May 14, 2025 • 35 mins
A beloved pastor and Vietnam War Vet is murdered in his own home and his body is "staged" with his arms spread out and his hands pinned to the wall to resemble crucifixion. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss the murder of 76-year-old William Schoneman. Who would want Schoneman dead? Lovingly called "Pastor Bill" by the community, he had been the pastor at New River Bible Chapel for 25 years. Who would kill a pastor loved by all and why the elaborate staging? Answers are tough to come by and law enforcement isn't sharing info.
Transcript Highlights
00:12.53 Introduction - Confession
02:16.95 Killer on the loose on Carefree Highway
05:08.34 Pastor murdered, body staged
09:17.30 Killer needed privacy and time
14:14.36 Law Enforcement says Public is "safe"
19:13.12 Torture involved in murder, hands "pinned" to wall
23:06.75 Pastor was loved and respected by the community
27:07.79 Moving body without destroying evidence
32:12.98 Mattress holds evidence
35:39.52 Conclusion
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Body dines with Joseph's Gotten More. I got a confession
to make, probably to my wife Kimmy's great chagrin many times.
Probably my favorite folk slash acoustic artist of the nineteen
(00:23):
seventies is Gordon Lightfoot. I can't help myself. I could
listen to him for hours and hours, and she can
tolerate it for a while, but she she gets weary.
I understand. But there's something about the music that he creates.
And I had kind of an interesting intersection with Gordon
(00:46):
Lightfoot's music and my travels. I was out in Arizona
many years ago. I was at an educational conference and
we had to get out of town in the middle
of July. We were in Phoenix and it was broiling hot,
and we decided to take a trip to Sedona, where
(01:06):
it's about forty degrees cooler. And along the way, I
looked up and I saw a sign that said care
Free Highway, and suddenly it came to me that this
was the stretch of road that Gordon or Gordo as
he's known, wrote the lyrics to the song his hit
(01:32):
from the seventies, care Free Highway, and that song means
a lot to me. It's so peaceful. But I'm going
to talk about a case today that is so utterly
bizarre from what we know at this point, and it
happens not too far away from that stretch of highway
(01:53):
care Free Highway, but the circumstances around this case are
anything but free, and to this moment, there's a killer
among them out there. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this
is body Bags. Dave. Please tell me, Please tell me
(02:16):
that you like Gordon Lightfoot.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
You know, if you really want to go down that
I'll throw out Kathy Evelyn Smith if you really want
to I knew it. I knew it. I knew you
were going to go there.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Er of men.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
And she actually is the one who gave John Belushi
the speedball that killed him and then sold her story
to the National Inquirer and that reopened the investigation. Thomas
Deci got involved and they locked her up. There you go. So, yes,
I am a Gordon Lightfoot fan, but hey, I did
not know the story about Carefree Highway. I did not
know that about Arizona. But I do know this. When
(02:51):
you live out there in the in the Southwest, Yeah,
it is a different landscape than other parts of the
country because more than just Latin Dester, you know, it's
just I encourage everyone to spend some time in New
Mexico and Arizona. There are plenty of things to see historical,
there's stuff that get dates back, you know, Native American
(03:12):
stuff that goes back way a long time ago, just
an amazing time. But today's case, Joe, we're talking about
it because it happened in a Maricopa County, Arizona, which
is a big county. You know, Phoenix is in a
Maricopa County. But the area we're talking about is a
very small area, not densely populated, where there's a man
(03:34):
who had served in Vietnam and he came back home
and after his tour in Vietnam, he became a religious
man and studied and became a pastor, and for the
last twenty five years he has pastored this small area church.
He is one of those people that is called a
beloved pastor, a beloved member of the community. He's assault
(03:55):
of the earth kind of guy who liked to rebuild trucks. Joe.
If you actually look at pictures of his property, there's
parts of vehicles all over the place. That he's using
to put others back together. That's what he and his
son do. It's a passion project they have, but his
passion of being a pastor for many, many years, twenty
five years. His wife passed away a couple of years
ago in twenty twenty two. He's now seventy six years old.
(04:18):
William Showman is the man's name. Pastor William Showman was
found dead on April twenty eighth. It was a nine
to one one called Joe, and I need your help
on this because I've been trying to figure out who
the finder was and I can't see it. I don't
find that, but I do know this. The Mericaup County
Sheriff's Office being quiet. They have locked their lips on
(04:40):
this case. All we know is that it appeared that
this pastor of twenty five years was staged like a
crucifixion in his own bed. And it was a nine
one one call that came in from somebody, and that's
but they that's how they found them. We'll get more
(05:01):
in details, but that's that is the setup that boggles
the mind in an area where the people all said,
we don't lock our doors at night, No, we all
know one another.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, yeah, and it's off of it's actually off of
I think it's I seventeen, if I'm not mistaken. It's
a major interstate highway that runs north. It heads to Sedona, which,
by the way, going back to Arizona arguably is one
of the most beautiful places I've been out west. I
spent time in Arizona in the Army at Fourchuka down
(05:33):
on the Mexican border. Not beautiful.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I was going to ask you about that. I didn't
realize you were stationed there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, well I went through at there in the and
did training at the Intel School and but and that
was many moons ago. There were so very hot, not
as hot as Phoenix, though, you know, it's I've never
experienced heat like Phoenix, even compared to Vegas. He it.
Phoenix is down in a bowl and it is. It's
(05:59):
just it's not sultry because they would say there's no humidity,
but it is. You bake, you absolutely bake. And it
takes special kind of person to be there outdoors in
the summertime. But this case in particular is north of Phoenix,
and it's really interesting because as you're going northbound out
(06:20):
of Phoenix, you can actually appreciate the road beginning to rise, Dave,
because Phoenix sits down in a bowl, so it begins
to you can feel. It's one of those weird situations
when you're on a highway. Generally you can't detect elevation changes,
but all the way from Phoenix to Sedona, you could
actually appreciate the elevation change. And then when we hit
(06:44):
Sedona it was I think like sixty eight and we
had left Phoenix that was like one hundred and eighteen.
And you can feel it as it and even the
car temperature reader, the digital thing in there progressively going
down as you go down the road. But it is
a Sedona is one of the most beautiful places I've
(07:06):
been to you you actually, it's a very kind of
you feel. I don't know how to say it. It's
almost like an outdoor cathedral. When you get there, you
feel close to God. Yeah, I don't know about that,
but I know that I felt a lot of peace there,
and if I was an alien, I would want to
visit Sedona.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
So I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
I love it, and got a lot of friends out
in Arizona. But this case in particular, because it is,
even though it's in Maricopa County and it's you know,
just north of arguably one of the largest cities in
the United States. I think for a while Phoenix was
right up there at like number five or six. I'm
sure I've got listeners that are out there. They'll say, no,
(07:45):
we're not at that position, but that's that's roughly kind
of where the population stood. But when you get out
of that area, all of a sudden, dude, you're you're
away from everything else that's developed really really quickly. I've
never seen it change like that. That's unique to that area,
I think. And the as you head north, you get
(08:10):
away from the artificial light of Phoenix and you're out
there in that desert and it's like the stars at night,
they just feel so much more illuminated. You feel closer
to the heavens almost, you can see more. It's absolutely breathtaking.
I think a lot of it has to do with
lack of humidity, you know, whereas down here in the South,
(08:32):
you know, it's yeah, we've got beautiful views at night,
but it's nothing. And I know you lived in New Mexico,
there's nothing that really compares to like a western sky,
and thinking about that, I believe that whoever did this,
because this would have taken time, would have had to
been very, very familiar with this poor pastor's house, his
(08:56):
comings and goings. They would have needed to have a
lot of privacy. Uh. Maybe they did it in the
cover of night, because I've been in the desert at
night and have no need for a flashlight whatsoever. Particularly
in like the more sandy areas, the light seems to
reflect up off of it. It's a it's a unique world.
(09:16):
It's almost surreal when you get out there. But I
was I was thinking about this when you begin to
think about pastors and their their deaths, particularly as are
related to something that is so I don't know, it
has o posed feeling to it. There's there's a real
(09:39):
creepy element. You know, every every pastor that I have
ever worked as a death investigator, there was some kind
of weird spiritual attachment that would occur. I'm not saying
this happened in this man's case, but for instance, I've
had I had a suicide where a guy was like
the head deacon in a church and he had taken
(10:03):
talcum powder and poured it out on the floor and
created a pentagram and ended his life in the middle
of the thing because he felt like that he was
he had committed these unforgivable sins. I've had people that
were pastors that were killed specifically because of people that
were parishioners in their local church that didn't agree with
(10:27):
them or hated them, there was some kind of conflict
with them. And then of course I've had those that were,
you know, had essentially, I think, on one level, abandoned
God and had created elicit were involved in elicited behaviors
with individuals, many times taking their own lives. But Dave,
that's that's not what this sounds like to me, at
(10:48):
least on the surface of it. It sounds as though
that somebody had an end for him, because we do
know this, and we're going to have a session here
pretty soon in an episode of body Bags that's really
going to correct language that the press and that the
authorities use many times they have ruled and I've seen
(11:10):
multiple articles that have said that William Schauman died of homicide.
He did not die of homicide. His death is a homicide.
It's just that at this point they haven't told us
specifically what the modality was. I think probably the most
(11:43):
beautiful cross I've ever seen in my life is in
South Carolina at a place I used to attend WYMCA
Camp when I was a little boy. It used to
be called Camp Greenville YMCAA. It's owned by a private company.
Now people put up pictures of it all the time.
It's a play. It's called Pretty Place. And there is
a gigantic cross on a rock outcropping that they've turned
(12:05):
into an outdoor chapel, and it overlooks like Caesar's Head
and these weird rock formations that are up there. Beautiful
beautiful cross that's there at the you know, essentially where
the altar would be. Views are just fantastic. I cannot
begin to imagine what it would be like to walk
(12:28):
into a scene where this beloved man, and I have
to assume that some of the people that were out there,
even the authorities Dave, would have known him and have
entered into his residence and have seen him in this condition.
It baffles to mind, and I think that it really
(12:50):
says a lot about the person. And I don't mean
in a good way. I mean there's some kind of
relational thing that's going on here actually very very chilling, Dave.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
You know, the one thing that has consistently come into
reporting is how it is described. And I'm going to
share one thing with you because this is something that
has been shared on a number of different sites, and
this is the exact wording. The preacher was lying dead
on his bed. His arms were spread out and his
hands were pinned to the wall in a faux crucifixion
(13:26):
that sickened even veteran homicide detectives. That's the opening line
because the staging of this body, and you've taught me
about posing bodies and things and how they are staged
for dramatic effect, to truly impact those who find the body.
What we don't know about this case are the details.
(13:48):
All we have been told is that what you just heard,
That information was given out right away, but they immediately
said the community is not at risk.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Right I think that that's yeah, Yeah, that's fascinating because
that's a huge conclusion to draw because I got to
tell you, I don't care if I'm living five miles
away from this guy. I'm worried. If I've got a family,
I'm worried. But you're telling me not to worry, because
they're saying that the public is not in danger, there's
(14:21):
nothing to fear, and so by saying that, the fact though,
what you're implying as a public safety official is that
this is something that was at the hand of either
somebody that is known to them or there was some
(14:41):
kind of indication that was left at the scene that
this was not related to anybody else in the community,
and that this individual has I don't know, flown the
coop if you will. They're no longer there posing a danger.
Because dude, I'm not saying i'd sleep with a firearm
underneath my pillow, however, uh it would.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
It would be.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
One of my first inclinations, I think, because if I've
got this this guy as you as you stated, in
a rural area where they don't lock their doors, what
type of perpetrator would be able to come into an
environment like this and feel comfortable enough to quote unquote
pin the hands to the wall. And this is another
(15:29):
another little point of order here, Dave. When I say,
when I say the term pinning, okay, just extrapolate from that.
I'd love to hear it hear it from you. What
what does that imply to you.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Well, that's actually in my notes to ask you, because
when I first heard about this and it said pinned,
I'm thinking of how you put pressure on the hands
and push against something, whether it's the floor and you're
you're going to give me your brother this bit treatment,
or is it against the wall to hold something there
that to me is pinned? There is something holding the
(16:07):
hand to the wall. And if the arms are outstretched
and this is in some type of a crucifixion nod.
Did they actually pin it with nails?
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Did they? They're not saying that. I'm just saying I
don't know what pinned actually means.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
You start, yeah, I mean, you start throwing around image.
I mean you start vocalizing imagery, like in the form
of a crucifixion, and you start using the term pin
with hands Automatically, I'm thinking, well, is there some what
type of I mean, Okay, let's just say this. I
(16:44):
guess you could take someone that is dead and put
super clue on the back of their hands and glue
their hands to the wall or a POxy if you
were so inclined, maybe you could tie them in some
weird way. I don't know. Maybe he had hooks on
his wall, and they were tied to the wall. But
that's that's not but that's not what that means to
me because pinning, I mean, it's just let's think about
(17:05):
a common term that's used in our vernacular. You're in
a meeting and somebody says, I tell you what, let's
put a pin in that for right now. Well, when
you put a pin in something, that means that you're
taking a metal object, generally sharp, and you stick it
to hold it in place. Now, maybe I'm going to
turn out to be way off base here, but all
of the imagery that this is kind of conjuring up here, Dave,
(17:30):
it certainly gives us pause, doesn't it to think about it.
You know, who would want to do this? And I
think one of the big questions I'm going to have
to ask Dave, and you know I'm going to go
here this pinning. Is the pinning anti mortem or is
it post mortem? Because if it's anti mortem, how are
(17:54):
you going to get this guy? And granted, how old
did you say William was?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
He's seventy six years old.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Okay, he's seventy he's in his mid seventies. He's Vietnam vet.
We know that he works outside with his hands. It's
not like he's couch potato. This guy wrestles around engine parts,
all right, So he's no, I don't know he's aelion. No,
(18:20):
he's not a dandelion. You're absolutely right. He's out there
working in the hot sun doing what he loves. If
you put your hands on him, then you're going to
have a problem. Now, Listen, the problem might not last
a long time, but dude's going to resist. I can
tell you that. So if he is being pinned in
(18:41):
some manner that they're referring to, then was this done
before he died? If it's done before he died, Dave,
then we're we've opened up a completely different can of
worms here, because being being pinned in life with an
object you're approaching or maybe your smack dab in the
(19:05):
middle of what I would say is torture. If there's
torture involved, I have to say that there is an
inordinate amount of anger involved, and maybe we begin to
paint a picture of who's involved in this as far
as a perpetrator or perpetrators. Now we can't just simply
say that it's one person that did this, all right,
(19:26):
because I got to tell you, if hands are pinned
and you're doing it to somebody that is alive, like
christ was, you're going to have to hold their arm
down while somebody else pins them to this surface. Now,
if it's post mortem, that means if it happened after death,
(19:50):
then what do we make of that. Well, I've had
serial killings where bodies have meant. You mentioned this before,
where bodies have been posed many times is for the
shock value, as crazy as it is. I think back
to that movie back in the nineties with Brad Pitt Morgan,
Freeman seven, and for those of you that are familiar
(20:13):
with that movie, each one of those well, first off,
each one of those deaths represented one of the seven
Deadly sins, and every one of those bodies in some
way was kind of posed and it was meant to
be a shocking event. Most serialized events that use posing.
(20:33):
First off, the individual is in a fantasy world that
does it, or they are attempting to shock the finder,
whoever that might be. Well, we have to look at
a list and say, well, who could have been the
finder in this case? Who would have intimate enough contact
with him? And I don't mean that in a disrespectful way.
I'm saying, who has access and opportunity to him at
(20:58):
any moment time you'd mentioned that you know his son
worked with him, Well, did his son find his daddy?
Like this is his son the one that walked into
the house. Say again, you think.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
We would be told that though, that he was found
by his son, because we're not getting mad. I spent
a lot of time trying to find the finder because
it had a nine one well call. One call comes
in around seven thirty at night on the twenty eighth
of April, and that nine to one one call was
about finding him dad. But we don't know who made
(21:32):
the call or why the call was made. So I
was looking to see if this was another one of
our making a welfare check call, you know, because the
guy I'm going to assume, and this is always the
wrong thing to do. I just haven't seen anything different
to imply that he has that somebody's living with him.
That's how I found. His wife passed in twenty twenty two,
so for the last couple of years it's just been
him and he was found. But here's the other part, Joe,
(21:56):
is that besides the body being posed sides the hands
being pinned to the wall. We also are being told
that his body had other significant injuries, and in some
of the reports they've gone so far to say his
body was mutilated. So we've got not I mean, what
(22:20):
killed him, we don't know. They don't say he was
shot in the head and then posed. They don't tell
us how he died. He could have been alive. Maybe
it was a stage crucifixion and they let him bleed out.
We don't know. We don't know anything other than that
a man who was generally loved by the community, a
(22:40):
community of seventeen thousand people about, you know, fifty five
miles outside of Phoenix, a man that everybody respected, knew
and cared for, a pastor nonetheless the last twenty five years.
And he's done this way in such a disrespectful post.
And then the Maericapa County Sheriff's office tell us don't
worry about it, it's a one off. I mean, they
(23:03):
have to know something right to say that. I don't
need to lock my doors. I don't need to get worried,
because I'm be honest, Joe, if it happens across the
street in my neighborhood, I'm moving a shotgun to the
front door.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, you have to you have to think that, uh,
that every every lead has been exhausted at this point
in time. And I find it it was It was
kind of interesting. William's son, uh uh, he actually went
by Bill. Bill's son, Randy had stated that they've been
(23:35):
getting a lot of support and that people are are
reaching out to try to help them, because you know,
Bill was the type of guy that helped people, obviously
in his congregation. I think that, you know, I don't
think it's too far to say that they had become
a de facto family for him, particularly in the wake
of a loss of a wife like this, this was
(23:56):
his life. Who in the world would want to do
this level of harm to this poor man that, in
my opinion, involves restraint, possibly torture, and ultimately murder. There's
(24:30):
been some controversy over the years about the crucifixion of
Christ about where the injuries were, specifically on his body.
Some people have held that he was perhaps nailed through
his wrist because the bones of the hand cannot support
a body. And then, you know, I think that we
have scriptured. Dave, you can chime in on this that
(24:53):
says that, And I think it was Thomas, you know
that came to great you know, and he said, because
he wasn't present when Christ appeared. He said, until I
touch or is it placed my finger into the nails,
carred hands, or touch his side, I'm not going to believe.
And so this opens up in an interesting kind of
(25:14):
valve in this whole thing. Logistically, how you're going to
work the scene as an investigator?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Was I right?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Scripturally by the way, I mean?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yeah? And the boy we're going to be playing with.
You know, people love to debate things, to worry about
the Bible, and I'm just going to tell you this,
the Bible wasn't written in English. Jesus didn't speak English. Yeah,
and although the red letters are beautiful and those are
the words he said, they weren't said in English. Just
saying now to get to this, I'm wondering, Joe. I'm
(25:42):
in my head, I'm picturing the scene and I'm trying
to figure out how do you go about beginning to
investigate what took place when you've got a body that's
staged and you know you're going to destroy evidence the
first time you move. Yes, because yes, you are body
being staged is evidence in and of itself. Yeah, you are.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
And here's a little aside for you here, my friend.
You never know, I think as an investigator what kind
of tools you're going to need when you show up
at a scene, because people have a way when they die,
either at their own hand or at the hand of another,
(26:25):
of putting themselves in these odd positions where it's something
that scientifically you're not calculating that when you go out
to a scene and you walk in. I had a
guy that was stuck down into a grease trap one
time trying to break into a building and got stuck
over a stove and he actually cooked to death over
a stove at a Jamaican restaurant. He had second third
(26:48):
degree burns on his lower body. Well myself and the
fire department had to try to come up with a
way to dislodge him, if you will, from this trap.
So you never know from the grease trap, you never
know what you're going to encounter and what kind of
tools you're going to need. And I'm thinking about this case,
(27:09):
and again we don't know this for a fact, but
if let's just look at it from the perspective of
talking about destroying evidence if we have to unpin him,
which we would have to because the body is going
to go to the americ Coopa County Medical Examiner's Office,
by the way, one of the finest medical examiner's offices
(27:29):
in the nation bar none. I mean, they have for
years had this stellar reputation there of doing fantastic work.
Because if you're going to transport him back, what are
you going to do cut the wall out over the
bed and leave him pinned in this position. You can't
do that. Now. We have had to do certain things
(27:52):
where we cut walls out to recover projectiles. Let me
see what else have we done in in the past.
We've left bodies inside of burned cars and transported those bodies.
I've had pipes sticking out of bodies where I had
to transport the body with the pipe still in place.
(28:13):
I've had tree branches where people have been impelled on
and just took a chainsaw and cut so that I
left like a foot on each side of the body
and transported the body in with that in place, so
that we could X ray it and just have an
understanding what organ systems had passed or before we ever
put the cold steel to the body. This is different though,
(28:36):
You've got a body that is anchored. I like that
term maybe a little bit better than penned that's anchored
to the wall. I don't know what kind of anchoring
mechanism they were using. Okay, and let's just think about Okay,
we'll go back to the example of Christ. Okay, we
think about traditionally the spikes that had been used. Now,
(28:58):
those are are very bold, you know when you think
about it, and it require something other than say a
finishing hammer that a carpenter would have to use. You're
talking about using something that would approximate a handheld a
sledge hammer or a ball pen hammer or something like that.
Or was it simply that they took roofing nails or
(29:20):
they used I don't know, you name it concrete nails
or whatever the case might be. And there are a
variety of different sizes of nails. Well, how am I
going to dislodge his hand from that anchor point? You
know what I'm going to do first, I Am probably
not going to pull the nail out of the hand.
(29:43):
I'm going to try to get his hand with the
nail in place, dislodged from the wall. And the purpose
in doing that is that I want to be able
to in a controlled environment extra take X rays of
the hands. Okay, first off, we're documenting it, right, we
(30:05):
can appreciate the wound track with the object in place. Secondly,
i'm documenting it. Can you imagine how powerful that is
in court? You're not going to show. You don't have
to show a bloody a bloody photograph at autopsy. All
you have to do is take that radiograph and put
it up on the board. Defense can't argue about that
because the prosecution would say, uh, yeah, you know, doctor Smith,
(30:29):
what are you seeing here? What is this object? It's
a nail and they'll give the specific type of nail
and how is it in there? Well, sir, I got
to tell you it appears that it was hammered through
the victim's hand and into the wall where it was pinned.
So based upon this, what's your assessment? Well, the doctor
(30:49):
will say one or two things, Brother Dave. He's either
going to say that there is a wound track with
hemorrhage associated with it, or there's no hemorrhage in there.
And so we'll be able to understand contextually, was he
alive or was he dead when this happened? And if
he has all of these other injuries that you have
referred to that they keep mentioning, we don't precisely know
(31:13):
what those injuries are, but let me just run down
a list of what could happen if you've got injuries
that have been inflicted on a body of an individual
that is restrained, even if they're restrained with nails. It
could be beating, it could be cutting, it could be stomping,
(31:37):
it could be pushing, I mean, punching. There's a number
of things that would manifest themselves on the body because
I can't imagine whilst you would want to pin this
individual to a wall. So what are the nature of
those injuries as well? And each one of those injuries
will be assessed and another piece to this that's going
(31:58):
to be hugely important day. We know that he's laying
on a bed. This is not like he's laying in
the dirt or even hung on a Christian cross. Okay,
He's laying on a bed on a mattress. Guess what
a mattress is like. It's like a plowed garden where
(32:20):
seed has been put out. If you imagine the surface
of the mattress as a plowed garden with furrows in
it and seeds or bits of evidence, and it holds
onto it, it gets into the dirt, into the strata
of the mattress. That mattress is going to be invaluable
because when you think about all of the activities, someone
would probably have had to have gotten onto that mattress
(32:42):
in order to facilitate the positioning of the hands. If
it's more than one person, you're going to have one
person holding while the other person is putting the pins
quote unquote in place, or even tying whatever the nature
of this is. So the mattress is really going to
come in place. You're going to have a lot of
blood evidence. I would imagine you're probably going to have
(33:04):
tissue and hair that comes from this victim's body. In
addition to that, whatever else these perpetrator, the perpetrator perpetrators
had on them is going to transfer. And let me
tell you one more thing, going back to the cart's principle,
whatever they did to build in that bed will have
transferred to them as well. So if they're out there
(33:27):
and they I don't know, they're still wearing the same
clothes because this person sounds like a mad man or
mad people. Maybe they've retained the clothing. If not, maybe
they've disposed of it. But if that clothing can be found,
you would have to explain why bills. Biological evidence is
on there, and I'm talking everything from hair, blood, skin,
(33:49):
and of course everybody's favorite DNA. This is going to
be an evidence rich environment. I'm going to be very interested,
I think, first off, to see who may have visited
Bill's church. There was a reference that was made to
a sermon that he had preached, and we don't really
(34:10):
know what the context of the sermon was, or what
the topic was, or even what the scripture reading was,
but we know that he had given his last sermon. Well, Dave,
this is not too far away from an interstate highway.
What if somebody had said, you know what, I think,
I'm going to go into this little town. I'm going
to roll up to this church. I'm going to go
(34:30):
in and listen to what they have to say, and
maybe something clicked with that individual. Maybe it was something
that really angered them and they said, Okay, I'm going
to come back and I'm going to get this guy.
It could be that simple or that complex, so you
have all of these things that kind of run through
your mind. A church has progressively over the last few
(34:52):
years become a very dangerous place. We've had pastors, priests, shot, stabbed,
beaten to death, all these sorts of things. You never
know who's lurking outside and who is going to be inside.
You think of it as a place of peace, a refuge,
a cleft in the rock, if you will, to get
(35:12):
away from the storms of life. But unfortunately, in this case,
in this place that Bill had called home for all
of these years, where he had lived, a life where
he had assembled old cars, even worked on planes, a
place of peace he had found after the war in Vietnam,
a place where his wife had passed away. There's a
(35:36):
pervasive evil that has been visited upon this man of God.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is bodybags.
Body dines with Joseph's Gotten More. I got a confession
to make, probably to my wife Kimmy's great chagrin many times.
Probably my favorite folk slash acoustic artist of the nineteen
(00:23):
seventies is Gordon Lightfoot. I can't help myself. I could
listen to him for hours and hours, and she can
tolerate it for a while, but she she gets weary.
I understand. But there's something about the music that he creates.
And I had kind of an interesting intersection with Gordon
(00:46):
Lightfoot's music and my travels. I was out in Arizona
many years ago. I was at an educational conference and
we had to get out of town in the middle
of July. We were in Phoenix and it was broiling hot,
and we decided to take a trip to Sedona, where
(01:06):
it's about forty degrees cooler. And along the way, I
looked up and I saw a sign that said care
Free Highway, and suddenly it came to me that this
was the stretch of road that Gordon or Gordo as
he's known, wrote the lyrics to the song his hit
(01:32):
from the seventies, care Free Highway, and that song means
a lot to me. It's so peaceful. But I'm going
to talk about a case today that is so utterly
bizarre from what we know at this point, and it
happens not too far away from that stretch of highway
(01:53):
care Free Highway, but the circumstances around this case are
anything but free, and to this moment, there's a killer
among them out there. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this
is body Bags. Dave. Please tell me, Please tell me
(02:16):
that you like Gordon Lightfoot.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
You know, if you really want to go down that
I'll throw out Kathy Evelyn Smith if you really want
to I knew it. I knew it. I knew you
were going to go there.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Er of men.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
And she actually is the one who gave John Belushi
the speedball that killed him and then sold her story
to the National Inquirer and that reopened the investigation. Thomas
Deci got involved and they locked her up. There you go. So, yes,
I am a Gordon Lightfoot fan, but hey, I did
not know the story about Carefree Highway. I did not
know that about Arizona. But I do know this. When
(02:51):
you live out there in the in the Southwest, Yeah,
it is a different landscape than other parts of the
country because more than just Latin Dester, you know, it's
just I encourage everyone to spend some time in New
Mexico and Arizona. There are plenty of things to see historical,
there's stuff that get dates back, you know, Native American
(03:12):
stuff that goes back way a long time ago, just
an amazing time. But today's case, Joe, we're talking about
it because it happened in a Maricopa County, Arizona, which
is a big county. You know, Phoenix is in a
Maricopa County. But the area we're talking about is a
very small area, not densely populated, where there's a man
(03:34):
who had served in Vietnam and he came back home
and after his tour in Vietnam, he became a religious
man and studied and became a pastor, and for the
last twenty five years he has pastored this small area church.
He is one of those people that is called a
beloved pastor, a beloved member of the community. He's assault
(03:55):
of the earth kind of guy who liked to rebuild trucks. Joe.
If you actually look at pictures of his property, there's
parts of vehicles all over the place. That he's using
to put others back together. That's what he and his
son do. It's a passion project they have, but his
passion of being a pastor for many, many years, twenty
five years. His wife passed away a couple of years
ago in twenty twenty two. He's now seventy six years old.
(04:18):
William Showman is the man's name. Pastor William Showman was
found dead on April twenty eighth. It was a nine
to one one called Joe, and I need your help
on this because I've been trying to figure out who
the finder was and I can't see it. I don't
find that, but I do know this. The Mericaup County
Sheriff's Office being quiet. They have locked their lips on
(04:40):
this case. All we know is that it appeared that
this pastor of twenty five years was staged like a
crucifixion in his own bed. And it was a nine
one one call that came in from somebody, and that's
but they that's how they found them. We'll get more
(05:01):
in details, but that's that is the setup that boggles
the mind in an area where the people all said,
we don't lock our doors at night, No, we all
know one another.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, yeah, and it's off of it's actually off of
I think it's I seventeen, if I'm not mistaken. It's
a major interstate highway that runs north. It heads to Sedona, which,
by the way, going back to Arizona arguably is one
of the most beautiful places I've been out west. I
spent time in Arizona in the Army at Fourchuka down
(05:33):
on the Mexican border. Not beautiful.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I was going to ask you about that. I didn't
realize you were stationed there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, well I went through at there in the and
did training at the Intel School and but and that
was many moons ago. There were so very hot, not
as hot as Phoenix, though, you know, it's I've never
experienced heat like Phoenix, even compared to Vegas. He it.
Phoenix is down in a bowl and it is. It's
(05:59):
just it's not sultry because they would say there's no humidity,
but it is. You bake, you absolutely bake. And it
takes special kind of person to be there outdoors in
the summertime. But this case in particular is north of Phoenix,
and it's really interesting because as you're going northbound out
(06:20):
of Phoenix, you can actually appreciate the road beginning to rise, Dave,
because Phoenix sits down in a bowl, so it begins
to you can feel. It's one of those weird situations
when you're on a highway. Generally you can't detect elevation changes,
but all the way from Phoenix to Sedona, you could
actually appreciate the elevation change. And then when we hit
(06:44):
Sedona it was I think like sixty eight and we
had left Phoenix that was like one hundred and eighteen.
And you can feel it as it and even the
car temperature reader, the digital thing in there progressively going
down as you go down the road. But it is
a Sedona is one of the most beautiful places I've
(07:06):
been to you you actually, it's a very kind of
you feel. I don't know how to say it. It's
almost like an outdoor cathedral. When you get there, you
feel close to God. Yeah, I don't know about that,
but I know that I felt a lot of peace there,
and if I was an alien, I would want to
visit Sedona.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
So I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
I love it, and got a lot of friends out
in Arizona. But this case in particular, because it is,
even though it's in Maricopa County and it's you know,
just north of arguably one of the largest cities in
the United States. I think for a while Phoenix was
right up there at like number five or six. I'm
sure I've got listeners that are out there. They'll say, no,
(07:45):
we're not at that position, but that's that's roughly kind
of where the population stood. But when you get out
of that area, all of a sudden, dude, you're you're
away from everything else that's developed really really quickly. I've
never seen it change like that. That's unique to that area,
I think. And the as you head north, you get
(08:10):
away from the artificial light of Phoenix and you're out
there in that desert and it's like the stars at night,
they just feel so much more illuminated. You feel closer
to the heavens almost, you can see more. It's absolutely breathtaking.
I think a lot of it has to do with
lack of humidity, you know, whereas down here in the South,
(08:32):
you know, it's yeah, we've got beautiful views at night,
but it's nothing. And I know you lived in New Mexico,
there's nothing that really compares to like a western sky,
and thinking about that, I believe that whoever did this,
because this would have taken time, would have had to
been very, very familiar with this poor pastor's house, his
(08:56):
comings and goings. They would have needed to have a
lot of privacy. Uh. Maybe they did it in the
cover of night, because I've been in the desert at
night and have no need for a flashlight whatsoever. Particularly
in like the more sandy areas, the light seems to
reflect up off of it. It's a it's a unique world.
(09:16):
It's almost surreal when you get out there. But I
was I was thinking about this when you begin to
think about pastors and their their deaths, particularly as are
related to something that is so I don't know, it
has o posed feeling to it. There's there's a real
(09:39):
creepy element. You know, every every pastor that I have
ever worked as a death investigator, there was some kind
of weird spiritual attachment that would occur. I'm not saying
this happened in this man's case, but for instance, I've
had I had a suicide where a guy was like
the head deacon in a church and he had taken
(10:03):
talcum powder and poured it out on the floor and
created a pentagram and ended his life in the middle
of the thing because he felt like that he was
he had committed these unforgivable sins. I've had people that
were pastors that were killed specifically because of people that
were parishioners in their local church that didn't agree with
(10:27):
them or hated them, there was some kind of conflict
with them. And then of course I've had those that were,
you know, had essentially, I think, on one level, abandoned
God and had created elicit were involved in elicited behaviors
with individuals, many times taking their own lives. But Dave,
that's that's not what this sounds like to me, at
(10:48):
least on the surface of it. It sounds as though
that somebody had an end for him, because we do
know this, and we're going to have a session here
pretty soon in an episode of body Bags that's really
going to correct language that the press and that the
authorities use many times they have ruled and I've seen
(11:10):
multiple articles that have said that William Schauman died of homicide.
He did not die of homicide. His death is a homicide.
It's just that at this point they haven't told us
specifically what the modality was. I think probably the most
(11:43):
beautiful cross I've ever seen in my life is in
South Carolina at a place I used to attend WYMCA
Camp when I was a little boy. It used to
be called Camp Greenville YMCAA. It's owned by a private company.
Now people put up pictures of it all the time.
It's a play. It's called Pretty Place. And there is
a gigantic cross on a rock outcropping that they've turned
(12:05):
into an outdoor chapel, and it overlooks like Caesar's Head
and these weird rock formations that are up there. Beautiful
beautiful cross that's there at the you know, essentially where
the altar would be. Views are just fantastic. I cannot
begin to imagine what it would be like to walk
(12:28):
into a scene where this beloved man, and I have
to assume that some of the people that were out there,
even the authorities Dave, would have known him and have
entered into his residence and have seen him in this condition.
It baffles to mind, and I think that it really
(12:50):
says a lot about the person. And I don't mean
in a good way. I mean there's some kind of
relational thing that's going on here actually very very chilling, Dave.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
You know, the one thing that has consistently come into
reporting is how it is described. And I'm going to
share one thing with you because this is something that
has been shared on a number of different sites, and
this is the exact wording. The preacher was lying dead
on his bed. His arms were spread out and his
hands were pinned to the wall in a faux crucifixion
(13:26):
that sickened even veteran homicide detectives. That's the opening line
because the staging of this body, and you've taught me
about posing bodies and things and how they are staged
for dramatic effect, to truly impact those who find the body.
What we don't know about this case are the details.
(13:48):
All we have been told is that what you just heard,
That information was given out right away, but they immediately
said the community is not at risk.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Right I think that that's yeah, Yeah, that's fascinating because
that's a huge conclusion to draw because I got to
tell you, I don't care if I'm living five miles
away from this guy. I'm worried. If I've got a family,
I'm worried. But you're telling me not to worry, because
they're saying that the public is not in danger, there's
(14:21):
nothing to fear, and so by saying that, the fact though,
what you're implying as a public safety official is that
this is something that was at the hand of either
somebody that is known to them or there was some
(14:41):
kind of indication that was left at the scene that
this was not related to anybody else in the community,
and that this individual has I don't know, flown the
coop if you will. They're no longer there posing a danger.
Because dude, I'm not saying i'd sleep with a firearm
underneath my pillow, however, uh it would.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
It would be.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
One of my first inclinations, I think, because if I've
got this this guy as you as you stated, in
a rural area where they don't lock their doors, what
type of perpetrator would be able to come into an
environment like this and feel comfortable enough to quote unquote
pin the hands to the wall. And this is another
(15:29):
another little point of order here, Dave. When I say,
when I say the term pinning, okay, just extrapolate from that.
I'd love to hear it hear it from you. What
what does that imply to you.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Well, that's actually in my notes to ask you, because
when I first heard about this and it said pinned,
I'm thinking of how you put pressure on the hands
and push against something, whether it's the floor and you're
you're going to give me your brother this bit treatment,
or is it against the wall to hold something there
that to me is pinned? There is something holding the
(16:07):
hand to the wall. And if the arms are outstretched
and this is in some type of a crucifixion nod.
Did they actually pin it with nails?
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Did they? They're not saying that. I'm just saying I
don't know what pinned actually means.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
You start, yeah, I mean, you start throwing around image.
I mean you start vocalizing imagery, like in the form
of a crucifixion, and you start using the term pin
with hands Automatically, I'm thinking, well, is there some what
type of I mean, Okay, let's just say this. I
(16:44):
guess you could take someone that is dead and put
super clue on the back of their hands and glue
their hands to the wall or a POxy if you
were so inclined, maybe you could tie them in some
weird way. I don't know. Maybe he had hooks on
his wall, and they were tied to the wall. But
that's that's not but that's not what that means to
me because pinning, I mean, it's just let's think about
(17:05):
a common term that's used in our vernacular. You're in
a meeting and somebody says, I tell you what, let's
put a pin in that for right now. Well, when
you put a pin in something, that means that you're
taking a metal object, generally sharp, and you stick it
to hold it in place. Now, maybe I'm going to
turn out to be way off base here, but all
of the imagery that this is kind of conjuring up here, Dave,
(17:30):
it certainly gives us pause, doesn't it to think about it.
You know, who would want to do this? And I
think one of the big questions I'm going to have
to ask Dave, and you know I'm going to go
here this pinning. Is the pinning anti mortem or is
it post mortem? Because if it's anti mortem, how are
(17:54):
you going to get this guy? And granted, how old
did you say William was?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
He's seventy six years old.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Okay, he's seventy he's in his mid seventies. He's Vietnam vet.
We know that he works outside with his hands. It's
not like he's couch potato. This guy wrestles around engine parts,
all right, So he's no, I don't know he's aelion. No,
(18:20):
he's not a dandelion. You're absolutely right. He's out there
working in the hot sun doing what he loves. If
you put your hands on him, then you're going to
have a problem. Now, Listen, the problem might not last
a long time, but dude's going to resist. I can
tell you that. So if he is being pinned in
(18:41):
some manner that they're referring to, then was this done
before he died? If it's done before he died, Dave,
then we're we've opened up a completely different can of
worms here, because being being pinned in life with an
object you're approaching or maybe your smack dab in the
(19:05):
middle of what I would say is torture. If there's
torture involved, I have to say that there is an
inordinate amount of anger involved, and maybe we begin to
paint a picture of who's involved in this as far
as a perpetrator or perpetrators. Now we can't just simply
say that it's one person that did this, all right,
(19:26):
because I got to tell you, if hands are pinned
and you're doing it to somebody that is alive, like
christ was, you're going to have to hold their arm
down while somebody else pins them to this surface. Now,
if it's post mortem, that means if it happened after death,
(19:50):
then what do we make of that. Well, I've had
serial killings where bodies have meant. You mentioned this before,
where bodies have been posed many times is for the
shock value, as crazy as it is. I think back
to that movie back in the nineties with Brad Pitt Morgan,
Freeman seven, and for those of you that are familiar
(20:13):
with that movie, each one of those well, first off,
each one of those deaths represented one of the seven
Deadly sins, and every one of those bodies in some
way was kind of posed and it was meant to
be a shocking event. Most serialized events that use posing.
(20:33):
First off, the individual is in a fantasy world that
does it, or they are attempting to shock the finder,
whoever that might be. Well, we have to look at
a list and say, well, who could have been the
finder in this case? Who would have intimate enough contact
with him? And I don't mean that in a disrespectful way.
I'm saying, who has access and opportunity to him at
(20:58):
any moment time you'd mentioned that you know his son
worked with him, Well, did his son find his daddy?
Like this is his son the one that walked into
the house. Say again, you think.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
We would be told that though, that he was found
by his son, because we're not getting mad. I spent
a lot of time trying to find the finder because
it had a nine one well call. One call comes
in around seven thirty at night on the twenty eighth
of April, and that nine to one one call was
about finding him dad. But we don't know who made
(21:32):
the call or why the call was made. So I
was looking to see if this was another one of
our making a welfare check call, you know, because the
guy I'm going to assume, and this is always the
wrong thing to do. I just haven't seen anything different
to imply that he has that somebody's living with him.
That's how I found. His wife passed in twenty twenty two,
so for the last couple of years it's just been
him and he was found. But here's the other part, Joe,
(21:56):
is that besides the body being posed sides the hands
being pinned to the wall. We also are being told
that his body had other significant injuries, and in some
of the reports they've gone so far to say his
body was mutilated. So we've got not I mean, what
(22:20):
killed him, we don't know. They don't say he was
shot in the head and then posed. They don't tell
us how he died. He could have been alive. Maybe
it was a stage crucifixion and they let him bleed out.
We don't know. We don't know anything other than that
a man who was generally loved by the community, a
(22:40):
community of seventeen thousand people about, you know, fifty five
miles outside of Phoenix, a man that everybody respected, knew
and cared for, a pastor nonetheless the last twenty five years.
And he's done this way in such a disrespectful post.
And then the Maericapa County Sheriff's office tell us don't
worry about it, it's a one off. I mean, they
(23:03):
have to know something right to say that. I don't
need to lock my doors. I don't need to get worried,
because I'm be honest, Joe, if it happens across the
street in my neighborhood, I'm moving a shotgun to the
front door.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, you have to you have to think that, uh,
that every every lead has been exhausted at this point
in time. And I find it it was It was
kind of interesting. William's son, uh uh, he actually went
by Bill. Bill's son, Randy had stated that they've been
(23:35):
getting a lot of support and that people are are
reaching out to try to help them, because you know,
Bill was the type of guy that helped people, obviously
in his congregation. I think that, you know, I don't
think it's too far to say that they had become
a de facto family for him, particularly in the wake
of a loss of a wife like this, this was
(23:56):
his life. Who in the world would want to do
this level of harm to this poor man that, in
my opinion, involves restraint, possibly torture, and ultimately murder. There's
(24:30):
been some controversy over the years about the crucifixion of
Christ about where the injuries were, specifically on his body.
Some people have held that he was perhaps nailed through
his wrist because the bones of the hand cannot support
a body. And then, you know, I think that we
have scriptured. Dave, you can chime in on this that
(24:53):
says that, And I think it was Thomas, you know
that came to great you know, and he said, because
he wasn't present when Christ appeared. He said, until I
touch or is it placed my finger into the nails,
carred hands, or touch his side, I'm not going to believe.
And so this opens up in an interesting kind of
(25:14):
valve in this whole thing. Logistically, how you're going to
work the scene as an investigator?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Was I right?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Scripturally by the way, I mean?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yeah? And the boy we're going to be playing with.
You know, people love to debate things, to worry about
the Bible, and I'm just going to tell you this,
the Bible wasn't written in English. Jesus didn't speak English. Yeah,
and although the red letters are beautiful and those are
the words he said, they weren't said in English. Just
saying now to get to this, I'm wondering, Joe. I'm
(25:42):
in my head, I'm picturing the scene and I'm trying
to figure out how do you go about beginning to
investigate what took place when you've got a body that's
staged and you know you're going to destroy evidence the
first time you move. Yes, because yes, you are body
being staged is evidence in and of itself. Yeah, you are.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
And here's a little aside for you here, my friend.
You never know, I think as an investigator what kind
of tools you're going to need when you show up
at a scene, because people have a way when they die,
either at their own hand or at the hand of another,
(26:25):
of putting themselves in these odd positions where it's something
that scientifically you're not calculating that when you go out
to a scene and you walk in. I had a
guy that was stuck down into a grease trap one
time trying to break into a building and got stuck
over a stove and he actually cooked to death over
a stove at a Jamaican restaurant. He had second third
(26:48):
degree burns on his lower body. Well myself and the
fire department had to try to come up with a
way to dislodge him, if you will, from this trap.
So you never know from the grease trap, you never
know what you're going to encounter and what kind of
tools you're going to need. And I'm thinking about this case,
(27:09):
and again we don't know this for a fact, but
if let's just look at it from the perspective of
talking about destroying evidence if we have to unpin him,
which we would have to because the body is going
to go to the americ Coopa County Medical Examiner's Office,
by the way, one of the finest medical examiner's offices
(27:29):
in the nation bar none. I mean, they have for
years had this stellar reputation there of doing fantastic work.
Because if you're going to transport him back, what are
you going to do cut the wall out over the
bed and leave him pinned in this position. You can't
do that. Now. We have had to do certain things
(27:52):
where we cut walls out to recover projectiles. Let me
see what else have we done in in the past.
We've left bodies inside of burned cars and transported those bodies.
I've had pipes sticking out of bodies where I had
to transport the body with the pipe still in place.
(28:13):
I've had tree branches where people have been impelled on
and just took a chainsaw and cut so that I
left like a foot on each side of the body
and transported the body in with that in place, so
that we could X ray it and just have an
understanding what organ systems had passed or before we ever
put the cold steel to the body. This is different though,
(28:36):
You've got a body that is anchored. I like that
term maybe a little bit better than penned that's anchored
to the wall. I don't know what kind of anchoring
mechanism they were using. Okay, and let's just think about Okay,
we'll go back to the example of Christ. Okay, we
think about traditionally the spikes that had been used. Now,
(28:58):
those are are very bold, you know when you think
about it, and it require something other than say a
finishing hammer that a carpenter would have to use. You're
talking about using something that would approximate a handheld a
sledge hammer or a ball pen hammer or something like that.
Or was it simply that they took roofing nails or
(29:20):
they used I don't know, you name it concrete nails
or whatever the case might be. And there are a
variety of different sizes of nails. Well, how am I
going to dislodge his hand from that anchor point? You
know what I'm going to do first, I Am probably
not going to pull the nail out of the hand.
(29:43):
I'm going to try to get his hand with the
nail in place, dislodged from the wall. And the purpose
in doing that is that I want to be able
to in a controlled environment extra take X rays of
the hands. Okay, first off, we're documenting it, right, we
(30:05):
can appreciate the wound track with the object in place. Secondly,
i'm documenting it. Can you imagine how powerful that is
in court? You're not going to show. You don't have
to show a bloody a bloody photograph at autopsy. All
you have to do is take that radiograph and put
it up on the board. Defense can't argue about that
because the prosecution would say, uh, yeah, you know, doctor Smith,
(30:29):
what are you seeing here? What is this object? It's
a nail and they'll give the specific type of nail
and how is it in there? Well, sir, I got
to tell you it appears that it was hammered through
the victim's hand and into the wall where it was pinned.
So based upon this, what's your assessment? Well, the doctor
(30:49):
will say one or two things, Brother Dave. He's either
going to say that there is a wound track with
hemorrhage associated with it, or there's no hemorrhage in there.
And so we'll be able to understand contextually, was he
alive or was he dead when this happened? And if
he has all of these other injuries that you have
referred to that they keep mentioning, we don't precisely know
(31:13):
what those injuries are, but let me just run down
a list of what could happen if you've got injuries
that have been inflicted on a body of an individual
that is restrained, even if they're restrained with nails. It
could be beating, it could be cutting, it could be stomping,
(31:37):
it could be pushing, I mean, punching. There's a number
of things that would manifest themselves on the body because
I can't imagine whilst you would want to pin this
individual to a wall. So what are the nature of
those injuries as well? And each one of those injuries
will be assessed and another piece to this that's going
(31:58):
to be hugely important day. We know that he's laying
on a bed. This is not like he's laying in
the dirt or even hung on a Christian cross. Okay,
He's laying on a bed on a mattress. Guess what
a mattress is like. It's like a plowed garden where
(32:20):
seed has been put out. If you imagine the surface
of the mattress as a plowed garden with furrows in
it and seeds or bits of evidence, and it holds
onto it, it gets into the dirt, into the strata
of the mattress. That mattress is going to be invaluable
because when you think about all of the activities, someone
would probably have had to have gotten onto that mattress
(32:42):
in order to facilitate the positioning of the hands. If
it's more than one person, you're going to have one
person holding while the other person is putting the pins
quote unquote in place, or even tying whatever the nature
of this is. So the mattress is really going to
come in place. You're going to have a lot of
blood evidence. I would imagine you're probably going to have
(33:04):
tissue and hair that comes from this victim's body. In
addition to that, whatever else these perpetrator, the perpetrator perpetrators
had on them is going to transfer. And let me
tell you one more thing, going back to the cart's principle,
whatever they did to build in that bed will have
transferred to them as well. So if they're out there
(33:27):
and they I don't know, they're still wearing the same
clothes because this person sounds like a mad man or
mad people. Maybe they've retained the clothing. If not, maybe
they've disposed of it. But if that clothing can be found,
you would have to explain why bills. Biological evidence is
on there, and I'm talking everything from hair, blood, skin,
(33:49):
and of course everybody's favorite DNA. This is going to
be an evidence rich environment. I'm going to be very interested,
I think, first off, to see who may have visited
Bill's church. There was a reference that was made to
a sermon that he had preached, and we don't really
(34:10):
know what the context of the sermon was, or what
the topic was, or even what the scripture reading was,
but we know that he had given his last sermon. Well, Dave,
this is not too far away from an interstate highway.
What if somebody had said, you know what, I think,
I'm going to go into this little town. I'm going
to roll up to this church. I'm going to go
(34:30):
in and listen to what they have to say, and
maybe something clicked with that individual. Maybe it was something
that really angered them and they said, Okay, I'm going
to come back and I'm going to get this guy.
It could be that simple or that complex, so you
have all of these things that kind of run through
your mind. A church has progressively over the last few
(34:52):
years become a very dangerous place. We've had pastors, priests, shot, stabbed,
beaten to death, all these sorts of things. You never
know who's lurking outside and who is going to be inside.
You think of it as a place of peace, a refuge,
a cleft in the rock, if you will, to get
(35:12):
away from the storms of life. But unfortunately, in this case,
in this place that Bill had called home for all
of these years, where he had lived, a life where
he had assembled old cars, even worked on planes, a
place of peace he had found after the war in Vietnam,
a place where his wife had passed away. There's a
(35:36):
pervasive evil that has been visited upon this man of God.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is bodybags.
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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