for a long time, it was,
you know, from It's been called different things too, and
I still think there could be another person involved. But
and the other question, do you really think Hureman stopped?
But that's another day. Now we've got this New England
serial killer story and the reason is we have six
(18:47):
women who have been found. Now, I want to be
really clear and how I asked this show, when I
asked you about serial killers and how many serial killer
cases you've worked, and is there a commonality among the
victims as well as the perpetrator that.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
You can creator? Yeah, I can't. And I'm only talking
about my little slice supply, all right. I don't have
the forty thousand foot view that the FBI has I'm
just talking about my little slice suppie the areas I
worked in. Okay, my commonality perpetrator, I've the best of
(19:31):
my knowledge, at least, I never had a female perpetrator.
They were all males, and with the exception of the
Vine City killings in Atlanta, who were all elderly ladies,
which is disgusting on another level, entirely, they were prostitutes
almost to a person, you know, I didn't have this
(19:54):
kind of like you have would BTK where he's randomly targeting.
I mean literally, you know, the first the first victims
that he claimed were literally a nuclear family.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I was gonna say it was a family in the base, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, Terra and they he went in and walked out
the lot. And so, you know, it's it's always been
in my case, at least, it's always been female prostitutes.
I haven't I have not know. I have had friends
that have worked or colleagues that have worked cases involving
(20:31):
male prostitutes. Over the years. Myself, it's always been female prostitutes.
The line share of them have been you know, living
on the streets, had very and this is kind of
a classic profile, had very little contact with their biological family.
Matter of fact, many times families wouldn't even know what
(20:52):
had happened to him. That's what makes them such easy prey.
But I don't you know as of right now, where
you know if they're building out a profile. And I
would assume that some of the authorities have reached out
and I've got a big clue to that, and I'm
going to reveal it to you about trying to build
out a profile. If they are believing that these are
a serialized event, you're going to want to know what
(21:17):
these individuals backgrounds are, and you know, if there's some
kind of commonality. Now the reason that I think that
a profile could be built out, and again, we don't
know everything the police know at this time, and we
should not know everything that the police know. You know,
these are outside so horses that are putting together these things. Okay,
(21:40):
so the police. This is the way it generally works.
If you have a serialized event and it's multi jurisdictional,
the first thing you're going to do is that there
will generally be a task force formed in a single jurisdiction.
So let's say you've got multiple bodies that are found
in the state of Connecticut. Okay, Well, under the auspices
(22:01):
of the state, they can get together and they will
form a task force within that state. All right, Now,
if you've got one case, which there is one case
in this group that they've identified as nests that originates
out of Rhode Island, Dave, that person will not necessarily
(22:22):
be on the task force. And then there's another case.
There's cases out of Massachusetts and I think New Hampshire
as well, So you've got it's multi jurisdictional. So how
do you unite all of these people? Well, first off,
you have to be able to prove that there's connectivity
with physical evidence, cause of death, typology of the way
(22:46):
they were found, what was perpetrated against them, and that
includes things like any kind of instruments that we use,
Was there any kind of posing that was done with
the bodies, where they missing closed, where they all clothed,
was their clothing manipulated, were there any kind of post
mortem amputations that people taking trophies, anything like that. And
(23:10):
then what would happen is the next tier with this
will be the FEDS, and it'll be like the FBI.
They would form a federal task force and the FBI
would begin to work probably on a profile of not
just the victims, but also the potential perpetrator here. So
there's a lot of things that have to get into
motion in order to get everybody going in the correct direction.
(23:34):
One things I found out about being on a task force,
and again I'm just a corner medical examiner kind of guy.
I wasn't like going out and arresting people I was examining.
Remains the one thing that I have found though, and
I was always fascinated by, was with these task force
there is ego comes into it big time because everybody
(24:00):
wants everybody wants the claim to fame if it turns
out to be Let's just say, for instance, like with Lisk,
if you've got a multi jurisdictional thing, you know, everybody
would like to say, well, you know, we're the people
that stopped Lisk. Okay, same thing would apply here. You
have to remain You have to have a leader of
(24:20):
the group that's going to keep you focused on what
the task is at hand. So if you've got this
really divergent group of women we're talking six here, three
of which are still unidentified to this point, are you
going to be able to jam down those egos and
stay focused, like a laser, focus on what the task
(24:41):
is and that is ultimately getting this monster off the streets.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
All right now, I've got a question for you because
we do have a lot of We have a lot
of information, and I think I already told you this.
We have three of the remains identified and three not identified.
So let me start with the one woman, not the
first one to go missing. Because even though they were
(25:08):
all found in the last month or so, in the
last several weeks, that doesn't mean they were killed right
away or that they died right away.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
We don't even know they were killed. We just know
we have remains. We don't know if they were murdered.
You know, we don't know what we do know.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Like Page fan In, for example, Page fan In's body
was found on March the sixth page is from this
is the lady I was talking about from Icelip that
you and I flew into and she was reported missing
in New York on March fourth of this year, last
scene on March fifth, and her body was found March sixth.
(25:49):
This does not seem to fit into any of the
other cases that we're talking about because of where her
body was found, and how quickly you know she was
found based on when she was last seen, and she
was found in water after a very heavy rainfall. But
(26:10):
that was hers was the first body located found. The
next was Denise Leary. Denise Leary was found on March
twentieth of twenty twenty five. Denise was reported missing Joe
back last September. And that's where I look at that
(26:32):
and go, Okay, her condition, the remains of her, is
going to be a lot different than the remains of
Page Fannin. I mean, you have Paige Fannin that was
actually seen the day before her body was found, right,
And then we have one other woman who has been identified.
Her name is Michelle Romano. Her body was found on
March twenty sixth. She went missing August of last year.
(26:58):
That is a long time, yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
And of course her body, her body would be in
more than an advanced state of decomposition. Let's go back
to Page Fannin real quick now. We mentioned that she's
from West Island, New York, which is on Long Island,
as you and I are now well aware of.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
And by the way, until two weeks ago, I could
not have told you where it was just so you know, yeah, yeah,
it's it's I mean that in a positive way. I've
always wanted to know that area. But I'm to be
honest with your friends. If you're not from New York,
if you're not from that area, it's kind of like
I'm from I am from southern California, and so I
know what people think out there. It's just different than
(27:39):
you can imagine. What a beautiful area and the nicest
people I've ever met, Jerry, the nicest.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
People I've ever met in my life. That really were unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And I enjoyed going up there every year for the
Hampton who done it, uh with with Paige Fannin. You know,
she was actually from West Island, but she was down
in a river in Connecticut, and so she's you know,
she was found as a result of them asking for
(28:10):
She was found with the assistance of a drone actually,
and so she was up there for a reason, okay,
and where she fell into and I don't know that
you know, just because you fall into a very fast
moving river, which she was actually found in the Norwalk River,
(28:34):
and it's like racing through there. And I don't know
if you've ever been caught up in a current like
that before in a river. I have almost drowned in
a salmon fishing a river up in Michigan one day,
and you know, it just kind of pulled me down
the river, and I'm a pretty stout guy and I
(28:55):
couldn't fight it. So if you're thinking about with her,
what types of injuries did she display when they pulled
her out of the water. And she's only been down
for a couple of days, so it's not like she
was left somewhere out in the woods where she's in
a state of decay. So that's kind of an interesting
(29:15):
person that they've put into this mix. I'd like to
know for my purposes as an investigator, Dave, and I'm
in all honesty, I would go to the local authorities
up there in Connectu. I'd say, hey, let me ask
you something. How many other people have you ever had
drowned in this river? Are found dead in this river?
Is this something that happens regularly or is this so
(29:38):
rare that you're sitting here scratching your head thinking had
you wind up in the river, Because this has never
happened before. So I would have to kind of understand
that and understand the dynamic around the river. How do
you get to it? Can you fall off a bridge?
Can you slip off of rocks? You know what's the
story here?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So you know, we're immedately thinking if it's not an accident,
somebody picked this and got discarded her body.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Yeah, And here's the thing about it. If you go
down the road with serialized event, if the river is
moving this fast, which that's the way they've portrayed this thing.
Lord only knows where she could have gone in. You know,
how long does the Norwalk River run. It's obviously not
(30:26):
the Mississippi, But how far upstream could she have potentially
gone in? Did she fall into the water where she
was laying her head at night to go to sleep,
or was she so far away from her point of
origin that you would think, hm, wow, this is kind
of impressive that her body traveled all of this distance.
Where did she enter the river? Also? What types of
(30:50):
injuries does she have to her body? I pulled a
lot of bodies out of rivers, bodies of water, and
it's amazing what happens to a body in in water,
particularly rapidly moving water, because bodies bounce off of everything,
they get scratched by limbs that are hanging out debris,
they get caught up in debris. You'll see bodies that
(31:12):
will actually have leaves and grass in their mouth and
their nose. They'll be covered in mud because they'll go
into like a mud bank then become dislodged. You know.
So it's a huge dynamic that you're having to deal
with in a case like page fans of course.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Okay, so she's the first body found, and by the way,
she was found two days after she was reported missing.
So let's move to Denise Leary. Denise Leary, Joe was
reported missing or it was last seen September twenty ninth
of last year.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
And I don't know if you do this. I know
I do.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
I think of where was I on September twenty ninth
of twenty twenty four, Where was I and what was
I doing?
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I do it too, Yep.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Okay, this makes it relatable for me and for family
when I try to figure out what happened, to try
to explain it, what happened with her that we know of.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Well, you know, again, she's actually found not in water.
She's actually found in the one hundred block of a
place called Rock Creek Road that were clearing brush, okay
out of a wooded area and they made this discovery. Now,
she's last seen in September day, September twenty ninth, found
(32:31):
in March March of this year, March twentieth, to be specific.
Can I tell you this. She's in such an advanced
state that the police to this day are still waiting
from the medical examiner to find out what her cause
of pent or death are. That's how difficult this is.
(32:53):
And here's one other thing about her that if you
begin to kind of profile victims and try to understand,
because you have to understand where they come from, you know,
what their background is, what would well, allegedly, you know,
miss Leary had suffered from paranoid schizphrenia. Now that doesn't
(33:15):
mean on any level that people that are dealing with
psychopathology can't be victims of serial killers, Okay, because there
are a lot of people out on the streets that
have terrible mental health issues, and there's weak as lambs.
You might be terrified of them when you're standing around them,
but they really are. They don't have the ability necessarily
(33:38):
to defend themselves, particularly a defended a diminutive little woman
like miss Leary. So if if she's out there, yeah,
could she potentially be prey for a serial killer? Yeah?
I suppose that she could be. How she getting by
if she's living on the streets, how she getting by
(33:59):
on the read? Did she have family members who regularly
checked in with Was she eating regularly? You know? Was
she taking medication? Because if she's been diagnosed with paranoids goods,
you have to think that she's got a doctor or
a therapist that's having to maintenance her. When's the last
time they saw When's the last time she had her meds?
(34:22):
So that's that's a big question here. But she's found
in a brushy area and she's in an advanced state
of decomposition. Was she drug there to be hidden? You know?
From view? Well, it was the status of her clothing,
because even if you've got a decomposing body, I think
(34:43):
the people think that the clothing decomposes as well. I
actually have students say that to me at one point
in time. Clothing is very resilient. So even as the
body swells and then begins to contract back, the clothing
is still going to be in place. If they were
closed to begin with, so that's something that you would
certainly consider in this case.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
I have a favorite aunt, Joe, that lived with mental illness,
and she was one of my favorite people of all times,
but there were times where it would be very difficult
for my mother to deal with her, you know. And
that's why whenever people immediately jump to a conclusion because
of mental health, it always bothers me because you really
(35:25):
have to know every person, whether they have mental health
issues or not, is different. We're all unique specimens in
a lot of ways. Michelle Romano Joe Michelle Romano went
missing on August eighteenth of last year. Her remains were
discovered on March twenty sixth, and her remains were found
(35:51):
or the Rhode Island State Police reported this one. This
goes back to you. I didn't. I'm going to be
honest with you, and I hope a lot of people
caught you when you said this earlier about the different
jurisdictions that are going to be dealing with all of these.
As we collectively look at six women who have been
found dead in this very small geographic area, I think
each one of them is in a different law enforcement jurisdiction.
(36:12):
And how will that play into solving this, right, if
they're tied together.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yeah, if in fact they are tied together, you're going
to have to find that one thread. You know, if
you imagine, and I'm kind of a simple guy, I
love work pictures, if you literally imagine a thread being
pulled by a gigantic needle. What is it that connects
all of these cases together? That commonality, you know, that
kind of runs through them? And again, you know, like
(36:39):
in the case of miss Romano, there's connectivity perhaps with
the way miss Leary was found and the way Miss
Romano is found. First off, miss Ramano was reported missing
back on August eighteenth of twenty twenty four. Well, you
know that's that's dredibly close to you know, the same
(37:02):
date with you know, miss Leary, she's September twenty ninth
of two thousand and four. And again, mister Romano is
not found until March twenty sixth of twenty five. And
here's the other commonality between Leary and Romano. They're both
found in wooded areas. Okay, so you know, if you're
(37:25):
looking for little things to kind of pin together here,
remember that connective thread that runs through that would be
that would be significant, I think, you know, because and again,
how were the bodies found? I always returned back to
this because I worked a case where guy was always
posing bodies a series of cases, and I think I
(37:47):
caught like two of them. But there were people from Jacksonville, Florida,
all the way to Beaumont, Texas that had caught cases
that they believed were related. And this guy always posed
the bodies. So that's one, you know, I'm kind of
prejudice in my mind relative to that. I always want
to know the position of the body, you know. I
always want to where they seated, where they sprawled out,
(38:09):
you know. And he also had an affinity for taking
their underwear off, turning it inside out, and putting it
back on the body. You know. So there's those little
bitty nuanced things that you look for in all of
these cases. And again they haven't released information to let
us know that, you know, what that commonality is that
(38:29):
runs through. Is there any anything here between these two
cases that you can kind of hitch them together. I
think that that's that's that's very important age groupings as well.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Now, because you've got Denise's fifty nine, Denise Leary is
fifty nine, Michelle Romano is fifty six.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yeah, and bracketing of ages. If you've got somebody that
is generally a that's a sexual predator, for instance, they
have an affinity for a okay, and that does hold
true with most serial perpetrators. There is a group of people,
you know, I think probably the first time that was there,
(39:09):
I get so sick and tired of saying this guy's name,
but I can't. It's he's always the benchmark for everything
in serial killing. And that's that's Bundy. You know, there's
that famous have you ever seen that that famous collage
of images of all of the victims together, and they've
all got brown or black long hair, you know, and
(39:32):
he had a type going back to the forty four
caliber killer with Son of Sam remembered, well, women up
there in that area, in the New York area were
actually changing their hairstyles because of him, because they said
he was targeting a certain type. And so that's that's
(39:54):
a big thing, you know, with them, what what are
they looking for? And type can be appearance, it can
be age. Okay. You think of Von City in Atlanta, Well,
you're looking at victims in their seventies, in their eighties,
you know, and I know what you you know, Look,
Dave and I look at each other with the camera
and you're shaking his head and you're right. But you know,
(40:16):
you think you know what's the driver behind this, what's
the psychopathology that goes into the individual that's choosing to
do this to these people. But again, we still don't know.
With these three women that we've mentioned to date that
are identified, we don't know what their cause and manner
of death is, and two of them is they're so
advanced in decomposition that I don't know. And you know
(40:41):
it wouldn't surprise me tell truth that that we're going
to have we're going to have this come out and
they're going to say something like if they rule it
as a homicide, will be nonspecific homicidal violence. We hear
that term all the time, and I understand why they
do it, because it's hard to explain away why the
(41:02):
bodies were there, why they were in the condition that
they were there. Would they have just gone there and
died of natural causes if you don't see any instrumentality
that's associated with them having taken their own life like
an old rusted pistol or maybe an open vial of drugs,
a empty vole of drugs. Then you have to assume
(41:23):
that it's something other than taking your own life or homicide.
I don't know. You know, in the cases of Denise
(41:43):
Leary and Paige Fannin and of course Michelle Romano, their
loved ones, they know where they are, they know that
they are in fact decease. They've been positively identified. But
with these all the cases in total in question, there's
still three that remain unidentified to this moment time when
(42:08):
I'm recording this. You know, one found in March nineteenth
in Connecticut, one found April ninth and killingly, and another
found actually on April the tenth in Framingham. They're unidentified
to this point, and also to this point we don't
(42:29):
know who they are or what became of them. One
interesting little aside is that the remains that were found
in Groton, Connecticut on March the nineteenth, this individual who
is female, actually presented with a condition. And listen to this.
(42:53):
It's called Turner syndrome, and Turner syndrome is a genetic
condition where the individual will present and it's something that's
diagnosed early on in life. Generally, the individuals are shortened stature,
they have delayed puberty, they have heart defects, Generally they're infertile,
(43:13):
and also there is a pigmentation issue with their skin.
This is very, very definitive as far as this person
is concerned. I would urge anybody within the sound of
my voice that if you know someone or you have
a loved one that might be missing that has been
(43:37):
diagnosed with Turner syndrome, and again this only occurs in females,
you probably ought to reach out to the authorities in Growton, Connecticut,
because this might be somebody that they're looking for. But
we're going to keep our eye on all of these
cases and see where the road leads. I'm Joseph Scott
(43:59):
Moore and and this is body Bags. Mhm mhm.
Quality times, but Joseph's gotten more. I've often thought about
this because I see such a broad swath of true
crime coverage and information about a variety of different deaths.
You know, the country might be focused on, say, for instance,
(00:21):
one thing that's going on like right now at the
time of this taping, and we've got like the Karen
Reid trial going on. We've got a variety of other
things involving Coburger and Hureman and all these things that
are waiting in the wings. There's a lot of ink
being slung about. And I've often thought over the years,
(00:46):
do we develop patterns as a consumer consumer public as
it applies to true crime. And the reason I ask
that to my cell is that do we get so
caught up in cases where because they're in the public
(01:10):
I that maybe other things will be forgotten. I'll give
you a great example, and I've talked about this case
extensively and been on various television shows and stuff, And
that's a piked and masker back from sixteen up in
southern Ohio. You had eight family members killed in that case,
(01:33):
and hardly an ounce of ink was spilt over it.
But yet you had other things that were singular deaths
where the coverage was just intense, you know, things like
I don't know the Jody Arias case going back to
twenty thirteen. It all depends on what hits, you know
what I mean. Right now, we're in the middle of
(01:56):
the Hureman case, which is lisk in Gilgo Beach, and
it's all the rage. Everybody wants to talk about it,
as well as should. But you know, there's another group
of deaths that have made their way into the news cycle,
(02:19):
and some people are hinting that there might be a
serial killer on the loose in a specific region of
our country. Now are these deaths related, I don't know.
Is that a consequence of maybe all of the news
about human I don't know, or is their validity to this?
(02:44):
Are people putting two and two together? Let's chat about it.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body bags. I
think that as humans day, our lives are all about patterns.
You know, there's certain ways that we go about things.
(03:05):
There's certain things that we view, there's certain things that
we consume and read and all of those and you know,
I think about things that you know, for instance, that
I watch on YouTube. I watch generally nothing political. I
watch nothing about true crime unless it's something that i'm studying.
(03:28):
Most of the time, the stuff that I direct myself
toward is history. You know, I love to study history
in the classics, and that's a pattern I've developed over
the years. You've been in media for a long time,
and you've been I don't know, I love this old term.
I would classify you as a newsman. You were, You
(03:51):
were a news reader for many years and have covered
news all over the country, and I'm just I'm curious.
Do you do you think the media develops pattern.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yes, I'm more of a I am more of a
commentator than a news reader. And the reason is real basics.
I've had to explain this to my family recently, and
that is as far as reading goes, I'm a voracious reader.
I read a lot, but I don't read word for word.
I paraphrase as I read, and you can't do that
when you're a news anchorman. I'm not a news anchorman.
(04:21):
I am actually a reporter, journalist, and a commentator. So
I ended up on Nancy Show to start with. You know,
you have an expertise that very few people possess. And
because it comes from an education in the classroom, and
it comes in from work in the field and by
the way, being successful at both at the academics and
(04:42):
in the field, and you're able to bring that together
and then you have that next level talent of being
able to make people like me understand what it is
you're talking about. And I don't even think you realize
how good you are at what you do. And I'm
coming from broadcasting end of it, Joe, You're able to
take like I'm excited about doing this particular show because
(05:07):
it has the broadcasting end of it, the angle. We've
named it already, Nesk. You mentioned the Long Island serial
killer RECs hereman calling it LISK. This one has already
been named NESK. The New England serial Killer is their one.
And this story has gotten legs because of social media.
There are Facebook pages devoted to it, and Twitter accounts
(05:32):
and x accounts and tiktoks are being devoted and we're
talking thousands of people by the day asking questions about
this story. We have right now six six female bodies
recovered between March sixth and April tenth in one area
(05:57):
of the northeast.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
So wow, we've only tight that's a very tight window
from yes, Tom sequencing as far as it is, and it's.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Recent, it's right now. I mean it's like, you know,
we're talking two weeks ago, Joe, when you and I
were up in East Hampton, right, what was the name
of the place that we landed in ice Lip?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Right? The Long Island.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, one of our victims actually is from there, and
we were just there a couple of weeks ago as
a couple of these bodies were being recovered on April
ninth and April tenth. So this is a somewhat media
generated event, but it's coming from the ground swell of
(06:42):
true crime people, armchair detectives, if you will. Something you
and I talked about at a conn a conference, how
not important, but how impactful it is that some stories
get attention while others don't. And now you know you
mentioned piked in I. Until you and I talked about it,
(07:04):
I did nothing about it. I knew nothing about that story.
And then when I got into it, I'm like, how
do we.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Not know about this?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
But Joe, there are stories that you and I have
covered and spent many hours on that other people are
going When did that happen was that and you're going
it happened three weeks ago, you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
So it's hit and missed with a lot of You have.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
To run, You have to run to keep up many times.
And it's I don't know if you concur with this,
but it's almost like there are rarely cases where a
gigantic gate comes down and you have to stop what
you're doing and you focus everything on those cases. You know,
you look at lisk with Long Island, Long Island serial
(07:49):
Killer so called, you think about that, and you might
if you look at it chronologically, you know, from the
first body that was found until the very life asked.
I don't know that there was like some huge gait
that descended and everybody stopped and looked. It took a
long time and a lot of people grinding over the scene,
(08:10):
and not just not just the law enforcement people, but
people in the media that knew that something was up
and they tried to keep the story alive. And I
think the one it's I think, I'm just curious if
this is if this is fertile ground for a cautionary tale,
(08:31):
because I'm worried. I'm worried about this based upon somebody
that has assessed cerial homicides, okay, over the course of
my career, and I'm trying to understand is because there's
just certain things that we look for now. I just
want to know if those elements are there.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
And that's why I am so thankful that you have
the time to do this, because I'm watching members of
the media and they are salivating over Nesk the New
England serial killer. And my first question, Joe, is this
something that you're familiar with, not the way it's being covered,
but are you familiar with serial killers and figuring out
(09:12):
what happened? Is this something you've worked before, Is it
something you can teach? Is it What are we actually
doing when it comes to this, because we've got armchair
detectives with no education and no background that are making
accusations and casting us versions and creating a media serial killer.
Yet we've got three females identified that remains identified. We're
(09:37):
talking about somebody's mother, somebody's daughter, somebody's sister that we
didn't find, a body we found remains Yeah, I think
there's a bit of a difference. I need you to
help me. I need you to explain to me what
a serial killer is, how do you identify that? And
does this fit?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah? Well, if okay, let's just say if all of
the these cases are related, Yeah, it meets the classic
definition three or more, and that number has varied for years.
I think at one point in time the number was
higher and then they reduced it. And I think it
was reduced by the people at the Behavioral Sciences Unit
(10:17):
in Quantico with FBI, they pulled it back down to three.
I might be wrong about that, but I think initially
the number was higher. So yeah, from that, from that
basic precept, yeah, this would be this would qualify as
a series of serialized homicides. But we still we're just
(10:44):
this case. We don't even know that these are homicides
at this point in time. We don't because I got
to be honest with you, I don't know about you.
Everything I've read, I haven't seen a cause of death yet,
I Joe, you know, and I just you know, what
I know is that we've got there's a big similarity here,
because well, let's just look at it geographically. You know,
(11:09):
it's the northeast, and you can I don't know, I
guess you could say that you could proverbial throw a
proverbial hat over the areas. I think that most of
the areas where these women's bodies have been found are
like in a one hundred mile radius or maybe a
(11:29):
little bit more. Yeah, so, yeah, geographically it could fit,
but we're missing huge pieces here. You know, every serialized
homicide I've ever worked, and I'm thinking back right now,
over the course of my career in New Orleans, I
(11:49):
think I worked three sets of serial killings down there
somewhere somewhere. On one case in particular, I just knew
that there were probably hundreds of bodies up and down
(12:09):
IT ten and the guy had been called the IT
ten killer a variety of names. I had another set
that guy killed six women and he was caught actually
dumping the body in the same location where he dumped
all the other ones. The sheriff's office finally set up
a hide and was watching literally saw it caught him
pulling a body out of the trunk of a car.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
That's kind of like Wayne will Williams in Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yeah, yeah, with splashing the water. Yeah. And then there
were there was another set and my memory fails me
on that one. But when I got to Atlanta. Yeah,
we had several Memorial Drive killer was killing prostitutes. We
had the Von City Killer. There were like two or
three other ones too that we thought were cereal serial related.
(12:58):
And you know, the thing about it is is that
you have to establish a pattern. And I think one
of the big missing pieces here is that we don't
if we don't have a causal statement relative to what
brought about these deaths. That's a big piece, okay, because
most serial killers, they have a preference for how they
(13:20):
take people's lives. I'll give you an example. The guy
was telling me about it was pulling the bodies out
of the trunk of the car. He loved to use
wire to use as a groat around the necks of
these prostitutes, and he would drug them beforehand, and then
(13:40):
the groat is essentially got a one little handle and
you can tighten it down, loosen it, and he would
loosen it multiple times. He was driving pleasure from this
guy was a sadist and filled with a lot of anger.
He'd kill women. Every time he got into a fight
with his fiance. He wouldn't attack her. You go out
and find it prostituct killer, Oh.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
My gosh, yeah, no, using the garroat like that.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, the guy, the clown in Chicago that buried the
gay sy.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
That's what he used.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
He would play all kinds of little tricks and things
to get the handcuff.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Trick and all of that. And yeah, and he and
again he was another guy that hadn't come to terms
with his own homosexuality. Is very angry.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
And he would use ligatures, which a groat is a
form of a ligature, or bare hands. But you know,
you're thinking about suffocation or strangulation. I've you know, And
it's interesting, Dave. You know that the line share of
the cases that I worked involved a SIXIA. I never
(14:45):
had like a I don't know what's the guy's name
up in New York, Son, Sam, I never had, you know,
they called him the forty four caliber killer. I never
worked serial killings that involved handguns or rifles even you know,
it's just firearms. I don't think I ever worked Yeah,
I don't think I ever worked a case involved in
(15:07):
serial killing with an edged weapon. They now, I've had
multiple people killed by one person wielding an edge weapon,
but not like a series of going out and stabbing
somebody or cutting their throats and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I didn't realize you'd worked so many, Okay, I didn't
think there were that many serial killings, like when you
started naming them off, you know, Yeah, I didn't realize
there were that many, And I certainly didn't know you
had had this was part and parcel of your Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
And I think about it with serial killings dependent upon
their geographic positioning, I think that it's more the exception.
And somebody's going to gig me on this, I know,
it seems to me that it's more the exception than
the norm to have somebody that's like a BTK that's
settled in a community, has been there for years and
(15:55):
years and is not moving about to hunt prey. You know,
they're hunting in the one little area. And I know
people say that they hunt with areas they're familiar with,
But if you look at long haul truckers, where are
they familiar with, Well, they're familiar with their truck, that's
their moving house, and they're familiar with truck stops, and
so you get that, you know, quite a bit. So
there's kind of a mish mash out there. Just like
(16:16):
over the years, there's been a a mish mash or
not not a mishmash, but kind of a confusion about
the number of kills that it takes to be classified
as a serial killer. This area that we're talking about
in the Northeast day, my gosh, there are interstates running everywhere,
(16:37):
and so, you know, I was talking about, you know,
kind of throwing the proverbial hat on this. If you're
thinking about, you know, an area that's kind of circling
a particular location. How can they get in, how can
they get out? What's the geography like, where are they
found relative to roadways, what's the terrain like where they're recovered.
(17:02):
Are they just being dumped out inside the road? Are
they being placed in water? Which one of these cases
I know was found in a river. So there's a
lot to consider here, But this is what I do
know at this point in time. I do know that
I don't have a cause of death on these victims,
(17:23):
and I also know that to that end, I don't
know if there is a connectivity between the types of death,
the instrumentality that may or may not have been used,
and also is there a common denominator relative to the
(17:44):
perpetrator thing being called again, David was Immedia.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
It's being called NESTS stands for New England serial Killer.
One thing I did want to pop in here with
Joe because I looked it up. You were and I
were talking about I twenty and you were right. It
ends in Texas at the intersection of I ten and
I thought it was in West Texas.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
So there you go. But yeah, the law there you
got the.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Long Island serial killer, which has been in the news now,
to be honest with you, for a long time, it was,
you know, from It's been called different things too, and
I still think there could be another person involved. But
and the other question, do you really think Hureman stopped?
But that's another day. Now we've got this New England
serial killer story and the reason is we have six
(18:47):
women who have been found. Now, I want to be
really clear and how I asked this show, when I
asked you about serial killers and how many serial killer
cases you've worked, and is there a commonality among the
victims as well as the perpetrator that.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
You can creator? Yeah, I can't. And I'm only talking
about my little slice supply, all right. I don't have
the forty thousand foot view that the FBI has I'm
just talking about my little slice suppie the areas I
worked in. Okay, my commonality perpetrator, I've the best of
(19:31):
my knowledge, at least, I never had a female perpetrator.
They were all males, and with the exception of the
Vine City killings in Atlanta, who were all elderly ladies,
which is disgusting on another level, entirely, they were prostitutes
almost to a person, you know, I didn't have this
(19:54):
kind of like you have would BTK where he's randomly targeting.
I mean literally, you know, the first the first victims
that he claimed were literally a nuclear family.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I was gonna say it was a family in the base, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, Terra and they he went in and walked out
the lot. And so, you know, it's it's always been
in my case, at least, it's always been female prostitutes.
I haven't I have not know. I have had friends
that have worked or colleagues that have worked cases involving
(20:31):
male prostitutes. Over the years. Myself, it's always been female prostitutes.
The line share of them have been you know, living
on the streets, had very and this is kind of
a classic profile, had very little contact with their biological family.
Matter of fact, many times families wouldn't even know what
(20:52):
had happened to him. That's what makes them such easy prey.
But I don't you know as of right now, where
you know if they're building out a profile. And I
would assume that some of the authorities have reached out
and I've got a big clue to that, and I'm
going to reveal it to you about trying to build
out a profile. If they are believing that these are
a serialized event, you're going to want to know what
(21:17):
these individuals backgrounds are, and you know, if there's some
kind of commonality. Now the reason that I think that
a profile could be built out, and again, we don't
know everything the police know at this time, and we
should not know everything that the police know. You know,
these are outside so horses that are putting together these things. Okay,
(21:40):
so the police. This is the way it generally works.
If you have a serialized event and it's multi jurisdictional,
the first thing you're going to do is that there
will generally be a task force formed in a single jurisdiction.
So let's say you've got multiple bodies that are found
in the state of Connecticut. Okay, Well, under the auspices
(22:01):
of the state, they can get together and they will
form a task force within that state. All right, Now,
if you've got one case, which there is one case
in this group that they've identified as nests that originates
out of Rhode Island, Dave, that person will not necessarily
(22:22):
be on the task force. And then there's another case.
There's cases out of Massachusetts and I think New Hampshire
as well, So you've got it's multi jurisdictional. So how
do you unite all of these people? Well, first off,
you have to be able to prove that there's connectivity
with physical evidence, cause of death, typology of the way
(22:46):
they were found, what was perpetrated against them, and that
includes things like any kind of instruments that we use,
Was there any kind of posing that was done with
the bodies, where they missing closed, where they all clothed,
was their clothing manipulated, were there any kind of post
mortem amputations that people taking trophies, anything like that. And
(23:10):
then what would happen is the next tier with this
will be the FEDS, and it'll be like the FBI.
They would form a federal task force and the FBI
would begin to work probably on a profile of not
just the victims, but also the potential perpetrator here. So
there's a lot of things that have to get into
motion in order to get everybody going in the correct direction.
(23:34):
One things I found out about being on a task force,
and again I'm just a corner medical examiner kind of guy.
I wasn't like going out and arresting people I was examining.
Remains the one thing that I have found though, and
I was always fascinated by, was with these task force
there is ego comes into it big time because everybody
(24:00):
wants everybody wants the claim to fame if it turns
out to be Let's just say, for instance, like with Lisk,
if you've got a multi jurisdictional thing, you know, everybody
would like to say, well, you know, we're the people
that stopped Lisk. Okay, same thing would apply here. You
have to remain You have to have a leader of
(24:20):
the group that's going to keep you focused on what
the task is at hand. So if you've got this
really divergent group of women we're talking six here, three
of which are still unidentified to this point, are you
going to be able to jam down those egos and
stay focused, like a laser, focus on what the task
(24:41):
is and that is ultimately getting this monster off the streets.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
All right now, I've got a question for you because
we do have a lot of We have a lot
of information, and I think I already told you this.
We have three of the remains identified and three not identified.
So let me start with the one woman, not the
first one to go missing. Because even though they were
(25:08):
all found in the last month or so, in the
last several weeks, that doesn't mean they were killed right
away or that they died right away.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
We don't even know they were killed. We just know
we have remains. We don't know if they were murdered.
You know, we don't know what we do know.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Like Page fan In, for example, Page fan In's body
was found on March the sixth page is from this
is the lady I was talking about from Icelip that
you and I flew into and she was reported missing
in New York on March fourth of this year, last
scene on March fifth, and her body was found March sixth.
(25:49):
This does not seem to fit into any of the
other cases that we're talking about because of where her
body was found, and how quickly you know she was
found based on when she was last seen, and she
was found in water after a very heavy rainfall. But
(26:10):
that was hers was the first body located found. The
next was Denise Leary. Denise Leary was found on March
twentieth of twenty twenty five. Denise was reported missing Joe
back last September. And that's where I look at that
(26:32):
and go, Okay, her condition, the remains of her, is
going to be a lot different than the remains of
Page Fannin. I mean, you have Paige Fannin that was
actually seen the day before her body was found, right,
And then we have one other woman who has been identified.
Her name is Michelle Romano. Her body was found on
March twenty sixth. She went missing August of last year.
(26:58):
That is a long time, yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
And of course her body, her body would be in
more than an advanced state of decomposition. Let's go back
to Page Fannin real quick now. We mentioned that she's
from West Island, New York, which is on Long Island,
as you and I are now well aware of.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
And by the way, until two weeks ago, I could
not have told you where it was just so you know, yeah, yeah,
it's it's I mean that in a positive way. I've
always wanted to know that area. But I'm to be
honest with your friends. If you're not from New York,
if you're not from that area, it's kind of like
I'm from I am from southern California, and so I
know what people think out there. It's just different than
(27:39):
you can imagine. What a beautiful area and the nicest
people I've ever met, Jerry, the nicest.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
People I've ever met in my life. That really were unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And I enjoyed going up there every year for the
Hampton who done it, uh with with Paige Fannin. You know,
she was actually from West Island, but she was down
in a river in Connecticut, and so she's you know,
she was found as a result of them asking for
(28:10):
She was found with the assistance of a drone actually,
and so she was up there for a reason, okay,
and where she fell into and I don't know that
you know, just because you fall into a very fast
moving river, which she was actually found in the Norwalk River,
(28:34):
and it's like racing through there. And I don't know
if you've ever been caught up in a current like
that before in a river. I have almost drowned in
a salmon fishing a river up in Michigan one day,
and you know, it just kind of pulled me down
the river, and I'm a pretty stout guy and I
(28:55):
couldn't fight it. So if you're thinking about with her,
what types of injuries did she display when they pulled
her out of the water. And she's only been down
for a couple of days, so it's not like she
was left somewhere out in the woods where she's in
a state of decay. So that's kind of an interesting
(29:15):
person that they've put into this mix. I'd like to
know for my purposes as an investigator, Dave, and I'm
in all honesty, I would go to the local authorities
up there in Connectu. I'd say, hey, let me ask
you something. How many other people have you ever had
drowned in this river? Are found dead in this river?
Is this something that happens regularly or is this so
(29:38):
rare that you're sitting here scratching your head thinking had
you wind up in the river, Because this has never
happened before. So I would have to kind of understand
that and understand the dynamic around the river. How do
you get to it? Can you fall off a bridge?
Can you slip off of rocks? You know what's the
story here?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So you know, we're immedately thinking if it's not an accident,
somebody picked this and got discarded her body.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Yeah, And here's the thing about it. If you go
down the road with serialized event, if the river is
moving this fast, which that's the way they've portrayed this thing.
Lord only knows where she could have gone in. You know,
how long does the Norwalk River run. It's obviously not
(30:26):
the Mississippi, But how far upstream could she have potentially
gone in? Did she fall into the water where she
was laying her head at night to go to sleep,
or was she so far away from her point of
origin that you would think, hm, wow, this is kind
of impressive that her body traveled all of this distance.
Where did she enter the river? Also? What types of
(30:50):
injuries does she have to her body? I pulled a
lot of bodies out of rivers, bodies of water, and
it's amazing what happens to a body in in water,
particularly rapidly moving water, because bodies bounce off of everything,
they get scratched by limbs that are hanging out debris,
they get caught up in debris. You'll see bodies that
(31:12):
will actually have leaves and grass in their mouth and
their nose. They'll be covered in mud because they'll go
into like a mud bank then become dislodged. You know.
So it's a huge dynamic that you're having to deal
with in a case like page fans of course.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Okay, so she's the first body found, and by the way,
she was found two days after she was reported missing.
So let's move to Denise Leary. Denise Leary, Joe was
reported missing or it was last seen September twenty ninth
of last year.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
And I don't know if you do this. I know
I do.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
I think of where was I on September twenty ninth
of twenty twenty four, Where was I and what was
I doing?
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I do it too, Yep.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Okay, this makes it relatable for me and for family
when I try to figure out what happened, to try
to explain it, what happened with her that we know of.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Well, you know, again, she's actually found not in water.
She's actually found in the one hundred block of a
place called Rock Creek Road that were clearing brush, okay
out of a wooded area and they made this discovery. Now,
she's last seen in September day, September twenty ninth, found
(32:31):
in March March of this year, March twentieth, to be specific.
Can I tell you this. She's in such an advanced
state that the police to this day are still waiting
from the medical examiner to find out what her cause
of pent or death are. That's how difficult this is.
(32:53):
And here's one other thing about her that if you
begin to kind of profile victims and try to understand,
because you have to understand where they come from, you know,
what their background is, what would well, allegedly, you know,
miss Leary had suffered from paranoid schizphrenia. Now that doesn't
(33:15):
mean on any level that people that are dealing with
psychopathology can't be victims of serial killers, Okay, because there
are a lot of people out on the streets that
have terrible mental health issues, and there's weak as lambs.
You might be terrified of them when you're standing around them,
but they really are. They don't have the ability necessarily
(33:38):
to defend themselves, particularly a defended a diminutive little woman
like miss Leary. So if if she's out there, yeah,
could she potentially be prey for a serial killer? Yeah?
I suppose that she could be. How she getting by
if she's living on the streets, how she getting by
(33:59):
on the read? Did she have family members who regularly
checked in with Was she eating regularly? You know? Was
she taking medication? Because if she's been diagnosed with paranoids goods,
you have to think that she's got a doctor or
a therapist that's having to maintenance her. When's the last
time they saw When's the last time she had her meds?
(34:22):
So that's that's a big question here. But she's found
in a brushy area and she's in an advanced state
of decomposition. Was she drug there to be hidden? You know?
From view? Well, it was the status of her clothing,
because even if you've got a decomposing body, I think
(34:43):
the people think that the clothing decomposes as well. I
actually have students say that to me at one point
in time. Clothing is very resilient. So even as the
body swells and then begins to contract back, the clothing
is still going to be in place. If they were
closed to begin with, so that's something that you would
certainly consider in this case.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
I have a favorite aunt, Joe, that lived with mental illness,
and she was one of my favorite people of all times,
but there were times where it would be very difficult
for my mother to deal with her, you know. And
that's why whenever people immediately jump to a conclusion because
of mental health, it always bothers me because you really
(35:25):
have to know every person, whether they have mental health
issues or not, is different. We're all unique specimens in
a lot of ways. Michelle Romano Joe Michelle Romano went
missing on August eighteenth of last year. Her remains were
discovered on March twenty sixth, and her remains were found
(35:51):
or the Rhode Island State Police reported this one. This
goes back to you. I didn't. I'm going to be
honest with you, and I hope a lot of people
caught you when you said this earlier about the different
jurisdictions that are going to be dealing with all of these.
As we collectively look at six women who have been
found dead in this very small geographic area, I think
each one of them is in a different law enforcement jurisdiction.
(36:12):
And how will that play into solving this, right, if
they're tied together.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yeah, if in fact they are tied together, you're going
to have to find that one thread. You know, if
you imagine, and I'm kind of a simple guy, I
love work pictures, if you literally imagine a thread being
pulled by a gigantic needle. What is it that connects
all of these cases together? That commonality, you know, that
kind of runs through them? And again, you know, like
(36:39):
in the case of miss Romano, there's connectivity perhaps with
the way miss Leary was found and the way Miss
Romano is found. First off, miss Ramano was reported missing
back on August eighteenth of twenty twenty four. Well, you
know that's that's dredibly close to you know, the same
(37:02):
date with you know, miss Leary, she's September twenty ninth
of two thousand and four. And again, mister Romano is
not found until March twenty sixth of twenty five. And
here's the other commonality between Leary and Romano. They're both
found in wooded areas. Okay, so you know, if you're
(37:25):
looking for little things to kind of pin together here,
remember that connective thread that runs through that would be
that would be significant, I think, you know, because and again,
how were the bodies found? I always returned back to
this because I worked a case where guy was always
posing bodies a series of cases, and I think I
(37:47):
caught like two of them. But there were people from Jacksonville, Florida,
all the way to Beaumont, Texas that had caught cases
that they believed were related. And this guy always posed
the bodies. So that's one, you know, I'm kind of
prejudice in my mind relative to that. I always want
to know the position of the body, you know. I
always want to where they seated, where they sprawled out,
(38:09):
you know. And he also had an affinity for taking
their underwear off, turning it inside out, and putting it
back on the body. You know. So there's those little
bitty nuanced things that you look for in all of
these cases. And again they haven't released information to let
us know that, you know, what that commonality is that
(38:29):
runs through. Is there any anything here between these two
cases that you can kind of hitch them together. I
think that that's that's that's very important age groupings as well.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Now, because you've got Denise's fifty nine, Denise Leary is
fifty nine, Michelle Romano is fifty six.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yeah, and bracketing of ages. If you've got somebody that
is generally a that's a sexual predator, for instance, they
have an affinity for a okay, and that does hold
true with most serial perpetrators. There is a group of people,
you know, I think probably the first time that was there,
(39:09):
I get so sick and tired of saying this guy's name,
but I can't. It's he's always the benchmark for everything
in serial killing. And that's that's Bundy. You know, there's
that famous have you ever seen that that famous collage
of images of all of the victims together, and they've
all got brown or black long hair, you know, and
(39:32):
he had a type going back to the forty four
caliber killer with Son of Sam remembered, well, women up
there in that area, in the New York area were
actually changing their hairstyles because of him, because they said
he was targeting a certain type. And so that's that's
(39:54):
a big thing, you know, with them, what what are
they looking for? And type can be appearance, it can
be age. Okay. You think of Von City in Atlanta, Well,
you're looking at victims in their seventies, in their eighties,
you know, and I know what you you know, Look,
Dave and I look at each other with the camera
and you're shaking his head and you're right. But you know,
(40:16):
you think you know what's the driver behind this, what's
the psychopathology that goes into the individual that's choosing to
do this to these people. But again, we still don't know.
With these three women that we've mentioned to date that
are identified, we don't know what their cause and manner
of death is, and two of them is they're so
advanced in decomposition that I don't know. And you know
(40:41):
it wouldn't surprise me tell truth that that we're going
to have we're going to have this come out and
they're going to say something like if they rule it
as a homicide, will be nonspecific homicidal violence. We hear
that term all the time, and I understand why they
do it, because it's hard to explain away why the
(41:02):
bodies were there, why they were in the condition that
they were there. Would they have just gone there and
died of natural causes if you don't see any instrumentality
that's associated with them having taken their own life like
an old rusted pistol or maybe an open vial of drugs,
a empty vole of drugs. Then you have to assume
(41:23):
that it's something other than taking your own life or homicide.
I don't know. You know, in the cases of Denise
(41:43):
Leary and Paige Fannin and of course Michelle Romano, their
loved ones, they know where they are, they know that
they are in fact decease. They've been positively identified. But
with these all the cases in total in question, there's
still three that remain unidentified to this moment time when
(42:08):
I'm recording this. You know, one found in March nineteenth
in Connecticut, one found April ninth and killingly, and another
found actually on April the tenth in Framingham. They're unidentified
to this point, and also to this point we don't
(42:29):
know who they are or what became of them. One
interesting little aside is that the remains that were found
in Groton, Connecticut on March the nineteenth, this individual who
is female, actually presented with a condition. And listen to this.
(42:53):
It's called Turner syndrome, and Turner syndrome is a genetic
condition where the individual will present and it's something that's
diagnosed early on in life. Generally, the individuals are shortened stature,
they have delayed puberty, they have heart defects, Generally they're infertile,
(43:13):
and also there is a pigmentation issue with their skin.
This is very, very definitive as far as this person
is concerned. I would urge anybody within the sound of
my voice that if you know someone or you have
a loved one that might be missing that has been
(43:37):
diagnosed with Turner syndrome, and again this only occurs in females,
you probably ought to reach out to the authorities in Growton, Connecticut,
because this might be somebody that they're looking for. But
we're going to keep our eye on all of these
cases and see where the road leads. I'm Joseph Scott
(43:59):
Moore and and this is body Bags. Mhm mhm.
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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