July 2, 2024 • 42 mins
Trista Spicer tells everyone her live-in boyfriend, Eric Mercado, left the house on October 11, 2014, and never returned. Mercado’s family called him “Nino” and they printed up posters, circulated info on social media and physically looked for their “Nino” with no luck. On this episode of Body Bags, Joseph Scott Morgan will detail what happens when someone is hit in the face with a frying pan and their throat is slit with a box cutter. Dave Mack will investigate the relationship between Trista Spicer, Eric Mercado, and Waylan Gentry, and who gave the police the “tip” that turned a missing persons case into a homicide investigation.
Transcript Highlights
00:00.01. Introduction - walking through graveyards
05:08.07 Discussion of social media, sharing too much
10:07.10. Discussion of victim, early 40s
15:35.82. Talk about spouses
20:20.01. Discussion about a missing family member
26:08.66 Discussion of what did Suspect tell new boyfriend
31:18.61. Talk about tattoos
36:39.54 Discussion - somebody always talks
40:26.66 Discussion of soft tissue, dehydrated skin
42:04:13 Conclusion - Face smashed in with frying pan, throat slit
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Body bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. I love walking through graveyards.
People find that strange, I know, but there's a certain
solemnity about it. They're peaceful, they truly are. And then
there's a certain beauty in it.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
They're always placed or they've grown, I think, with beautiful trees, landscaping,
and then you have the artistry that goes into the
design of headstones or memorials that are there. There are
even little benches many times where you can kind of
sit back and contemplate things. It's always peaceful to me.
(00:42):
There are a couple near where I live, and one
in particular I've taken my students to every year, it
says an adjunct to a class I teach, call clandestine graves.
There is a piece there, and for years and years
and years, people have had family graveyards where they have
(01:03):
taken their dead and buried them on their property so
that they could watch care over them as the decades passed. However,
one thing that you don't expect to find in a
residential area is a grave, a truly clan DestinE grave
(01:27):
in the backyard of a home that had been there
for almost a decade. Until somebody finally revealed what was
truly buried in the backyard. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
this is body Bags. Some people call me jaded. I know,
(01:54):
I don't know if jaded is the right term.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Cynical maybe, okay, but hey, very quickly, Joe. Today, on
this episode of body Bags, we're talking about Eric Mercado,
who has been living with Trista Spicer when he goes missing.
He's forty two years old and according to her, he
just left the house one day and didn't come home.
His family asked about I mean, they're talking to Trista,
where is he like to see him? Haven't seen him
(02:16):
in a while, and she goes, I don't know where
he is. He just left. So over the years, you know,
she moves on with her life and he moves another
man into the house, same house. They are ready to
move her and the new boyfriend, and before they can
do that, Trista says, they need a favor from you.
It involves my ex boyfriend. See, he actually didn't go missing.
I've known where he is the whole time. Matter of fact,
(02:37):
I need you to help me move him. That's the
story today, and we'll get into that in just a minute.
But all right, some people think you're jaded. How is that?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Let me kind of lay it out to you. When
my wife and I first started dating, my wife Kim,
you know Kim very well, she said that our dates
were unusual because when we would go on a date
in Atlanta, I could not help moss self but say
to her, as we're driving through the streets of Atlanta,
(03:05):
I had a homicide there. Suicide there, I worked a
we're actually driving over to the spot where I have
a pedestrian struck by a vehicle. And you know, it's
a it's a different kind of perception of the world.
And I don't know. She had mercy on me, I think,
and decided to hang around and say, you know, this
guy is so odd. I got to figure out how
(03:26):
all of this ends. Wow, And I got to tell
you the kind of I don't know if it's cynicism
or maybe morbid my level of morbid curiosity, or I
don't drive by homes in neighborhoods and see good things.
When I drive by homes, I always think, I wonder
what's happened in that home, And that's a horrible way
(03:47):
to look at the world. But in our case today,
I think that the people that are living in this
town in California, going back and forth to their jobs
every day, going shop and hanging out with their kids,
taking the littleague games, or doing whatever it is. I
don't think they had any idea of what was going on,
(04:08):
you know, just down the street for them, Dave.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I think it happens more than you and I realize
that because we don't know what goes on. We talk
about this when somebody we read about that we think
we have an idea of who they are, does something
really stupid and ends up in jail, you know, and
you're going, I thought I knew him or her better
than that, And we really don't. We know what people
want us to see. Oftentimes they keep their private life private.
(04:33):
I know it's different with social media, but even then,
people only let you know what they want you to know,
even on social media.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
So can I just say something, I don't want to
know about your surgeries. I don't want to see pictures
of your surgeries on social media. I just you know,
I'm sorry you had surgery. But you know, sometimes I
see some of the most gass and even by my standard,
I see some of the most ghastly, ghastly injuries on
the people take pictures of on social media and they
(05:01):
post them up, and I'm thinking, holy smokes.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
You know, even today, I close my eyes when I
know that an NFL highlight reel is getting ready to
show thiesman's leg.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I can't even say it.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I know.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So when I drive around and see a house, I
don't immediately go there, but I see how you would,
And I'm just really shocked that Kim staid. I'm surprised
she didn't make any excuse to use the ladies room
and ditch you the first night. But that's a different
story for a different day. In this case, Joe, I'm
always mindful when someone goes missing and the person they
(05:45):
are closest to doesn't seem to be involved in looking
for them. They don't seem to be engaged in discussing it.
They maybe show up at a candlelight vigil, but for
the most part, they're concerned about other things. I'm thinking
of everybody that we've ever covered that was guilty of
killing a spouse. We have a couple that's been living
(06:06):
together and the boyfriend goes missing. They've been living together
for three years, Joe and the boyfriend leaves and doesn't
come home. Tells you about a lot of things right there,
because who would be screaming the light is find my boyfriend.
Find the guy I'm living you know, spent three years
(06:28):
of our life together in this house. He's gone, He
never came home. Help me please.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
How is it that people deflect attention away from themselves
in the midst of this? And isn't it interesting people?
I think that otherwise would be loud mouse in life, right.
Isn't it striking that it's like they crawl down in
a hole and they pull it in behind them, essentially
to kind of go beneath the radar. They don't make
(06:55):
any comments about it. They may have said, yeah, I
haven't seen him in a while. How many times have
we heard that? And then it's kind of nonchalant and immediately,
you know, as far as authorities go, you would think
that that would be the biggest red flag. I think
that externally, you have to have a big push on
the outside, pressuring, pressuring all of the actors in the
case to come forward with information. And if the police
(07:19):
aren't as engaged with it initially, it's going to lose
steam really quick.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Well, think about Lacy Peterson very quickly. When Lacy Peterson
went missing, she's eight months pregnant and her husband ostensibly
goes golfing. Oops, no change story. I went fishing and
my wife came home. My wife's gone. You know, it's
right around Christmas for crying out loud, and that was
(07:47):
a problem for me and that Scott Peterson is not
the one screaming and yelling look for my wife. It
was her family that did that. You know, he was
kind of in the background. We all know why now,
but at the time it struck me as odd that
he's not as engaged as he needs to be. He
seems to be in the First Family press conference, he
seemed to be pretty much, oh, we know that she's
(08:10):
probably you know, he was already in that mode because
he just wanted to move on. He knew where she was,
he knew they weren't going to find her. In his mind,
he's going to, please, can't we just move on? I
want to be six months from now. Remember the thing
that hits me, Joe for real selling her car. Yeah,
if i'm a you're eight months pregnant wife, you've already
(08:31):
named the baby to be, and she goes missing, nobody
is found, and you sell her car. You know she's
not coming back. What do you know that nobody else knows?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Right, And it's a total eradication or it well, certainly
a diminishment of that individual where you can kind of,
I don't know, make them kind of vaporize into the ether.
And if you're already thinking this thing out in your
mind that you're going to live a particular different way,
(09:06):
how much more so? And you know, we think about
this man and woman that have been living together now
for three years and he just kind of vanishes, doesn't
show up. And he's particularly close with his family. They
keep track of him. At least they have some indication
as to where he is.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And you know, Joe, we're not dealing with a really
young man or a really old man, those two extremes.
We're dealing with a guy that's in his early forties
and he goes. You know, police have a tough time
with that because well as adults were allowed to leave,
and we're allowed to leave without telling anybody anything, there's
no law against it. So when you call and in
(09:49):
this case, his family, they're the ones that created. And
going back to who would be creating the missing posters?
You know, if something happened to you, right, Kim would
be on the phone with everybody, help, I need posters,
we need to you know, meet me at the town square.
We're taking care of it. Of course she called the police.
She'd be organizing, you know that kind of thing. Oh yeah,
(10:11):
And in this case, his family had to create the
missing person's posters. They circulated them on Facebook that that
was dedicated to his disappearance. We're talking about Eric Israel Mercado.
His nickname was Nina. About five years after he was missing,
the San Bernardino Police Department issued a formal missing person's poster.
So it took five years before they even said, okay,
(10:32):
well I guess he really is missing.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, and I said, that goes to that element of age. Yeah,
you know, you're you know, you're you're grown man, you're worldly.
You know, certainly by the time you're in your forties
year year what is defined by worldly? And I don't
mean that like in a religious or I'm talking about
your season at that point from and so yeah, they're
they're not going to and unless okay, unless the police
(10:58):
officers have worked multiple domestic calls, or maybe there was
some kind of violence where there was an indication that
someone warned him out of the picture. They're not really
going to go into a frenzy over trying to track
this guy down.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Well, and again, you're talking about a grown man who
can leave, and they do have other things not that
are more important. It's just other things more pressing maybe,
And so I kind of I understand it from every angle, unless,
of course, you have one person that is your advocate,
that one person in your life that is devastated that
(11:38):
you're gone. You're the person you're sharing your life with,
the person you're living with, the person that is part
of your daily pattern of life. Oh yeah, and when
that person is not concerned, well there you go. Well,
I mean, if she's not going to lead the charge,
who is precise?
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And you know, you have a And it goes without
saying that we have a very intimate understanding of those
that we are I love this term domiciled with. And
you you see that person day in and day out,
(12:21):
you're with them, you understand struggles that they're dealing with.
Maybe there's addiction, issues. Maybe there are real highlights and
certainly low lights in their life and you experience all
that with them. But I think that the reason that
Tristas Spicer didn't really get too excited about the disappearance
(12:47):
and absence of Eric Israel Mercado is that she had
kept him close all right. She knew precisely where he was,
and the answers that the police would find will be chilling.
(13:14):
I joke with my wife many times about, you know,
for me, and I know everybody views her spouse differently,
but for me, I know how good I have it,
and I always think, sometimes again back to the cynic
that's in me, there's got to be something there that's
just beneath the surface here. I keep I keep thinking
(13:36):
there's going to be some kind of sinister reveal when
it comes to my wife, and that she's gonna, you know,
tell me that she's, you know, committed some horrible crime
or been involved in something, because I keep thinking that,
you know, I'm gonna, you know, she's you know, I'm
going to find out something horrible about her and we
won't be together anymore. But after you know, decades of marriage,
(14:01):
now nothing has been revealed can Dave, can you imagine
being with someone who you say you care about and
the fellow we're gonna speak about in just a second,
that kind of enters onto the stage in this He
actually said that he loved her and cared for this woman.
(14:25):
She made a very big reveal to this guy, and
it's kind of the lynchpin in this entire case. And
you talk about sinister. I mean, we're about to go
to a very very dark space here, Dave, Well, all right.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Literally, yeah, Eric Israel, Nino Mercado, let's just call him.
Nino Mercado leaves his home October eleventh, twenty fourteen. No
one sees him return. It's important that's the last time
anybody saw him October eleventh, twenty fourteen. We mentioned before
that it didn't seem like anybody was looking for him,
(15:01):
and it took his family to create the missing person's
posters that they circulated online and out in the public.
It was five years later when the police issued a
missing person's poster. Now it boggles my mind when we
refer to people like as an ex girlfriend, because at
the time of his disappearance, Trista Spicer was not his
(15:25):
ex girlfriend. They were living together. They were boyfriend girlfriends.
So it's kind of like whenever you have a teacher
that is charged with an inappropriate relationship with a student,
by the way, that his child rape. Anytime a teacher,
they say the former teacher, the ex principal, whatever. He's like, No,
he was the principal at.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
The time at the time.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, yeah, So anyway, so we got Trista Spicer, and
she doesn't seem to be too concerned about where her
ex boyfriend. Now. I guess maybe that was her story.
We broke up, he left, I don't know where he went. Now,
what do you do with that?
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Joe?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
You've been around investigations all your life or as an adult,
what do you do if somebody says, I don't know
where he is. He left, he didn't come home, he's
I don't have him chipped, he's not a dog. I
don't know how to find him. He just we had
a big fight. We haven't been getting along and he left.
Maybe he's decided to start a new life somewhere where
nobody knows his name, not only the opposite of cheers.
(16:23):
Where did he go? I don't know?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, Yeah, you look at an individual like that you
know that the subject has been missing for some time,
and think about, you know, go back to the family,
just so God bless him.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Man.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
I mean, how frustrating would that be somebody that you're
you're connected to, not just biologically, but you know you
love this person. Yes, you have all these things you'd
like to say to them, and you're not getting anywhere
with the police. Again, you're talking about a guy that's
forty plus years old and you're the one that's having
to generate. There's you know, if there's probably no money,
(17:01):
you know, not that And I don't necessarily find that
reward money is as enticing as it can be. Sometime
I think everybody thinks that if you put out a
pile of cash, you're going to get answers. Yeah, But
every now and then, every now and then, it's like
you'll see that little thread as an investigator that's kind
(17:21):
of dangling right there, and by I don't know, maybe
it's tenacity as an investigator, or maybe it's just dumb
blind luck that somebody grows a conscience all of a
sudden and that thread is pulled and all of a sudden,
those things that were such a mystery for so long
(17:43):
suddenly become revealed in the twinkling of an eye, and
you know, and again you don't know how vested the
police art at that moment in time, but I can
tell you this. When the family would begin to hear
this and this news begins to kind of leach out
(18:05):
of what has happened to Israel, you think about this
and you think, wow. I bet that there was certainly sorrow,
but there was probably a bit of relief.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
I looked at the actual poster Joe that San Berdanino
Police torment put out. I'm not knocking them, by the
way at all, I understand, but the circumstances for a
Nino leaving, it says. Eric was last seen October eleventh,
twenty fourteen, in the twelve hundred block of Heart Street
in the city of San Bernardino. Eric left his residence
(18:36):
and did not return the next day. He is a
local from the city of San Bernardino. Family and friends
have not seen or heard from Eric since he was
last seen. Now the kick here is he's from San Bernardino,
this is where his life has been forty two years old.
We expect him to be here. He's not. So here
we are the only connection we have to him now
(18:58):
is the girlfriend trist Spicer, and as she is moving
with her life now we are talking at the time
eight years in twenty twenty two, she has a new boyfriend,
Whalan with a double a way La n So Whylan
Gentry is Trista's boyfriend. She decides it's time to move
(19:20):
from southern California, but by the way, they live about
eighty miles east of Los Angeles. To give you an idea,
Trista tells Whylan Gentry, time to move. I want to
get out of here. But I got to tell you
something first. Now, if you have been with somebody for
a few years, you kind of know him, especially if
(19:41):
in this case, according to Waylan Gentry, he's a convicted felon.
By the way, I'm not sharing secrets about the man,
but you and I have said, somebody always talks. Whenever
a crime happens, somebody talks.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
They do.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
And Whylan Gentry finds out what Nino Arcado's family has
been looking for for years. Answers but it's not with
one of these I did this on this date and
here's all. It was a riddle. It was given to
(20:15):
him as well before we move, I got to do something. Okay,
turn the power the water. What you know.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Exactly, trim lawn.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
So Trista Spicer says, before we move, I got to
take care of something. She then proceeds to tell Waylan
Gentry what she has to do.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
When it comes down to it, and you have somebody
that you are living with and they ask you the
big question here, I need you to help me get
rid of my boyfriend's body. Would you respond? Tattoos are
(21:17):
interesting things. I guess people get them for any number
of reasons. But for me, I've always felt as though
that people that get them are trying to tell a story.
They're trying to tell a story of their life, almost
like a total them, if you will. And with this
fellow involved in this case by the name of Whalen Gentry,
(21:43):
he was described in court documents as being heavily tattooed
up and down his arms. And the reason I think
that probably he was is that you have a lot
of time in prison, and this guy has been inside
many many times. He's an admitted felon. As a matter
(22:03):
of fact, when he was asked about how many felonies
he had committed by a defense attorney. He says, I
don't keep track of him, so he's been inside for
a while. I submit to you that with a felon
in particular, and they're totem of tattoos that they have
(22:24):
running up and down their arms, I think with that
comes a certain degree of wisdom. And when you look
at this case, I think that whal and Gentry understood
Dave that if he goes along with this idea of
quote unquote getting rid of a boyfriend, he knows what
(22:47):
he is looking at. He's going in for, as they
used to say, you're going in for all day, boy,
and he does not want to revisit this. He knew
what he was faced with. So he's at a very
crucial point time here, Dave, where he could have used
this information to leverage her or do all this stuff.
He didn't. You know what he turned to. He turned
(23:09):
to his mama and he discusses this with his mama
and reveals all of this information. You know what mama said.
Mama said, you need to do the right thing. And boy,
when he did the damn burst, I got to tell
you something else about this guy. He I think he
wanted a place to stay, you know, he was living.
(23:29):
He was living in essentially one of her closets in
the house, which I was fascinated by. Yeah, he was
living like in a little closet within the house in
one of the reports, which you know, there's this kind
of separation between him and this woman, but yet they're
domiciled together, they're living in here, and I'm thinking, wow,
(23:54):
what's the connection. Well, the only connection that they really
have are the drugs that they're involved with, and they
like to get high together, and this is a safe
spot for him to do it. And look, I got
to tell you, I saw the Google Earth images of
this house. It's a nice neighborhood. I mean, it's it's not.
It doesn't look like a kill zone in this area.
It looks like the lawns look appear to be very
(24:18):
well manicured and maintained. You know, who wouldn't want to
live in that environment if you've if you've been you know,
cooling your heels in state penitentiary over a period of time.
But suddenly he's faced with this reality of what she's
telling him. She she actually related to him that and
(24:38):
this is probably uh, I can't imagine even as jaded
as he might be. You know how I talked about
how I'm jaded, you imagine how the level of jadedness
this guy has. He says that Spicer actually revealed to
him that as Mercado was leaping on her love seat,
(25:05):
she decides to go and grab this frying pan and
smash him in the face with it, and then if
that wasn't enough, she takes out a box cutter and
cuts his throat. Now I don't know how you would react,
(25:25):
but I gotta tell you, somebody's trying to convince me
to do something like get rid of a body, which
she also reveals to him has been entombed on her property.
You know, he's probably thinking, I want to get as
much distance between between her and myself as I possibly
can think about. You know, let's just kind of play
(25:49):
this out. Let's just say that they had been getting
high together for months, maybe a couple of years, and
depended upon what they're using, they go into this kind
of narcotic haze where either you shut down completely or
you just run out of energy. And maybe he has
a moment of lucidity where he's sitting there. Oh my god,
(26:12):
I could have wound up entombed right on the same
property with this guy. She's asking me to help get
rid of.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Well, Joe, he even said he didn't quite know what
she meant when she said get rid of him. I
have you know, we're moving to Illinois. I got to
get I need help, and it was I need help
to get rid of a next boyfriend. He said he
didn't quite know what she meant get rid of. I
mean he isn't He's a convicted felon, so you know,
it could mean any number of things. But he says, quote,
(26:42):
and this is in court. Whalen Gentry said, I didn't
know what she meant. She said he was buried under
the stairs. I did not believe her. So Joe, you said.
He called his mom first, Mom, what do I do?
She said, do the right thing? So he does. Whalen
Gentry protects himself by going to the police. Now, oh,
the police use his information, and it was interesting. The
(27:04):
police don't reveal who their tipster is, but they used
the information given to them by Gentry to make an
appearance over at the house, just looking around a few things.
They corroborate enough information from what he has told them
they can go get a search warrant, and it's with
the search warrant that they're able to go and look
and find exactly what they were looking for. And that is,
(27:27):
after eight years, they discover what really happened to Nino
Mercado and Joe, I have to ask you, what what
am I looking at when you mentioned she hit him
in the head with a frying pan and then cut
his throat. All right, so we know some physical stuff
was done in that moment, but that was twenty fourteen.
(27:48):
It was October of twenty fourteen. We I'm gonna assume
that because we just know the last time he was
seen it's October eleventh, twenty fourteen. For all I know,
she kept him shackled in the bathroom for eight years
and just got it tired of feeding him into offed him.
You know, doesn't seem likely. It seems more likely that
he was killed in October of twenty fourteen and she
(28:10):
got rid of the body. So what am I going
to find? Well, what are we looking at in terms
of he's been in toumb for eight years? What's his
body going to look like? Joe? How am I going
to know? How am I going to prove this is
a box cutter unless I have video, because I know
there's no soft tissue left right, No, what he's actually fine.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah, And even if there was what we would normally
refer to as soft tissue, that tissue would take on.
And particularly we have to think about where where this is.
San Bernardino is right on the edge of the desert.
What do we know about the desert is dry. That
environment out there is lacking in a certain level of humidity.
(28:52):
And what happens with soft tissue in that kind of environment. Well,
every now and then you will find kind of a
natural mummification that takes place, and you will have a
residual tissue that's still overlying, you know, skeletal remains. It
(29:13):
looks dry, parchment like, shriveled in appearance. And the closest
I could really describe it to our friends would be
if you've ever seen the results of a food dehydrator,
like where people are making like a jerky for instance.
(29:35):
That's as close as I can really describe it to you.
As to the appearance of the skin, we don't get
that a lot here in the South because of the
level of humidity that we have. You know, bodies break
down a lot quicker in that sense, so there could
very well be some soft tissue left. But here's the
other thing that she decided to do. And I've had
(29:56):
a lot of cases over the course of my career
where you have these clandestine burials and the perpetrator always
makes a mistake by taking the body and cocooning the body.
And here's something I've never heard of before. I found
this fascinating, Dave, is that she had taken an air mattress.
(30:18):
You know, like when you go to Mamma and Papaul's
house and they got it, they don't have an extra bed.
They're going to blow it up and put you on
the floor.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Right, like sleeping in a funhouse.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah, like sleeping in a funhouse. You're absolutely right. Well,
this thing had been slit open. I find that term
very interesting that they've used, because you know what I'm thinking.
I'm thinking that, well, that's not the only thing he
got slit. You know, his throat was slit with a
box cutter. How easy would it be to take that
same box cutter slit open an air mattress, which in
(30:46):
a way becomes kind of a body bag at that
point in time, and you place his body in it,
you wrap his body in it, and then to go
one step further, really dig in this case, David, I
think they they described the location where his body was
found as a tomb. Now I know that that's kind
(31:09):
of that's a term that a reporter would use because
it's it's kind of salacious, isn't it. The body was entombed,
and I guess, yeah, but the body was buried in
an area beneath the staircase. Again, to say that it's
beneath a staircase is kind of again, I think, kind
of a liberty that they're taking. There was in the
(31:31):
backyard adjacent to a building. There was an adjacent staircase.
But but David, yeah, I know because immediately when yeah,
I'm thinking crawl spakes. Absolutely, the dimensions of this thing
are are kind of impressive. And just let me let
me kind of tell tell everybody, you know what what
(31:53):
we're looking at here? And this the thing about it is,
I do know this about about that area out there,
It ain't easy to dig in. It's hard. She apparently
has dug let's use it a tomb for this guy
(32:13):
on her property.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
It a makeshift tomb, which immediately immediately tells you, Okay,
she was attempting something here. It didn't work out the
way she had planned, but it served its purpose.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
But boy made shift tomb. Yeah, the dimensions are are
kind of impressive. It's eight feet wide six feet in height,
which is kind of odd. I've never understood that the
terminology with this and three feet deep. Now, I don't
know how we really can do the mathematics on that
(32:48):
to understand the dimensions. But there's a lot of work
that has gone into this. So you've got a guy
who you've smashed in the face with a frying pan.
The medical examiner stated that the force that was rendered
and the destruction that they saw, and this gives me
an indication that they're looking at skeletal remains now, that
(33:12):
this gentleman would have been dead within minutes of the strike.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
If not, what exactly did he see when they because
we know by her own admission, she used a frying
pan to mash his melon when she hit him. She
said with such force that it would have caused him
to die barely soon. What happened? I mean, what are
we dealing with the broken nose that? You know? We
always hear that story of if he's somebody in the
(33:38):
nose going up at jabs their brain and kills them.
They do that in movies all the time. Is that
what we're talking about here?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
No, No, it's a directed force where let's let's just
everybody right now. Just imagine that you're laying on a
sofa and in this case, he was lying on a
love seat. He's asleep, so he's lying. Now. It's hard
to determine, and I don't know if the medical examiner
could necessarily make sense of this when you begin to
(34:06):
think about directionality what position his head was in, But
we do know this. He's lying there and he is sleeping,
so he's completely unaware of what's about to take place.
His head is essentially supported okay in the back, maybe
it's off to one side slightly. But when she comes
(34:27):
down with the force of the frying pan, the medical
examiner states that the nose and the eye socket were
completely obliterated. So what happens in that dynamic? What happens
when that occurs? Well, given the force behind this, and
(34:50):
unfortunately they haven't told us kind of the weight of
this frying pan, this has to have some mass to it,
and that mass that energy is going to be transferred
to this blunt object. And this is truly a blunt object, Dave.
So when his face and the bony structures as we
(35:13):
refer to them, they're very delicate in the face, I
don't know that people really appreciate it, those little bits
of bone fragment and you can't really say that they're shrapnel. However,
the way the bony structures of the face are designed,
(35:36):
they don't fracture in a way that say, in arm fractures.
First off, they're very thin, okay, and they developed these
there many times they'll have these really rough edges and
sometimes they can develop these bony shards. So they're traveling
into this guy's certainly the frontal lobe of his brain
because this is being crushed. He's being crushed at this
(35:58):
point in time, the back, the back of the head
is not going to have as much trauma. You might
get what's referred to as a concussive trauma, where you
know it kind of bounces back and forth. But those
shards are being driven into his frontal lobe. And I'm
sure that she witnessed him. This is why you know
the ultimate you know, the coup de gras, if you will,
(36:23):
she probably saw that he had agonal respirations. You imagine
how horrible this is because, let me tell you the
dynamics of it. He's still laying there, he still has
a bit of life in him. And one of the
first things that you're going to see production wise with
him is that there will be as a result of
the blood going into his nasal passages and into his mouth,
(36:46):
that's going to be regurged up and blown out from
his lungs. It's just a natural response. So he could
be spitting up blood at this point in time. It's
the most horrific thing you can imagine. And it's at
that moment time that maybe she had come armed with
not only a frying pan, but a box cutter. Box
(37:06):
cutter sends a chill up and down my spine, particularly
when I think back to nine to eleven, you know,
when we think about the cockpit, and she would have
slit his throat at that point in time, which she
apparently did. Now would there be evidence of that? You know,
sometimes even after these many years and a body is cocooned,
(37:27):
remember anything that was with him. We go back to
the cards, anything that was with him at that moment
in time, she wraps up in this slit slit air
mattress and puts him into it, so she's containing all
of that evidence. Dave. I mean it's like you're when
(37:49):
you're a forensic investigator. You see people that contain things
like this, You're thinking, Wow, jackpot, because this is this
is holding on. It freezes that moment in time. Even
after all these years. You know, the plastic might be diminished,
but it's not going to be completely gone. After all
this time, you know, the plastic of this mattress itself,
(38:12):
so it's all contained in there. Now with the soft
tissue around the throat, you're thinking, is there any evidence,
Is there any kind of dehydrated skin that is left behind,
any remnant at all? And sometimes you can take a
look at even these mummified presentations and you can appreciate
(38:36):
hemorrhage there. This goes back to this case is largely
I think circumstantial because when she's talking to her new
love interest that by the way, again we have to
say she's asking him to help her get rid of
her boyfriend. You know, he it might be where there
(39:00):
is something left behind that she doesn't want to be
found at that moment in Tom because she knows what
has occurred. So if you're going to disinter the body,
what are you going to do with it at that
point in Tom? Well, it never made it that far,
did it? Dave?
Speaker 2 (39:21):
No, and Joe, I want to go back very quickly. Yeah,
the dimensions in the box that she had stored his
body eight by four by six okay, six feet tall,
four feet wide. No, it's four feet deep. Anyway, the
box was much larger than his body and he is
(39:45):
put in the match. Would the size of like if
the box was having other things packed in, like clothing
or other stuff, Okay, that made it a tighter fit.
Would that Would that help in preserving the body? Or
would that have no impact whatsoever? I guess. I mean
the box was a lot bigger than his body, and
(40:05):
I'm wondering, you know, would that extra error or whatever
in there help or hurt?
Speaker 1 (40:11):
I think that it would probably help to a certain degree.
The way that it could hurt is that for every
item that you're placing in into this entumbement, if you will,
with him, it brings along its own biological baggage. So
you're introducing any kind of bacteria that might be growing. Say,
if you've got clothing adjacent clothing that's they're unwashed clothing,
(40:33):
dirty rags, or anything else that's placed in there, you're
dragging all of that. Well, when you have his body
in there that's already decomposing, you're introducing these other elements
into the body. Could it impact it? It could aid
in preservation, but it could also have a negative impact
because you're introducing this other element into this environment. Either way,
(40:59):
there was an enough there for the medical examiner to
take to be able to actually give a specific cause
of death in this case, which is just in and
of itself, is amazing. And then you have the circumstantial
information that's coming in from the boyfriend, the current You've.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Got a story being told by Trista. Trista Spicer tells
the current boyfriend what she needed help with, he tells police,
and everything he tells police is backed up by what
they find on the premise.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
They yeah, and that's I think. Yeah for an investigation,
I think, isn't that the best of everything? You know,
as horrible as this is, but we're talking strictly as
an investigator here exactly, isn't that the best of it?
Because it's it's scientific, because it's like somebody makes a
statement and then can you verify it scientifically? And in
this particular case, when you're talking about a fellow who
(41:57):
has had his face smashed in with a frying pan
and his throat subsequently cut, it's verifiable scientifically. What's going
to become in this case still remains to be seen.
(42:17):
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body Backs
Body bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. I love walking through graveyards.
People find that strange, I know, but there's a certain
solemnity about it. They're peaceful, they truly are. And then
there's a certain beauty in it.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
They're always placed or they've grown, I think, with beautiful trees, landscaping,
and then you have the artistry that goes into the
design of headstones or memorials that are there. There are
even little benches many times where you can kind of
sit back and contemplate things. It's always peaceful to me.
(00:42):
There are a couple near where I live, and one
in particular I've taken my students to every year, it
says an adjunct to a class I teach, call clandestine graves.
There is a piece there, and for years and years
and years, people have had family graveyards where they have
(01:03):
taken their dead and buried them on their property so
that they could watch care over them as the decades passed. However,
one thing that you don't expect to find in a
residential area is a grave, a truly clan DestinE grave
(01:27):
in the backyard of a home that had been there
for almost a decade. Until somebody finally revealed what was
truly buried in the backyard. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
this is body Bags. Some people call me jaded. I know,
(01:54):
I don't know if jaded is the right term.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Cynical maybe, okay, but hey, very quickly, Joe. Today, on
this episode of body Bags, we're talking about Eric Mercado,
who has been living with Trista Spicer when he goes missing.
He's forty two years old and according to her, he
just left the house one day and didn't come home.
His family asked about I mean, they're talking to Trista,
where is he like to see him? Haven't seen him
(02:16):
in a while, and she goes, I don't know where
he is. He just left. So over the years, you know,
she moves on with her life and he moves another
man into the house, same house. They are ready to
move her and the new boyfriend, and before they can
do that, Trista says, they need a favor from you.
It involves my ex boyfriend. See, he actually didn't go missing.
I've known where he is the whole time. Matter of fact,
(02:37):
I need you to help me move him. That's the
story today, and we'll get into that in just a minute.
But all right, some people think you're jaded. How is that?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Let me kind of lay it out to you. When
my wife and I first started dating, my wife Kim,
you know Kim very well, she said that our dates
were unusual because when we would go on a date
in Atlanta, I could not help moss self but say
to her, as we're driving through the streets of Atlanta,
(03:05):
I had a homicide there. Suicide there, I worked a
we're actually driving over to the spot where I have
a pedestrian struck by a vehicle. And you know, it's
a it's a different kind of perception of the world.
And I don't know. She had mercy on me, I think,
and decided to hang around and say, you know, this
guy is so odd. I got to figure out how
(03:26):
all of this ends. Wow, And I got to tell
you the kind of I don't know if it's cynicism
or maybe morbid my level of morbid curiosity, or I
don't drive by homes in neighborhoods and see good things.
When I drive by homes, I always think, I wonder
what's happened in that home, And that's a horrible way
(03:47):
to look at the world. But in our case today,
I think that the people that are living in this
town in California, going back and forth to their jobs
every day, going shop and hanging out with their kids,
taking the littleague games, or doing whatever it is. I
don't think they had any idea of what was going on,
(04:08):
you know, just down the street for them, Dave.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I think it happens more than you and I realize
that because we don't know what goes on. We talk
about this when somebody we read about that we think
we have an idea of who they are, does something
really stupid and ends up in jail, you know, and
you're going, I thought I knew him or her better
than that, And we really don't. We know what people
want us to see. Oftentimes they keep their private life private.
(04:33):
I know it's different with social media, but even then,
people only let you know what they want you to know,
even on social media.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
So can I just say something, I don't want to
know about your surgeries. I don't want to see pictures
of your surgeries on social media. I just you know,
I'm sorry you had surgery. But you know, sometimes I
see some of the most gass and even by my standard,
I see some of the most ghastly, ghastly injuries on
the people take pictures of on social media and they
(05:01):
post them up, and I'm thinking, holy smokes.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
You know, even today, I close my eyes when I
know that an NFL highlight reel is getting ready to
show thiesman's leg.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I can't even say it.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I know.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So when I drive around and see a house, I
don't immediately go there, but I see how you would,
And I'm just really shocked that Kim staid. I'm surprised
she didn't make any excuse to use the ladies room
and ditch you the first night. But that's a different
story for a different day. In this case, Joe, I'm
always mindful when someone goes missing and the person they
(05:45):
are closest to doesn't seem to be involved in looking
for them. They don't seem to be engaged in discussing it.
They maybe show up at a candlelight vigil, but for
the most part, they're concerned about other things. I'm thinking
of everybody that we've ever covered that was guilty of
killing a spouse. We have a couple that's been living
(06:06):
together and the boyfriend goes missing. They've been living together
for three years, Joe and the boyfriend leaves and doesn't
come home. Tells you about a lot of things right there,
because who would be screaming the light is find my boyfriend.
Find the guy I'm living you know, spent three years
(06:28):
of our life together in this house. He's gone, He
never came home. Help me please.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
How is it that people deflect attention away from themselves
in the midst of this? And isn't it interesting people?
I think that otherwise would be loud mouse in life, right.
Isn't it striking that it's like they crawl down in
a hole and they pull it in behind them, essentially
to kind of go beneath the radar. They don't make
(06:55):
any comments about it. They may have said, yeah, I
haven't seen him in a while. How many times have
we heard that? And then it's kind of nonchalant and immediately,
you know, as far as authorities go, you would think
that that would be the biggest red flag. I think
that externally, you have to have a big push on
the outside, pressuring, pressuring all of the actors in the
case to come forward with information. And if the police
(07:19):
aren't as engaged with it initially, it's going to lose
steam really quick.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Well, think about Lacy Peterson very quickly. When Lacy Peterson
went missing, she's eight months pregnant and her husband ostensibly
goes golfing. Oops, no change story. I went fishing and
my wife came home. My wife's gone. You know, it's
right around Christmas for crying out loud, and that was
(07:47):
a problem for me and that Scott Peterson is not
the one screaming and yelling look for my wife. It
was her family that did that. You know, he was
kind of in the background. We all know why now,
but at the time it struck me as odd that
he's not as engaged as he needs to be. He
seems to be in the First Family press conference, he
seemed to be pretty much, oh, we know that she's
(08:10):
probably you know, he was already in that mode because
he just wanted to move on. He knew where she was,
he knew they weren't going to find her. In his mind,
he's going to, please, can't we just move on? I
want to be six months from now. Remember the thing
that hits me, Joe for real selling her car. Yeah,
if i'm a you're eight months pregnant wife, you've already
(08:31):
named the baby to be, and she goes missing, nobody
is found, and you sell her car. You know she's
not coming back. What do you know that nobody else knows?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Right, And it's a total eradication or it well, certainly
a diminishment of that individual where you can kind of,
I don't know, make them kind of vaporize into the ether.
And if you're already thinking this thing out in your
mind that you're going to live a particular different way,
(09:06):
how much more so? And you know, we think about
this man and woman that have been living together now
for three years and he just kind of vanishes, doesn't
show up. And he's particularly close with his family. They
keep track of him. At least they have some indication
as to where he is.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And you know, Joe, we're not dealing with a really
young man or a really old man, those two extremes.
We're dealing with a guy that's in his early forties
and he goes. You know, police have a tough time
with that because well as adults were allowed to leave,
and we're allowed to leave without telling anybody anything, there's
no law against it. So when you call and in
(09:49):
this case, his family, they're the ones that created. And
going back to who would be creating the missing posters?
You know, if something happened to you, right, Kim would
be on the phone with everybody, help, I need posters,
we need to you know, meet me at the town square.
We're taking care of it. Of course she called the police.
She'd be organizing, you know that kind of thing. Oh yeah,
(10:11):
And in this case, his family had to create the
missing person's posters. They circulated them on Facebook that that
was dedicated to his disappearance. We're talking about Eric Israel Mercado.
His nickname was Nina. About five years after he was missing,
the San Bernardino Police Department issued a formal missing person's poster.
So it took five years before they even said, okay,
(10:32):
well I guess he really is missing.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, and I said, that goes to that element of age. Yeah,
you know, you're you know, you're you're grown man, you're worldly.
You know, certainly by the time you're in your forties
year year what is defined by worldly? And I don't
mean that like in a religious or I'm talking about
your season at that point from and so yeah, they're
they're not going to and unless okay, unless the police
(10:58):
officers have worked multiple domestic calls, or maybe there was
some kind of violence where there was an indication that
someone warned him out of the picture. They're not really
going to go into a frenzy over trying to track
this guy down.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Well, and again, you're talking about a grown man who
can leave, and they do have other things not that
are more important. It's just other things more pressing maybe,
And so I kind of I understand it from every angle, unless,
of course, you have one person that is your advocate,
that one person in your life that is devastated that
(11:38):
you're gone. You're the person you're sharing your life with,
the person you're living with, the person that is part
of your daily pattern of life. Oh yeah, and when
that person is not concerned, well there you go. Well,
I mean, if she's not going to lead the charge,
who is precise?
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And you know, you have a And it goes without
saying that we have a very intimate understanding of those
that we are I love this term domiciled with. And
you you see that person day in and day out,
(12:21):
you're with them, you understand struggles that they're dealing with.
Maybe there's addiction, issues. Maybe there are real highlights and
certainly low lights in their life and you experience all
that with them. But I think that the reason that
Tristas Spicer didn't really get too excited about the disappearance
(12:47):
and absence of Eric Israel Mercado is that she had
kept him close all right. She knew precisely where he was,
and the answers that the police would find will be chilling.
(13:14):
I joke with my wife many times about, you know,
for me, and I know everybody views her spouse differently,
but for me, I know how good I have it,
and I always think, sometimes again back to the cynic
that's in me, there's got to be something there that's
just beneath the surface here. I keep I keep thinking
(13:36):
there's going to be some kind of sinister reveal when
it comes to my wife, and that she's gonna, you know,
tell me that she's, you know, committed some horrible crime
or been involved in something, because I keep thinking that,
you know, I'm gonna, you know, she's you know, I'm
going to find out something horrible about her and we
won't be together anymore. But after you know, decades of marriage,
(14:01):
now nothing has been revealed can Dave, can you imagine
being with someone who you say you care about and
the fellow we're gonna speak about in just a second,
that kind of enters onto the stage in this He
actually said that he loved her and cared for this woman.
(14:25):
She made a very big reveal to this guy, and
it's kind of the lynchpin in this entire case. And
you talk about sinister. I mean, we're about to go
to a very very dark space here, Dave, Well, all right.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Literally, yeah, Eric Israel, Nino Mercado, let's just call him.
Nino Mercado leaves his home October eleventh, twenty fourteen. No
one sees him return. It's important that's the last time
anybody saw him October eleventh, twenty fourteen. We mentioned before
that it didn't seem like anybody was looking for him,
(15:01):
and it took his family to create the missing person's
posters that they circulated online and out in the public.
It was five years later when the police issued a
missing person's poster. Now it boggles my mind when we
refer to people like as an ex girlfriend, because at
the time of his disappearance, Trista Spicer was not his
(15:25):
ex girlfriend. They were living together. They were boyfriend girlfriends.
So it's kind of like whenever you have a teacher
that is charged with an inappropriate relationship with a student,
by the way, that his child rape. Anytime a teacher,
they say the former teacher, the ex principal, whatever. He's like, No,
he was the principal at.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
The time at the time.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, yeah, So anyway, so we got Trista Spicer, and
she doesn't seem to be too concerned about where her
ex boyfriend. Now. I guess maybe that was her story.
We broke up, he left, I don't know where he went. Now,
what do you do with that?
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Joe?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
You've been around investigations all your life or as an adult,
what do you do if somebody says, I don't know
where he is. He left, he didn't come home, he's
I don't have him chipped, he's not a dog. I
don't know how to find him. He just we had
a big fight. We haven't been getting along and he left.
Maybe he's decided to start a new life somewhere where
nobody knows his name, not only the opposite of cheers.
(16:23):
Where did he go? I don't know?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, Yeah, you look at an individual like that you
know that the subject has been missing for some time,
and think about, you know, go back to the family,
just so God bless him.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Man.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
I mean, how frustrating would that be somebody that you're
you're connected to, not just biologically, but you know you
love this person. Yes, you have all these things you'd
like to say to them, and you're not getting anywhere
with the police. Again, you're talking about a guy that's
forty plus years old and you're the one that's having
to generate. There's you know, if there's probably no money,
(17:01):
you know, not that And I don't necessarily find that
reward money is as enticing as it can be. Sometime
I think everybody thinks that if you put out a
pile of cash, you're going to get answers. Yeah, But
every now and then, every now and then, it's like
you'll see that little thread as an investigator that's kind
(17:21):
of dangling right there, and by I don't know, maybe
it's tenacity as an investigator, or maybe it's just dumb
blind luck that somebody grows a conscience all of a
sudden and that thread is pulled and all of a sudden,
those things that were such a mystery for so long
(17:43):
suddenly become revealed in the twinkling of an eye, and
you know, and again you don't know how vested the
police art at that moment in time, but I can
tell you this. When the family would begin to hear
this and this news begins to kind of leach out
(18:05):
of what has happened to Israel, you think about this
and you think, wow. I bet that there was certainly sorrow,
but there was probably a bit of relief.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
I looked at the actual poster Joe that San Berdanino
Police torment put out. I'm not knocking them, by the
way at all, I understand, but the circumstances for a
Nino leaving, it says. Eric was last seen October eleventh,
twenty fourteen, in the twelve hundred block of Heart Street
in the city of San Bernardino. Eric left his residence
(18:36):
and did not return the next day. He is a
local from the city of San Bernardino. Family and friends
have not seen or heard from Eric since he was
last seen. Now the kick here is he's from San Bernardino,
this is where his life has been forty two years old.
We expect him to be here. He's not. So here
we are the only connection we have to him now
(18:58):
is the girlfriend trist Spicer, and as she is moving
with her life now we are talking at the time
eight years in twenty twenty two, she has a new boyfriend,
Whalan with a double a way La n So Whylan
Gentry is Trista's boyfriend. She decides it's time to move
(19:20):
from southern California, but by the way, they live about
eighty miles east of Los Angeles. To give you an idea,
Trista tells Whylan Gentry, time to move. I want to
get out of here. But I got to tell you
something first. Now, if you have been with somebody for
a few years, you kind of know him, especially if
(19:41):
in this case, according to Waylan Gentry, he's a convicted felon.
By the way, I'm not sharing secrets about the man,
but you and I have said, somebody always talks. Whenever
a crime happens, somebody talks.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
They do.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
And Whylan Gentry finds out what Nino Arcado's family has
been looking for for years. Answers but it's not with
one of these I did this on this date and
here's all. It was a riddle. It was given to
(20:15):
him as well before we move, I got to do something. Okay,
turn the power the water. What you know.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Exactly, trim lawn.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
So Trista Spicer says, before we move, I got to
take care of something. She then proceeds to tell Waylan
Gentry what she has to do.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
When it comes down to it, and you have somebody
that you are living with and they ask you the
big question here, I need you to help me get
rid of my boyfriend's body. Would you respond? Tattoos are
(21:17):
interesting things. I guess people get them for any number
of reasons. But for me, I've always felt as though
that people that get them are trying to tell a story.
They're trying to tell a story of their life, almost
like a total them, if you will. And with this
fellow involved in this case by the name of Whalen Gentry,
(21:43):
he was described in court documents as being heavily tattooed
up and down his arms. And the reason I think
that probably he was is that you have a lot
of time in prison, and this guy has been inside
many many times. He's an admitted felon. As a matter
(22:03):
of fact, when he was asked about how many felonies
he had committed by a defense attorney. He says, I
don't keep track of him, so he's been inside for
a while. I submit to you that with a felon
in particular, and they're totem of tattoos that they have
(22:24):
running up and down their arms, I think with that
comes a certain degree of wisdom. And when you look
at this case, I think that whal and Gentry understood
Dave that if he goes along with this idea of
quote unquote getting rid of a boyfriend, he knows what
(22:47):
he is looking at. He's going in for, as they
used to say, you're going in for all day, boy,
and he does not want to revisit this. He knew
what he was faced with. So he's at a very
crucial point time here, Dave, where he could have used
this information to leverage her or do all this stuff.
He didn't. You know what he turned to. He turned
(23:09):
to his mama and he discusses this with his mama
and reveals all of this information. You know what mama said.
Mama said, you need to do the right thing. And boy,
when he did the damn burst, I got to tell
you something else about this guy. He I think he
wanted a place to stay, you know, he was living.
(23:29):
He was living in essentially one of her closets in
the house, which I was fascinated by. Yeah, he was
living like in a little closet within the house in
one of the reports, which you know, there's this kind
of separation between him and this woman, but yet they're
domiciled together, they're living in here, and I'm thinking, wow,
(23:54):
what's the connection. Well, the only connection that they really
have are the drugs that they're involved with, and they
like to get high together, and this is a safe
spot for him to do it. And look, I got
to tell you, I saw the Google Earth images of
this house. It's a nice neighborhood. I mean, it's it's not.
It doesn't look like a kill zone in this area.
It looks like the lawns look appear to be very
(24:18):
well manicured and maintained. You know, who wouldn't want to
live in that environment if you've if you've been you know,
cooling your heels in state penitentiary over a period of time.
But suddenly he's faced with this reality of what she's
telling him. She she actually related to him that and
(24:38):
this is probably uh, I can't imagine even as jaded
as he might be. You know how I talked about
how I'm jaded, you imagine how the level of jadedness
this guy has. He says that Spicer actually revealed to
him that as Mercado was leaping on her love seat,
(25:05):
she decides to go and grab this frying pan and
smash him in the face with it, and then if
that wasn't enough, she takes out a box cutter and
cuts his throat. Now I don't know how you would react,
(25:25):
but I gotta tell you, somebody's trying to convince me
to do something like get rid of a body, which
she also reveals to him has been entombed on her property.
You know, he's probably thinking, I want to get as
much distance between between her and myself as I possibly
can think about. You know, let's just kind of play
(25:49):
this out. Let's just say that they had been getting
high together for months, maybe a couple of years, and
depended upon what they're using, they go into this kind
of narcotic haze where either you shut down completely or
you just run out of energy. And maybe he has
a moment of lucidity where he's sitting there. Oh my god,
(26:12):
I could have wound up entombed right on the same
property with this guy. She's asking me to help get
rid of.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Well, Joe, he even said he didn't quite know what
she meant when she said get rid of him. I
have you know, we're moving to Illinois. I got to
get I need help, and it was I need help
to get rid of a next boyfriend. He said he
didn't quite know what she meant get rid of. I
mean he isn't He's a convicted felon, so you know,
it could mean any number of things. But he says, quote,
(26:42):
and this is in court. Whalen Gentry said, I didn't
know what she meant. She said he was buried under
the stairs. I did not believe her. So Joe, you said.
He called his mom first, Mom, what do I do?
She said, do the right thing? So he does. Whalen
Gentry protects himself by going to the police. Now, oh,
the police use his information, and it was interesting. The
(27:04):
police don't reveal who their tipster is, but they used
the information given to them by Gentry to make an
appearance over at the house, just looking around a few things.
They corroborate enough information from what he has told them
they can go get a search warrant, and it's with
the search warrant that they're able to go and look
and find exactly what they were looking for. And that is,
(27:27):
after eight years, they discover what really happened to Nino
Mercado and Joe, I have to ask you, what what
am I looking at when you mentioned she hit him
in the head with a frying pan and then cut
his throat. All right, so we know some physical stuff
was done in that moment, but that was twenty fourteen.
(27:48):
It was October of twenty fourteen. We I'm gonna assume
that because we just know the last time he was
seen it's October eleventh, twenty fourteen. For all I know,
she kept him shackled in the bathroom for eight years
and just got it tired of feeding him into offed him.
You know, doesn't seem likely. It seems more likely that
he was killed in October of twenty fourteen and she
(28:10):
got rid of the body. So what am I going
to find? Well, what are we looking at in terms
of he's been in toumb for eight years? What's his
body going to look like? Joe? How am I going
to know? How am I going to prove this is
a box cutter unless I have video, because I know
there's no soft tissue left right, No, what he's actually fine.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah, And even if there was what we would normally
refer to as soft tissue, that tissue would take on.
And particularly we have to think about where where this is.
San Bernardino is right on the edge of the desert.
What do we know about the desert is dry. That
environment out there is lacking in a certain level of humidity.
(28:52):
And what happens with soft tissue in that kind of environment. Well,
every now and then you will find kind of a
natural mummification that takes place, and you will have a
residual tissue that's still overlying, you know, skeletal remains. It
(29:13):
looks dry, parchment like, shriveled in appearance. And the closest
I could really describe it to our friends would be
if you've ever seen the results of a food dehydrator,
like where people are making like a jerky for instance.
(29:35):
That's as close as I can really describe it to you.
As to the appearance of the skin, we don't get
that a lot here in the South because of the
level of humidity that we have. You know, bodies break
down a lot quicker in that sense, so there could
very well be some soft tissue left. But here's the
other thing that she decided to do. And I've had
(29:56):
a lot of cases over the course of my career
where you have these clandestine burials and the perpetrator always
makes a mistake by taking the body and cocooning the body.
And here's something I've never heard of before. I found
this fascinating, Dave, is that she had taken an air mattress.
(30:18):
You know, like when you go to Mamma and Papaul's
house and they got it, they don't have an extra bed.
They're going to blow it up and put you on
the floor.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Right, like sleeping in a funhouse.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah, like sleeping in a funhouse. You're absolutely right. Well,
this thing had been slit open. I find that term
very interesting that they've used, because you know what I'm thinking.
I'm thinking that, well, that's not the only thing he
got slit. You know, his throat was slit with a
box cutter. How easy would it be to take that
same box cutter slit open an air mattress, which in
(30:46):
a way becomes kind of a body bag at that
point in time, and you place his body in it,
you wrap his body in it, and then to go
one step further, really dig in this case, David, I
think they they described the location where his body was
found as a tomb. Now I know that that's kind
(31:09):
of that's a term that a reporter would use because
it's it's kind of salacious, isn't it. The body was entombed,
and I guess, yeah, but the body was buried in
an area beneath the staircase. Again, to say that it's
beneath a staircase is kind of again, I think, kind
of a liberty that they're taking. There was in the
(31:31):
backyard adjacent to a building. There was an adjacent staircase.
But but David, yeah, I know because immediately when yeah,
I'm thinking crawl spakes. Absolutely, the dimensions of this thing
are are kind of impressive. And just let me let
me kind of tell tell everybody, you know what what
(31:53):
we're looking at here? And this the thing about it is,
I do know this about about that area out there,
It ain't easy to dig in. It's hard. She apparently
has dug let's use it a tomb for this guy
(32:13):
on her property.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
It a makeshift tomb, which immediately immediately tells you, Okay,
she was attempting something here. It didn't work out the
way she had planned, but it served its purpose.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
But boy made shift tomb. Yeah, the dimensions are are
kind of impressive. It's eight feet wide six feet in height,
which is kind of odd. I've never understood that the
terminology with this and three feet deep. Now, I don't
know how we really can do the mathematics on that
(32:48):
to understand the dimensions. But there's a lot of work
that has gone into this. So you've got a guy
who you've smashed in the face with a frying pan.
The medical examiner stated that the force that was rendered
and the destruction that they saw, and this gives me
an indication that they're looking at skeletal remains now, that
(33:12):
this gentleman would have been dead within minutes of the strike.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
If not, what exactly did he see when they because
we know by her own admission, she used a frying
pan to mash his melon when she hit him. She
said with such force that it would have caused him
to die barely soon. What happened? I mean, what are
we dealing with the broken nose that? You know? We
always hear that story of if he's somebody in the
(33:38):
nose going up at jabs their brain and kills them.
They do that in movies all the time. Is that
what we're talking about here?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
No, No, it's a directed force where let's let's just
everybody right now. Just imagine that you're laying on a
sofa and in this case, he was lying on a
love seat. He's asleep, so he's lying. Now. It's hard
to determine, and I don't know if the medical examiner
could necessarily make sense of this when you begin to
(34:06):
think about directionality what position his head was in, But
we do know this. He's lying there and he is sleeping,
so he's completely unaware of what's about to take place.
His head is essentially supported okay in the back, maybe
it's off to one side slightly. But when she comes
(34:27):
down with the force of the frying pan, the medical
examiner states that the nose and the eye socket were
completely obliterated. So what happens in that dynamic? What happens
when that occurs? Well, given the force behind this, and
(34:50):
unfortunately they haven't told us kind of the weight of
this frying pan, this has to have some mass to it,
and that mass that energy is going to be transferred
to this blunt object. And this is truly a blunt object, Dave.
So when his face and the bony structures as we
(35:13):
refer to them, they're very delicate in the face, I
don't know that people really appreciate it, those little bits
of bone fragment and you can't really say that they're shrapnel. However,
the way the bony structures of the face are designed,
(35:36):
they don't fracture in a way that say, in arm fractures.
First off, they're very thin, okay, and they developed these
there many times they'll have these really rough edges and
sometimes they can develop these bony shards. So they're traveling
into this guy's certainly the frontal lobe of his brain
because this is being crushed. He's being crushed at this
(35:58):
point in time, the back, the back of the head
is not going to have as much trauma. You might
get what's referred to as a concussive trauma, where you
know it kind of bounces back and forth. But those
shards are being driven into his frontal lobe. And I'm
sure that she witnessed him. This is why you know
the ultimate you know, the coup de gras, if you will,
(36:23):
she probably saw that he had agonal respirations. You imagine
how horrible this is because, let me tell you the
dynamics of it. He's still laying there, he still has
a bit of life in him. And one of the
first things that you're going to see production wise with
him is that there will be as a result of
the blood going into his nasal passages and into his mouth,
(36:46):
that's going to be regurged up and blown out from
his lungs. It's just a natural response. So he could
be spitting up blood at this point in time. It's
the most horrific thing you can imagine. And it's at
that moment time that maybe she had come armed with
not only a frying pan, but a box cutter. Box
(37:06):
cutter sends a chill up and down my spine, particularly
when I think back to nine to eleven, you know,
when we think about the cockpit, and she would have
slit his throat at that point in time, which she
apparently did. Now would there be evidence of that? You know,
sometimes even after these many years and a body is cocooned,
(37:27):
remember anything that was with him. We go back to
the cards, anything that was with him at that moment
in time, she wraps up in this slit slit air
mattress and puts him into it, so she's containing all
of that evidence. Dave. I mean it's like you're when
(37:49):
you're a forensic investigator. You see people that contain things
like this, You're thinking, Wow, jackpot, because this is this
is holding on. It freezes that moment in time. Even
after all these years. You know, the plastic might be diminished,
but it's not going to be completely gone. After all
this time, you know, the plastic of this mattress itself,
(38:12):
so it's all contained in there. Now with the soft
tissue around the throat, you're thinking, is there any evidence,
Is there any kind of dehydrated skin that is left behind,
any remnant at all? And sometimes you can take a
look at even these mummified presentations and you can appreciate
(38:36):
hemorrhage there. This goes back to this case is largely
I think circumstantial because when she's talking to her new
love interest that by the way, again we have to
say she's asking him to help her get rid of
her boyfriend. You know, he it might be where there
(39:00):
is something left behind that she doesn't want to be
found at that moment in Tom because she knows what
has occurred. So if you're going to disinter the body,
what are you going to do with it at that
point in Tom? Well, it never made it that far,
did it? Dave?
Speaker 2 (39:21):
No, and Joe, I want to go back very quickly. Yeah,
the dimensions in the box that she had stored his
body eight by four by six okay, six feet tall,
four feet wide. No, it's four feet deep. Anyway, the
box was much larger than his body and he is
(39:45):
put in the match. Would the size of like if
the box was having other things packed in, like clothing
or other stuff, Okay, that made it a tighter fit.
Would that Would that help in preserving the body? Or
would that have no impact whatsoever? I guess. I mean
the box was a lot bigger than his body, and
(40:05):
I'm wondering, you know, would that extra error or whatever
in there help or hurt?
Speaker 1 (40:11):
I think that it would probably help to a certain degree.
The way that it could hurt is that for every
item that you're placing in into this entumbement, if you will,
with him, it brings along its own biological baggage. So
you're introducing any kind of bacteria that might be growing. Say,
if you've got clothing adjacent clothing that's they're unwashed clothing,
(40:33):
dirty rags, or anything else that's placed in there, you're
dragging all of that. Well, when you have his body
in there that's already decomposing, you're introducing these other elements
into the body. Could it impact it? It could aid
in preservation, but it could also have a negative impact
because you're introducing this other element into this environment. Either way,
(40:59):
there was an enough there for the medical examiner to
take to be able to actually give a specific cause
of death in this case, which is just in and
of itself, is amazing. And then you have the circumstantial
information that's coming in from the boyfriend, the current You've.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Got a story being told by Trista. Trista Spicer tells
the current boyfriend what she needed help with, he tells police,
and everything he tells police is backed up by what
they find on the premise.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
They yeah, and that's I think. Yeah for an investigation,
I think, isn't that the best of everything? You know,
as horrible as this is, but we're talking strictly as
an investigator here exactly, isn't that the best of it?
Because it's it's scientific, because it's like somebody makes a
statement and then can you verify it scientifically? And in
this particular case, when you're talking about a fellow who
(41:57):
has had his face smashed in with a frying pan
and his throat subsequently cut, it's verifiable scientifically. What's going
to become in this case still remains to be seen.
(42:17):
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body Backs
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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