January 28, 2022 • 33 mins
Diane McIver was riding in the front passenger seat of a Ford Expedition SUV when she was shot by her husband Tex McIver. He admitted that to police. The question, as the investigation went on, was whether the firing was intentional or discharged by accident. Tex McIver claimed the latter...that the .38-caliber snub-nose revolver, discharged by accident. McIver's attorneys have filed an appeal of his murder conviction, claiming the judge made several errors during the trial. Today on Body Bags, former death scene investigator and forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan looks at what the evidence tells us.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Body Backs with Joseph Scott Morgan, gliding over city streets,
hitting potholes. You're kind of aware of what's going on,
at least that's what you're gonna tell the police later.
You're drifting in and out of consciousness, sleepy, holding a gun,
(00:34):
and all of a sudden there's a bright flash, a
loud noise, and the interior of the cab against smell
like burned gunpowder. Next thing you know, you hear a
scream and your wife she's bleeding out in the front seat. Today,
we're gonna talk about the murder Diane mcab I'm Joseph
(00:56):
Scott Morgan, and this is body Bags Back again. With me?
Is Jackie Howard, executive producer of Crime Stories. Would Nancy
Grace Jackie tell me about the death of Diane McK iver, Joe,
There was never any question that Text mc ivor shot
(01:16):
his wife. The question was always whether he meant to
or not. Text mcgiver was with his wife and a
family friend in a vehicle. The three were headed home
from the mcgiver's horse farm, which is about seventy east
of Atlanta. Diane mcgiver was in the front passenger seat.
Text mc iver was in the backseat behind his wife.
(01:38):
The family friend was driving. According to mc iver, the
car got off of the Interstate going through downtown Atlanta,
and he asked his wife, Diane to hand him his
gun from the middle console between the front seats. She did,
He had the gun in his hand, and that's when
he said the gun accidentally went off. Diane mcgiver was
(02:02):
shot through the seat and the bullet lodged in her back. Joe,
this is an interesting place to be shot. It's an
interesting situation of how she was shot. Where do we start, Well,
it all goes to relationship, and I'm not talking about
a marital relationship. I'm talking about a physical relationship between
the end of that muzzle and this fatal injury that
(02:26):
Diane sustained in this vehicle. There's a lot of a
lot of unanswered questions in this case. You know, text
had had mentioned that he was riding in the back
seat when he became aware. According to him, that uh,
when they had gotten off of the Interstate and they
were riding down surface roads, he had an awareness, at
(02:48):
least in his mind, that that there were people outside
the vehicle. And that's really you know, all we can
kind of surmise from this, there's one indication that may
have been homeless folks. But anyway, he he became fearful
and he you know, you had mentioned that he had
requested this weapon, and the weapon was being carried in
the center console of the vehicle. Text it turns out
(03:10):
owns tons of weapons, but this is the weapon that
he had with him. It was being kept in the
center console. So he asked his wife, Uh, you know,
can you give me the weapon? Diane handed him a weapon.
It turned out that the weapon that she handed him
was kind of unique. Uh. They kept it in the
center console of the vehicle, and it's it's a Smith
and Wesson revolver. But what makes it unique is that
(03:32):
it's uh, it's actually what's referred to as an air weight.
It means that the frame is lighter than normal and
it's uniquely constructed. And what I mean by that is
that it has what's referred to as a shrouded external hammer.
And if you'll just imagine kind of a hood that
covers the hammer, which is the metallic body on the
(03:55):
back side of the revolver that you pull back in
order to arm the weapon, all right, and so it's
protected that way. And this weapon is so light and
kind of compact, it's not really meant for accuracy. It's
meant for self defense. And you can actually carry the
thing in your pocket like your front pocket or in
a purse. Is easily concealed. And the reason the hammer
(04:17):
itself is actually shrouded is so that if you carry
it in a pocket, um that when you pull this
weapon out, the hammer itself is not going to catch
on any cloth. So it's kind of protected. That makes
it highly concealable. And of course in this case, they
were keeping it in the center console. When you say shrouded, Joe,
you're not talking about something that's coming over the hammer.
(04:41):
You mean that it is recessed in between two metal
pieces like a tract where the normal hammer would be.
You're not talking about something coming over the top of
the hammer to keep it from being fired. Right, Yeah,
you're absolutely right. It's kind of recessed now. And if
if folks will just think back to safe instance, old
Western movies they've seen with you know, some uh cowboy
(05:04):
hero on uh you know in the movies that's carrying
a cult peacemaker and it's got the big hammer on
the back of it where you put your thumb on
it and you pull it back. Um, it's not like
that there is a hammer, but it's it's it's flush
if you will. It's flushed with this kind of shroud
that we're talking about, so that when you go to
(05:25):
remove it, say, for instance, from your waistband or from
your pocket, it's not gonna hang up. It's not gonna
prevent you from what they call clearing, like when you
clear the weapon from where it's holstered, um, and you
can get it up and fire the weapon. And again,
this this weapon is very tiny, Jackie. As tiny is
not really necessarily accurate tiny. I'm not talking about like
(05:46):
from a microscopic sense, but it's smaller than most. As
a matter of fact, if you weren't really cute in
on it, you weren't really paying attention. Uh. You know,
a grown man uh could potentially take that weapon and
hold it in his palm palms hang end, and you're
not gonna be able necessarily to see it or fully
appreciate it. So it's very non threatening and that's what
(06:06):
makes it so concealable. So texts had this weapon in
the vehicle with him and it fires what's called a
thirty eight special round, and he had the weapon itself
was actually loaded UM with what's referred to as hollow
point ammunition in addition to a fully jacketed round, which
(06:27):
means the projectile itself UM is fully encompassed in a
copper jacket which protects the bullet itself. So it's the
round they believe that Diane was shot with was probably
one of those, because it didn't mushroom like you think
of a hollow point round mushrooming and uh, you know,
(06:47):
going going through the seat, which it did, and it
kind of shredding tissue on the other side. It didn't
happen like that. So, Joe, this weapon was, as you said,
a thirty eight special revolver. Explained to me what that means.
Do you have to cock the gun before you can
fire it? Yeah, this is you can fire this and
what's referred to as single action status, which, as you
(07:09):
mentioned rightly, where you take the hammer and you literally
pull it back, Okay, and this is key in this case.
Now you pull it back and that's called single single
action mode where if you pull the hammer back, it
only takes about and this is what fires. Examiners say
about two pounds of finger pressure in order to actuate
that trigger. That means to get that hammer slamming forward
(07:33):
onto that primer, that primer on that bullet to engage
the bullet sent it out of the barrel, and of
course one wind up hitting the target. Now you can
fire it in single action, but you can also fire
in double action. Now double action means that in order
to actuate the weapon, you have to pull the trigger.
(07:55):
And while you're pulling the trigger, it mechanically makes that
hammer go back. You're not you're not manipulating it with
your thumb. You're making it go back by pulling that trigger.
This is a bit more difficult. The ballistics experts that
did the test on the weapons say that it would
take twelve pounds of pressure in order to make that happen.
For folks that don't know how this works, if you
(08:15):
go to a ballistics lab, this is generally housed inside
the crime lab, they'll have weights. They'll take the weapon
in question and they will hang the weapon in an
inverted position. And if you will imagine, they have graduated
weights that they put on a hook and they will
hang them on the trigger This is kind of cool
(08:37):
when you think about it, and depended upon the weight
that they apply to that hook, it gives you kind
of a rough estimate of the pounds of pressure it
takes to pull that trigger. So that's what they would
have done with this weapon. They would fire it in test.
Fired in single action mode where they pull the hammer back,
hang that hook on there, and they put roughly two
(08:58):
pounds of weight on the thing in that's what took
to actually actuate the weapon. And then they did it
in double action where they hung the weapon again, they
put the hook on there, and then they put twelve
pounds of weight on It's kind of simple, simple science,
but it it's highly effective. But what does that actually mean? Joe?
You can tell me all day long that it took
(09:18):
two pounds of pressure or twelve pounds of pressure. It
really doesn't come into focus for me. So two pounds
of pressure, it is that like pulling back a rubber
van or or in twelve pounds of pressure? I mean,
is that like lifting a barbell? Uh? Well, okay, I'll
put it to you this way. Um, if you were saying,
for instance, going to press a button in an elevator,
(09:43):
pressing a button and an elevator. Of course, a lot
of that's gonna be depended upon the button, high structure,
and elevator. But if you press the button in the elevator,
say to go to an upper floor, more than likely
it's going to take just under about two pounds of
pressure in order to actuate that button. Okay, so maybe
a pound pound and a half of pressure directly applied
to that button. So you take that and increase it
(10:06):
by that factor and get it up to about two pounds,
and depend upon how much vigor you put into that.
How meany times we've been on the elevator and we
press the button over and over and over again. Every
time you press it, you're getting more forceful, so you're
applying more direct pressure and more poundage. Um. Compare that
to what it probably feels like to put twelve pounds
of pressure from your index finger from your index finger
(10:29):
to that trigger to pull it back, and that gives
you an idea to how much it takes to actuate
the entire cycle of pulling the trigger, making a hammer
mechanically go back, and then having it slam forward. That
takes a lot of weight in order to do that. Okay,
takes a lot of weight. So if we have hung
this gun upside down and or or putting weights on
it to make it fire, you're talking about at least
(10:55):
two five pound bags of sugar. That's an excellent way
to put it, Jackie, because that's something most people can
identify with, you know, and you you hold that weight
in your hands, you know, just when you're in supermarket
and whatnot, and you can get a sense for how
much weight that is twelve pounds um. And so you
have to have what I like to refer to, and
(11:17):
you know what Nancy Grace likes to talk about. Also
when it comes to criminal cases, it would seem that
you would have to have specific intent in order to
apply that kind of pressure. At least a reasonable person
would think that if this is in single action mode,
then that would mean that he would have had to
have cocked the hammer. How much pressure does it take
(11:39):
to cock the hammers? I mean, it's not something he
could have done without intention. Yeah, you're you're right about that.
You would have to specifically intend to place your thumb.
And that's generally how it happens. If you're right hand,
you take your right thumb place it on that shrouded hammer,
and it's got little ridges on the back of it
so that you can kind of grip it even if
(11:59):
the wet and you apply that direct pressure, pulled back
that hammer until it clicks, you know, click into place. Now,
all you have to do at this point in time
this place your finger on that trigger and apply two
pounds of pressure. But this is here, here's the trick.
You have to be intending to cock this weapon in
(12:21):
the first place. You have to have the intent to
work that hammer where your thumb to get it back
into place, and then you would apply the two pounds
of pressure to the trigger in order to fire or
make it fire in single action mode. That's one of
the questions I think that a lot of people have
about uh, Diane mc iver's death. Is they they're trying
(12:42):
to think about, well, it was their intent involved here
or was this just a horrible accident that occurred. So
you could look at it as he said, he asked
for the gun from the console because he was worried
about people outside the vehicle. So the argument could have
been made that he cocked the gun because he was
(13:03):
actually fearful about what was going on. And then as
a reflex, could have pulled the trigger because it only
takes two pounds of pressure. Yeah, yeah, you could, You
could put that forward, but but you know I have
I have trouble with that. And this is why, as
it turns out, Tex mc iver he owned tons of weapons, Jackie.
(13:23):
There there's actually evidence that's been put forward that Tex
mcgever had his on shooting range that he owned on
a rural piece of property. Uh, this pretty good distance
away from Atlanta, that he would go and fire at regularly.
He would practice with his weapons, and he had quite
a few of them. And here's the problem. Why would
(13:44):
a person that was so well versed in weapons and
understands form and function, why would that individual actually feel
the need to go ahead and in advance cock a weapon.
Why why would he have to do that because he
that that's some thing that's a person that has less
experience with weapons would do perhaps that or maybe they're
(14:07):
physically handicapped in some way and they want to be
ready to do it, But there's no indication of that here. Generally,
firing in double action for somebody that's familiar with a
weapon applying, remember that twelve pounds of pressure that's something
that you would expect a person to do, that would
be their normal course of action relative to bringing this
(14:28):
weapon into play and bringing it into action at that
point in time if he has fear for his life,
because he's not gonna stop and recocked the weapon every
time if someone is advancing on him, he'll continue to
fire it and double action. So that's one of the
issues I've had a problem with is the thought that
he's sitting back there with all of his knowledge of weapons,
and he's sitting back there, Jackie, with a cocked weapon
(14:49):
literally in proximity to the back of his wife's body. Jackie.
(15:10):
You know, the night that Diane mcgever was shot, they
were in the middle of a surface street. They were
they were on a road in Atlanta. They weren't on
a highway. You have to make a choice at that
point in time, don't you about where you're gonna go
for treatment? You have an awareness, you wiseman shot, what's
gonna do? What what happened with Diane? So again, Diane
(15:30):
mcgiver was shot once in the back and the bullet
went through the seat into her body. When the Ford
expedition arrived at Emery carrying Diane mcgiver. Text mcgiver jumped out,
calling for help. There was a valet there, but the
valets were not allowed to touch the patients. The diver
(15:52):
began trying to get his wife out of the vehicle,
and again the valets are not allowed to touch patients.
The emergency nurse that free did Diane McIvor that night
said that once Diane mcgivor arrived that everyone was scrambling.
She said, staff was in full critical care life saving mode.
(16:12):
So this was obviously considered life threatening. Well, you know,
that's the problem with gunshot wounds, Jackie, is that you
don't really know what you have until you get this
individual into emergency surgery. What I do know is that
when she showed up, and remember she was conveyed to
the hospital in a private vehicle, the vehicle that she
had just been shot in. And so it's not like
(16:35):
there was an ambulance crew there that's hanging fluids on
or anything like that. They drove her straight to the
emergency room ramp and there's there's actually, uh, there's kind
of this classic freeze frame uh image that was used
at trial with Text mc iver escorting his wife into
the hospital and when they showed up on the ramp. Uh,
(16:56):
you don't really know what's going on internally until you know,
put it very bluntly, until you have that individual open
on the table. And when they did open her up,
they were able to determine that her insights were just
absolutely erect. She wound up in surgery, uh losing her
left kidney, She lost her spleen, her uh, the kind
(17:22):
of the downward portion of her diaphragm was greatly injured.
And believe it or not, I know people think, well,
you know, you lose a kidney, that's certainly lethal and
yet can be if you're not treated for you lose
a spleen, Yeah, you're gonna bleed a lot. But when
you get shot and that bullet penetrate your diaphragm, let
(17:43):
me tell you what happens there. Diaphragm causes or it
enables you to breathe, all right, to push air out.
We all know how that works. Well, it's a large
dome of muscle, and when it is compromised in any way,
that's going to create a problem for you. It's going
to create a serious problem your ability to uh to
(18:05):
take in oxygen process the oxygen and then push out
the carbon dioxide, and that's one of the things that
they're you know, they're having a fight with. So she's
losing blood internally from these damaged organs, and then on
top of it, they're having to take care of her
and then her lungs were never injured by the bullet itself.
It's it's that mechanism within our body that allows us
(18:28):
and helps us to breathe that's greatly damaged. So they're
having to, you know, fight this fight to try to
keep her alive on a couple of fronts. But as
to the injury itself, it folks at home will kind
of uh, you know, you have several layers to your
spinal column. You know, you think about the essentially the
cervical which comprises your neck and sort of certainly supports
(18:50):
supports our head, and then you have a large grouping
of vertebral bodies that make up what's referred to as
the thoracic verba, and then below that you have what's
called the lumbar spine. But we need to focus on
the thoracic vertebra, and those kind of go down right
through the heart of our body, if you will. And
it was actually her twelfth thoracic vertebra um that got clipped.
(19:14):
And when you look at a vertebra, it's kind of
oddly shaped, its bulky and center, but it's got these
kind of prominences on both sides. They almost look like
little wings. Well, the left wing was clipped off and
it passed through that and eventually on the track, and
this is an indication of the trajectory which we can
talk about. The round actually passed through our by the
(19:35):
twelfth thoracic vertebra and clipped her left rib as well.
So it's going from above to below, and that's very important.
And it's on this downward track, and as it passes
through here, it's cutting a swath through these these organs
and eventually exits out of the front of her body.
So she's got these two external injuries. She's got an
(19:57):
entrance wound and then she's got the exit wound on
front of her body. So she's got the bullet traveled
from right to left, from back to front, and in
a downward path. A vertebrate was injured, a rib was injured,
It passed through her diaphragm, her kidney was removed, her
(20:19):
spleen removed, she suffered an injury to her stomach, and
she was bleeding around her pancreas. All of this damage,
and you mentioned that she was bleeding internally obviously, so
which was worse the bleeding or the actual damage to
each of those body parts? You know, those three must
(20:42):
be considered first because they have their own vascular supply.
These organs just don't. They just don't sit in there.
They have their own blood supply, and they have these tiny,
tiny little vessels. And the thing about a gunshot wounds,
it's blasting through these bony prominences as it's going through
the vertebral body, as it's going through the rib. Guess
(21:02):
what it creates. It creates um these little bits of
shards of bone as well. So not only do you
have the bullet traveling through the body, but you can
also get these little uh um splinters of bone that
create these little micro hemorrhages that are all through there.
Can you imagine how difficult this is if you're a
trauma surgeon. I'm always amazed by these people because they
(21:23):
go in. It's intense work. You've got blood coming from
locations that you you can't anticipate and you think that
you have all of the bleeding stopped, and all of
a sudden you have another focal area of hemorrhage show
showing up. So it's a perfect storm in the fact
that these organs with all of their little vascular supplies
(21:44):
are compromised. You're having to go in and kind of
old term is time off you, you know, you kind
of coulterize those areas. But in addition to that, what
are you gonna do about about the diaphragm? We go
back to that because now the individual there's a high
probability not gonna be able to breathe without assistance. They're
gonna have to go on a vent in order to,
(22:06):
you know, keep them alive. At this point, it's not
that their lungs aren't healthy, it's not that her heart
isn't healthy, it's not that her brain is no longer functioning.
It's the fact that the mechanism that's facilitated by the
presence of the diaphragm and that action that it's it's
shot at this point in time, both literally and figuratively.
And so that's that's a critical that you hit this
(22:27):
point of critical mass, and that's why Diane mc iver
actually wound up dying because of this perfect storm. But
you know, this is a curious thing about it, Jackie.
It's not like she was shot in what you would
think is an area of the body that would bring about, say,
for instance, an instantaneous death. You know, you know what
(22:49):
area of the body could you facilitate that with if
you're attempting to kill somebody. Well, obviously she's shot in
the back of the head. She's going down pretty quickly.
The fact that she would be shot in the back
in this particular location, there's no guarantee that all of
those organs are going to be hit. One of those organs. Uh,
maybe save the diaphragm, um, the kidney deliver You can
(23:14):
live without them. I mean you can. There's tons of
people walk around out there without spleens. I'm sure people
in our and our audience have had splenactomies. You can
live without the without the spleen. You can live without
a kidney. You can function on one kidney. Uh. You
can have your stomach ripped up, which diamc ivor did
um and they can repair it and it will be
(23:35):
fully functional. With that diaphragm and tell you what that's
that was the lethal blow. But what are the odds
that you're going to score what in the military they
would call a kill shot with a thirty eight caliber
around through a seat, nonetheless, and that you're gonna be
able to hit all of these all of these uh,
these organ groups. I think that's a big question that
(23:56):
I don't know has been completely answered. The damage that
(24:16):
was done to diamad Iver's body with this thirty eight
caliber round is certainly significant. But one of the things
as investigators that we have to look at relative to
a case like this is uh, certainly range of fire.
That is the distance and the trajectory, you know, what
direction was a bullet actually traveling in. And that's going
(24:38):
to bring everything together so that we can kind of
piece together what exactly happened in her murder. You read
my mind, Joe. Two things that jumped out at me
as we were talking before was the fact that text
mc iver is sitting directly behind his wife in the
back seat. If he had been farther away, you know,
another couple of feet, would we have seen different damage
(24:59):
to our body. That's an interesting question because what we
do know is that when you look at the seat,
there is in fact a hole on the back side
of the seat which would have been closest to mc ivor,
and then it exits through the front side of the seat,
and that's at the point in time where it hits
her body. People need to think about the structure of
(25:22):
a car seat. It has a framework within it it.
Sometimes it's composed of there will be like maybe a
small bit of wood in there, but for the most
part it's metallic. What has kind of captured my imagination
about this this homicide is the fact that when that
bullet exited and entered Diane's mac Iver's back, it wasn't
(25:47):
deformed in any way. It was perfect, if you will.
As a matter of fact, the emmy that did the
autopsy on her body stated that when he looked at
the wound that she sustained that it appeared as though
that the bullet are it's at least possible that the
(26:08):
bullet did not pass or an intermediate target. Okay, what
does that mean? An intermediate target? Are you saying it
didn't hit any of the structure in the in the seat? Yeah,
And I guess if you take that logic out he
could be saying, well, it didn't, it didn't. It didn't
pass through the seat at all. This is what I
do know. One of the things that we we look for.
You know, folks are they asked me a lot. You know,
(26:29):
how can you tell the difference between an entrance when
and an exit wound? Put it very plainly, unless the
muzzle of a weapon is in really close proximity to body,
you're not gonna have any evidence whatsoever, Um, that's going
to indicate anything other than what I'm about to tell you.
And that is something that we we refer to as
(26:50):
as an abrasion ring. So if you understand the nature
of bullets, bullets that are rifled, that means they spend
when they coming out of the end of the barrel.
And in this thirty eight Smith weston Smith and Western,
it was in fact spending. It's a rifle barrel. It
creates this tiny little abrasion around the rim of the entrance.
(27:12):
And you only get this on entrance wounds. Um. And
if folks will remember when your kidsbody grabs your wrist
and they twist it in two different directions, you know,
civil it's to this to one another all the time.
And you know it really stings. Well, take that up
another level and you think about how fast this bullet
is spinning. That's what happens to the skin. It twists
(27:34):
the skin so that it abraids that area. Well, nothing
stopped the bullet from spinning, because that abrasion ring exists
on the entrance wound in her back. And I think
that's what left a lot of people kind of scratching
their heads about this. How did that happen? Well, obviously,
when the round passed through the seed, it didn't touch
(27:56):
any of the structure because the whole when you see
the whole is very symmetrical. It's it's neat um, it's
it's it's not deformed like you would think if a
huncle lead passed through another structure and the bullet deformed
and you get this real kind of ghastly injury. It
wasn't like that. It it was intact when it hit
(28:17):
the body and it created so it was still spinning
as well. And that brings us to another point here, Um,
how soon did the police actually get their hands on
this vehicle to examine it and examine the relationship between
the front seat and the back seat? Was text actually
elevated in that back seat above his wife when he
(28:41):
discharged this weapon. There's no doubt that he discharged the weapon.
The question is what position was he in when that
trigger was actuated. Mc iver actually implied that he was
sitting there with the weapon lying flat in his lap,
and that the web and discharged when he went over
a bump and the round traveled forward struck his wife. Well,
(29:05):
you can't get past the orientation of the bullet, you know,
we're talking about from above to below. It's got kind
of a doward trajectory at this point. My big question
is how soon did the police get their hands on
this vehicle, because keep in mind this vehicle is in
fact a crime scene. This is where a homicide has
taken place. And that seat, the front seat, as we
(29:26):
all know, UH, seats can be adjusted, can't they. So
you can have this electronic elevation of the seat and
you can have it moved forward and moved back. We
don't know what happened to the seat. Was it in
the original position that Diane mc iver was in when
she was shot, or had it been manipulated in any
way whatsoever, whether it be intentionally or not intentionally. And
(29:48):
that's a big ask here, because the relationship between how
this weapon was fired, how it was discharged, and how
it passed that round passed through her body is one
of the big questions that has been and asked, and
to the court satisfaction, at least it has been answered.
But I think that there are a lot of people
who still have questions about the kids. Text mcgiver was
(30:09):
convicted in the death of his wife. But you were
talking about the angle, Joe, and all these pictures went
through my head. For text mc iver to have been
holding the gun up for the bullet to go downward
through her body, either he was holding the gun up
higher around his chest level to give it that downward angle,
(30:29):
or the seat would have had to have been moved. Yeah,
you're absolutely right, Jackie. And is there a possibility that
seat could have been elevated in any way? It is
going to completely distort the relationship between uh Text mc
iver and Diane mc iver. Uh And if hersey is
down again, that's going to kind of distort the relationship
(30:50):
as well. And that's why it's so essential, you know,
when you begin to think about their trajectory, because we
do know according to the forensic pathologists uh that the
trajectory on this round was was certainly downward, it was
back to front, and it actually went from right to left.
And this kind of lines up with what he had stated.
Remember earlier we had mentioned that he had stated that
(31:13):
he had the weapon in his right hand, that it
was in fact, uh resting in his lap, and so
she shot on the left side of her body. So
that gives you an idea that this is in fact
a right to left shot, and it would line up
kind of where the position was on his lap with
his weapon. I think the bigger question here, and this
(31:35):
is more a question that the prosecutors would have to answer,
is was their intent to do this? And that brings
me back to my original supposition here all along. If
you're if your intent is to kill your wife, why
would you take the chance of firing into her back
to lower back and maybe not killing her at all,
(31:59):
where you have and complete access to the back of
her head and you could have shot her at that
moment tim guaranteeing that she would have died. There was
a kind of a high probability. He had no way
of knowing he was going to hit the die for him.
You know, he had no way of knowing that he
would hit any organs at all, So why why run
that risk? And there are a lot of people that
(32:20):
when Tex McIver was convicted, still had those questions that
they wanted answered. Well, his attorneys also have questions. They
have filed an appeal arguing that Fulton County Superior Court
Judge Robert mcberney made multiple mistakes during the twinal His
attorneys are asking the Georgia Supreme Court to overturn his conviction.
(32:43):
Everybody studies cases, they all want absolute answers at at
the end of the day, and I don't know that
we will ever have all of these questions answered. I mean,
let's keep in mind, the person that did the shooting
is in prison at this point, sitting there. Uh, and
of course his wife is deceased. And the other witness,
(33:05):
which was more of an ear witness, she was driving
her back, was to the event. So you know, sometimes
you look at this, you see the physical evidence and
it doesn't actually always marry up with the narrative that's
being put forth. But in this case, the Fulton County
District Attorney got a conviction in it. I'm Joseph Scott
(33:28):
Morgan and this his body backs
Body Backs with Joseph Scott Morgan, gliding over city streets,
hitting potholes. You're kind of aware of what's going on,
at least that's what you're gonna tell the police later.
You're drifting in and out of consciousness, sleepy, holding a gun,
(00:34):
and all of a sudden there's a bright flash, a
loud noise, and the interior of the cab against smell
like burned gunpowder. Next thing you know, you hear a
scream and your wife she's bleeding out in the front seat. Today,
we're gonna talk about the murder Diane mcab I'm Joseph
(00:56):
Scott Morgan, and this is body Bags Back again. With me?
Is Jackie Howard, executive producer of Crime Stories. Would Nancy
Grace Jackie tell me about the death of Diane McK iver, Joe,
There was never any question that Text mc ivor shot
(01:16):
his wife. The question was always whether he meant to
or not. Text mcgiver was with his wife and a
family friend in a vehicle. The three were headed home
from the mcgiver's horse farm, which is about seventy east
of Atlanta. Diane mcgiver was in the front passenger seat.
Text mc iver was in the backseat behind his wife.
(01:38):
The family friend was driving. According to mc iver, the
car got off of the Interstate going through downtown Atlanta,
and he asked his wife, Diane to hand him his
gun from the middle console between the front seats. She did,
He had the gun in his hand, and that's when
he said the gun accidentally went off. Diane mcgiver was
(02:02):
shot through the seat and the bullet lodged in her back. Joe,
this is an interesting place to be shot. It's an
interesting situation of how she was shot. Where do we start, Well,
it all goes to relationship, and I'm not talking about
a marital relationship. I'm talking about a physical relationship between
the end of that muzzle and this fatal injury that
(02:26):
Diane sustained in this vehicle. There's a lot of a
lot of unanswered questions in this case. You know, text
had had mentioned that he was riding in the back
seat when he became aware. According to him, that uh,
when they had gotten off of the Interstate and they
were riding down surface roads, he had an awareness, at
(02:48):
least in his mind, that that there were people outside
the vehicle. And that's really you know, all we can
kind of surmise from this, there's one indication that may
have been homeless folks. But anyway, he he became fearful
and he you know, you had mentioned that he had
requested this weapon, and the weapon was being carried in
the center console of the vehicle. Text it turns out
(03:10):
owns tons of weapons, but this is the weapon that
he had with him. It was being kept in the
center console. So he asked his wife, Uh, you know,
can you give me the weapon? Diane handed him a weapon.
It turned out that the weapon that she handed him
was kind of unique. Uh. They kept it in the
center console of the vehicle, and it's it's a Smith
and Wesson revolver. But what makes it unique is that
(03:32):
it's uh, it's actually what's referred to as an air weight.
It means that the frame is lighter than normal and
it's uniquely constructed. And what I mean by that is
that it has what's referred to as a shrouded external hammer.
And if you'll just imagine kind of a hood that
covers the hammer, which is the metallic body on the
(03:55):
back side of the revolver that you pull back in
order to arm the weapon, all right, and so it's
protected that way. And this weapon is so light and
kind of compact, it's not really meant for accuracy. It's
meant for self defense. And you can actually carry the
thing in your pocket like your front pocket or in
a purse. Is easily concealed. And the reason the hammer
(04:17):
itself is actually shrouded is so that if you carry
it in a pocket, um that when you pull this
weapon out, the hammer itself is not going to catch
on any cloth. So it's kind of protected. That makes
it highly concealable. And of course in this case, they
were keeping it in the center console. When you say shrouded, Joe,
you're not talking about something that's coming over the hammer.
(04:41):
You mean that it is recessed in between two metal
pieces like a tract where the normal hammer would be.
You're not talking about something coming over the top of
the hammer to keep it from being fired. Right, Yeah,
you're absolutely right. It's kind of recessed now. And if
if folks will just think back to safe instance, old
Western movies they've seen with you know, some uh cowboy
(05:04):
hero on uh you know in the movies that's carrying
a cult peacemaker and it's got the big hammer on
the back of it where you put your thumb on
it and you pull it back. Um, it's not like
that there is a hammer, but it's it's it's flush
if you will. It's flushed with this kind of shroud
that we're talking about, so that when you go to
(05:25):
remove it, say, for instance, from your waistband or from
your pocket, it's not gonna hang up. It's not gonna
prevent you from what they call clearing, like when you
clear the weapon from where it's holstered, um, and you
can get it up and fire the weapon. And again,
this this weapon is very tiny, Jackie. As tiny is
not really necessarily accurate tiny. I'm not talking about like
(05:46):
from a microscopic sense, but it's smaller than most. As
a matter of fact, if you weren't really cute in
on it, you weren't really paying attention. Uh. You know,
a grown man uh could potentially take that weapon and
hold it in his palm palms hang end, and you're
not gonna be able necessarily to see it or fully
appreciate it. So it's very non threatening and that's what
(06:06):
makes it so concealable. So texts had this weapon in
the vehicle with him and it fires what's called a
thirty eight special round, and he had the weapon itself
was actually loaded UM with what's referred to as hollow
point ammunition in addition to a fully jacketed round, which
(06:27):
means the projectile itself UM is fully encompassed in a
copper jacket which protects the bullet itself. So it's the
round they believe that Diane was shot with was probably
one of those, because it didn't mushroom like you think
of a hollow point round mushrooming and uh, you know,
(06:47):
going going through the seat, which it did, and it
kind of shredding tissue on the other side. It didn't
happen like that. So, Joe, this weapon was, as you said,
a thirty eight special revolver. Explained to me what that means.
Do you have to cock the gun before you can
fire it? Yeah, this is you can fire this and
what's referred to as single action status, which, as you
(07:09):
mentioned rightly, where you take the hammer and you literally
pull it back, Okay, and this is key in this case.
Now you pull it back and that's called single single
action mode where if you pull the hammer back, it
only takes about and this is what fires. Examiners say
about two pounds of finger pressure in order to actuate
that trigger. That means to get that hammer slamming forward
(07:33):
onto that primer, that primer on that bullet to engage
the bullet sent it out of the barrel, and of
course one wind up hitting the target. Now you can
fire it in single action, but you can also fire
in double action. Now double action means that in order
to actuate the weapon, you have to pull the trigger.
(07:55):
And while you're pulling the trigger, it mechanically makes that
hammer go back. You're not you're not manipulating it with
your thumb. You're making it go back by pulling that trigger.
This is a bit more difficult. The ballistics experts that
did the test on the weapons say that it would
take twelve pounds of pressure in order to make that happen.
For folks that don't know how this works, if you
(08:15):
go to a ballistics lab, this is generally housed inside
the crime lab, they'll have weights. They'll take the weapon
in question and they will hang the weapon in an
inverted position. And if you will imagine, they have graduated
weights that they put on a hook and they will
hang them on the trigger This is kind of cool
(08:37):
when you think about it, and depended upon the weight
that they apply to that hook, it gives you kind
of a rough estimate of the pounds of pressure it
takes to pull that trigger. So that's what they would
have done with this weapon. They would fire it in test.
Fired in single action mode where they pull the hammer back,
hang that hook on there, and they put roughly two
(08:58):
pounds of weight on the thing in that's what took
to actually actuate the weapon. And then they did it
in double action where they hung the weapon again, they
put the hook on there, and then they put twelve
pounds of weight on It's kind of simple, simple science,
but it it's highly effective. But what does that actually mean? Joe?
You can tell me all day long that it took
(09:18):
two pounds of pressure or twelve pounds of pressure. It
really doesn't come into focus for me. So two pounds
of pressure, it is that like pulling back a rubber
van or or in twelve pounds of pressure? I mean,
is that like lifting a barbell? Uh? Well, okay, I'll
put it to you this way. Um, if you were saying,
for instance, going to press a button in an elevator,
(09:43):
pressing a button and an elevator. Of course, a lot
of that's gonna be depended upon the button, high structure,
and elevator. But if you press the button in the elevator,
say to go to an upper floor, more than likely
it's going to take just under about two pounds of
pressure in order to actuate that button. Okay, so maybe
a pound pound and a half of pressure directly applied
to that button. So you take that and increase it
(10:06):
by that factor and get it up to about two pounds,
and depend upon how much vigor you put into that.
How meany times we've been on the elevator and we
press the button over and over and over again. Every
time you press it, you're getting more forceful, so you're
applying more direct pressure and more poundage. Um. Compare that
to what it probably feels like to put twelve pounds
of pressure from your index finger from your index finger
(10:29):
to that trigger to pull it back, and that gives
you an idea to how much it takes to actuate
the entire cycle of pulling the trigger, making a hammer
mechanically go back, and then having it slam forward. That
takes a lot of weight in order to do that. Okay,
takes a lot of weight. So if we have hung
this gun upside down and or or putting weights on
it to make it fire, you're talking about at least
(10:55):
two five pound bags of sugar. That's an excellent way
to put it, Jackie, because that's something most people can
identify with, you know, and you you hold that weight
in your hands, you know, just when you're in supermarket
and whatnot, and you can get a sense for how
much weight that is twelve pounds um. And so you
have to have what I like to refer to, and
(11:17):
you know what Nancy Grace likes to talk about. Also
when it comes to criminal cases, it would seem that
you would have to have specific intent in order to
apply that kind of pressure. At least a reasonable person
would think that if this is in single action mode,
then that would mean that he would have had to
have cocked the hammer. How much pressure does it take
(11:39):
to cock the hammers? I mean, it's not something he
could have done without intention. Yeah, you're you're right about that.
You would have to specifically intend to place your thumb.
And that's generally how it happens. If you're right hand,
you take your right thumb place it on that shrouded hammer,
and it's got little ridges on the back of it
so that you can kind of grip it even if
(11:59):
the wet and you apply that direct pressure, pulled back
that hammer until it clicks, you know, click into place. Now,
all you have to do at this point in time
this place your finger on that trigger and apply two
pounds of pressure. But this is here, here's the trick.
You have to be intending to cock this weapon in
(12:21):
the first place. You have to have the intent to
work that hammer where your thumb to get it back
into place, and then you would apply the two pounds
of pressure to the trigger in order to fire or
make it fire in single action mode. That's one of
the questions I think that a lot of people have
about uh, Diane mc iver's death. Is they they're trying
(12:42):
to think about, well, it was their intent involved here
or was this just a horrible accident that occurred. So
you could look at it as he said, he asked
for the gun from the console because he was worried
about people outside the vehicle. So the argument could have
been made that he cocked the gun because he was
(13:03):
actually fearful about what was going on. And then as
a reflex, could have pulled the trigger because it only
takes two pounds of pressure. Yeah, yeah, you could, You
could put that forward, but but you know I have
I have trouble with that. And this is why, as
it turns out, Tex mc iver he owned tons of weapons, Jackie.
(13:23):
There there's actually evidence that's been put forward that Tex
mcgever had his on shooting range that he owned on
a rural piece of property. Uh, this pretty good distance
away from Atlanta, that he would go and fire at regularly.
He would practice with his weapons, and he had quite
a few of them. And here's the problem. Why would
(13:44):
a person that was so well versed in weapons and
understands form and function, why would that individual actually feel
the need to go ahead and in advance cock a weapon.
Why why would he have to do that because he
that that's some thing that's a person that has less
experience with weapons would do perhaps that or maybe they're
(14:07):
physically handicapped in some way and they want to be
ready to do it, But there's no indication of that here. Generally,
firing in double action for somebody that's familiar with a
weapon applying, remember that twelve pounds of pressure that's something
that you would expect a person to do, that would
be their normal course of action relative to bringing this
(14:28):
weapon into play and bringing it into action at that
point in time if he has fear for his life,
because he's not gonna stop and recocked the weapon every
time if someone is advancing on him, he'll continue to
fire it and double action. So that's one of the
issues I've had a problem with is the thought that
he's sitting back there with all of his knowledge of weapons,
and he's sitting back there, Jackie, with a cocked weapon
(14:49):
literally in proximity to the back of his wife's body. Jackie.
(15:10):
You know, the night that Diane mcgever was shot, they
were in the middle of a surface street. They were
they were on a road in Atlanta. They weren't on
a highway. You have to make a choice at that
point in time, don't you about where you're gonna go
for treatment? You have an awareness, you wiseman shot, what's
gonna do? What what happened with Diane? So again, Diane
(15:30):
mcgiver was shot once in the back and the bullet
went through the seat into her body. When the Ford
expedition arrived at Emery carrying Diane mcgiver. Text mcgiver jumped out,
calling for help. There was a valet there, but the
valets were not allowed to touch the patients. The diver
(15:52):
began trying to get his wife out of the vehicle,
and again the valets are not allowed to touch patients.
The emergency nurse that free did Diane McIvor that night
said that once Diane mcgivor arrived that everyone was scrambling.
She said, staff was in full critical care life saving mode.
(16:12):
So this was obviously considered life threatening. Well, you know,
that's the problem with gunshot wounds, Jackie, is that you
don't really know what you have until you get this
individual into emergency surgery. What I do know is that
when she showed up, and remember she was conveyed to
the hospital in a private vehicle, the vehicle that she
had just been shot in. And so it's not like
(16:35):
there was an ambulance crew there that's hanging fluids on
or anything like that. They drove her straight to the
emergency room ramp and there's there's actually, uh, there's kind
of this classic freeze frame uh image that was used
at trial with Text mc iver escorting his wife into
the hospital and when they showed up on the ramp. Uh,
(16:56):
you don't really know what's going on internally until you know,
put it very bluntly, until you have that individual open
on the table. And when they did open her up,
they were able to determine that her insights were just
absolutely erect. She wound up in surgery, uh losing her
left kidney, She lost her spleen, her uh, the kind
(17:22):
of the downward portion of her diaphragm was greatly injured.
And believe it or not, I know people think, well,
you know, you lose a kidney, that's certainly lethal and
yet can be if you're not treated for you lose
a spleen, Yeah, you're gonna bleed a lot. But when
you get shot and that bullet penetrate your diaphragm, let
(17:43):
me tell you what happens there. Diaphragm causes or it
enables you to breathe, all right, to push air out.
We all know how that works. Well, it's a large
dome of muscle, and when it is compromised in any way,
that's going to create a problem for you. It's going
to create a serious problem your ability to uh to
(18:05):
take in oxygen process the oxygen and then push out
the carbon dioxide, and that's one of the things that
they're you know, they're having a fight with. So she's
losing blood internally from these damaged organs, and then on
top of it, they're having to take care of her
and then her lungs were never injured by the bullet itself.
It's it's that mechanism within our body that allows us
(18:28):
and helps us to breathe that's greatly damaged. So they're
having to, you know, fight this fight to try to
keep her alive on a couple of fronts. But as
to the injury itself, it folks at home will kind
of uh, you know, you have several layers to your
spinal column. You know, you think about the essentially the
cervical which comprises your neck and sort of certainly supports
(18:50):
supports our head, and then you have a large grouping
of vertebral bodies that make up what's referred to as
the thoracic verba, and then below that you have what's
called the lumbar spine. But we need to focus on
the thoracic vertebra, and those kind of go down right
through the heart of our body, if you will. And
it was actually her twelfth thoracic vertebra um that got clipped.
(19:14):
And when you look at a vertebra, it's kind of
oddly shaped, its bulky and center, but it's got these
kind of prominences on both sides. They almost look like
little wings. Well, the left wing was clipped off and
it passed through that and eventually on the track, and
this is an indication of the trajectory which we can
talk about. The round actually passed through our by the
(19:35):
twelfth thoracic vertebra and clipped her left rib as well.
So it's going from above to below, and that's very important.
And it's on this downward track, and as it passes
through here, it's cutting a swath through these these organs
and eventually exits out of the front of her body.
So she's got these two external injuries. She's got an
(19:57):
entrance wound and then she's got the exit wound on
front of her body. So she's got the bullet traveled
from right to left, from back to front, and in
a downward path. A vertebrate was injured, a rib was injured,
It passed through her diaphragm, her kidney was removed, her
(20:19):
spleen removed, she suffered an injury to her stomach, and
she was bleeding around her pancreas. All of this damage,
and you mentioned that she was bleeding internally obviously, so
which was worse the bleeding or the actual damage to
each of those body parts? You know, those three must
(20:42):
be considered first because they have their own vascular supply.
These organs just don't. They just don't sit in there.
They have their own blood supply, and they have these tiny,
tiny little vessels. And the thing about a gunshot wounds,
it's blasting through these bony prominences as it's going through
the vertebral body, as it's going through the rib. Guess
(21:02):
what it creates. It creates um these little bits of
shards of bone as well. So not only do you
have the bullet traveling through the body, but you can
also get these little uh um splinters of bone that
create these little micro hemorrhages that are all through there.
Can you imagine how difficult this is if you're a
trauma surgeon. I'm always amazed by these people because they
(21:23):
go in. It's intense work. You've got blood coming from
locations that you you can't anticipate and you think that
you have all of the bleeding stopped, and all of
a sudden you have another focal area of hemorrhage show
showing up. So it's a perfect storm in the fact
that these organs with all of their little vascular supplies
(21:44):
are compromised. You're having to go in and kind of
old term is time off you, you know, you kind
of coulterize those areas. But in addition to that, what
are you gonna do about about the diaphragm? We go
back to that because now the individual there's a high
probability not gonna be able to breathe without assistance. They're
gonna have to go on a vent in order to,
(22:06):
you know, keep them alive. At this point, it's not
that their lungs aren't healthy, it's not that her heart
isn't healthy, it's not that her brain is no longer functioning.
It's the fact that the mechanism that's facilitated by the
presence of the diaphragm and that action that it's it's
shot at this point in time, both literally and figuratively.
And so that's that's a critical that you hit this
(22:27):
point of critical mass, and that's why Diane mc iver
actually wound up dying because of this perfect storm. But
you know, this is a curious thing about it, Jackie.
It's not like she was shot in what you would
think is an area of the body that would bring about, say,
for instance, an instantaneous death. You know, you know what
(22:49):
area of the body could you facilitate that with if
you're attempting to kill somebody. Well, obviously she's shot in
the back of the head. She's going down pretty quickly.
The fact that she would be shot in the back
in this particular location, there's no guarantee that all of
those organs are going to be hit. One of those organs. Uh,
maybe save the diaphragm, um, the kidney deliver You can
(23:14):
live without them. I mean you can. There's tons of
people walk around out there without spleens. I'm sure people
in our and our audience have had splenactomies. You can
live without the without the spleen. You can live without
a kidney. You can function on one kidney. Uh. You
can have your stomach ripped up, which diamc ivor did
um and they can repair it and it will be
(23:35):
fully functional. With that diaphragm and tell you what that's
that was the lethal blow. But what are the odds
that you're going to score what in the military they
would call a kill shot with a thirty eight caliber
around through a seat, nonetheless, and that you're gonna be
able to hit all of these all of these uh,
these organ groups. I think that's a big question that
(23:56):
I don't know has been completely answered. The damage that
(24:16):
was done to diamad Iver's body with this thirty eight
caliber round is certainly significant. But one of the things
as investigators that we have to look at relative to
a case like this is uh, certainly range of fire.
That is the distance and the trajectory, you know, what
direction was a bullet actually traveling in. And that's going
(24:38):
to bring everything together so that we can kind of
piece together what exactly happened in her murder. You read
my mind, Joe. Two things that jumped out at me
as we were talking before was the fact that text
mc iver is sitting directly behind his wife in the
back seat. If he had been farther away, you know,
another couple of feet, would we have seen different damage
(24:59):
to our body. That's an interesting question because what we
do know is that when you look at the seat,
there is in fact a hole on the back side
of the seat which would have been closest to mc ivor,
and then it exits through the front side of the seat,
and that's at the point in time where it hits
her body. People need to think about the structure of
(25:22):
a car seat. It has a framework within it it.
Sometimes it's composed of there will be like maybe a
small bit of wood in there, but for the most
part it's metallic. What has kind of captured my imagination
about this this homicide is the fact that when that
bullet exited and entered Diane's mac Iver's back, it wasn't
(25:47):
deformed in any way. It was perfect, if you will.
As a matter of fact, the emmy that did the
autopsy on her body stated that when he looked at
the wound that she sustained that it appeared as though
that the bullet are it's at least possible that the
(26:08):
bullet did not pass or an intermediate target. Okay, what
does that mean? An intermediate target? Are you saying it
didn't hit any of the structure in the in the seat? Yeah,
And I guess if you take that logic out he
could be saying, well, it didn't, it didn't. It didn't
pass through the seat at all. This is what I
do know. One of the things that we we look for.
You know, folks are they asked me a lot. You know,
(26:29):
how can you tell the difference between an entrance when
and an exit wound? Put it very plainly, unless the
muzzle of a weapon is in really close proximity to body,
you're not gonna have any evidence whatsoever, Um, that's going
to indicate anything other than what I'm about to tell you.
And that is something that we we refer to as
(26:50):
as an abrasion ring. So if you understand the nature
of bullets, bullets that are rifled, that means they spend
when they coming out of the end of the barrel.
And in this thirty eight Smith weston Smith and Western,
it was in fact spending. It's a rifle barrel. It
creates this tiny little abrasion around the rim of the entrance.
(27:12):
And you only get this on entrance wounds. Um. And
if folks will remember when your kidsbody grabs your wrist
and they twist it in two different directions, you know,
civil it's to this to one another all the time.
And you know it really stings. Well, take that up
another level and you think about how fast this bullet
is spinning. That's what happens to the skin. It twists
(27:34):
the skin so that it abraids that area. Well, nothing
stopped the bullet from spinning, because that abrasion ring exists
on the entrance wound in her back. And I think
that's what left a lot of people kind of scratching
their heads about this. How did that happen? Well, obviously,
when the round passed through the seed, it didn't touch
(27:56):
any of the structure because the whole when you see
the whole is very symmetrical. It's it's neat um, it's
it's it's not deformed like you would think if a
huncle lead passed through another structure and the bullet deformed
and you get this real kind of ghastly injury. It
wasn't like that. It it was intact when it hit
(28:17):
the body and it created so it was still spinning
as well. And that brings us to another point here, Um,
how soon did the police actually get their hands on
this vehicle to examine it and examine the relationship between
the front seat and the back seat? Was text actually
elevated in that back seat above his wife when he
(28:41):
discharged this weapon. There's no doubt that he discharged the weapon.
The question is what position was he in when that
trigger was actuated. Mc iver actually implied that he was
sitting there with the weapon lying flat in his lap,
and that the web and discharged when he went over
a bump and the round traveled forward struck his wife. Well,
(29:05):
you can't get past the orientation of the bullet, you know,
we're talking about from above to below. It's got kind
of a doward trajectory at this point. My big question
is how soon did the police get their hands on
this vehicle, because keep in mind this vehicle is in
fact a crime scene. This is where a homicide has
taken place. And that seat, the front seat, as we
(29:26):
all know, UH, seats can be adjusted, can't they. So
you can have this electronic elevation of the seat and
you can have it moved forward and moved back. We
don't know what happened to the seat. Was it in
the original position that Diane mc iver was in when
she was shot, or had it been manipulated in any
way whatsoever, whether it be intentionally or not intentionally. And
(29:48):
that's a big ask here, because the relationship between how
this weapon was fired, how it was discharged, and how
it passed that round passed through her body is one
of the big questions that has been and asked, and
to the court satisfaction, at least it has been answered.
But I think that there are a lot of people
who still have questions about the kids. Text mcgiver was
(30:09):
convicted in the death of his wife. But you were
talking about the angle, Joe, and all these pictures went
through my head. For text mc iver to have been
holding the gun up for the bullet to go downward
through her body, either he was holding the gun up
higher around his chest level to give it that downward angle,
(30:29):
or the seat would have had to have been moved. Yeah,
you're absolutely right, Jackie. And is there a possibility that
seat could have been elevated in any way? It is
going to completely distort the relationship between uh Text mc
iver and Diane mc iver. Uh And if hersey is
down again, that's going to kind of distort the relationship
(30:50):
as well. And that's why it's so essential, you know,
when you begin to think about their trajectory, because we
do know according to the forensic pathologists uh that the
trajectory on this round was was certainly downward, it was
back to front, and it actually went from right to left.
And this kind of lines up with what he had stated.
Remember earlier we had mentioned that he had stated that
(31:13):
he had the weapon in his right hand, that it
was in fact, uh resting in his lap, and so
she shot on the left side of her body. So
that gives you an idea that this is in fact
a right to left shot, and it would line up
kind of where the position was on his lap with
his weapon. I think the bigger question here, and this
(31:35):
is more a question that the prosecutors would have to answer,
is was their intent to do this? And that brings
me back to my original supposition here all along. If
you're if your intent is to kill your wife, why
would you take the chance of firing into her back
to lower back and maybe not killing her at all,
(31:59):
where you have and complete access to the back of
her head and you could have shot her at that
moment tim guaranteeing that she would have died. There was
a kind of a high probability. He had no way
of knowing he was going to hit the die for him.
You know, he had no way of knowing that he
would hit any organs at all, So why why run
that risk? And there are a lot of people that
(32:20):
when Tex McIver was convicted, still had those questions that
they wanted answered. Well, his attorneys also have questions. They
have filed an appeal arguing that Fulton County Superior Court
Judge Robert mcberney made multiple mistakes during the twinal His
attorneys are asking the Georgia Supreme Court to overturn his conviction.
(32:43):
Everybody studies cases, they all want absolute answers at at
the end of the day, and I don't know that
we will ever have all of these questions answered. I mean,
let's keep in mind, the person that did the shooting
is in prison at this point, sitting there. Uh, and
of course his wife is deceased. And the other witness,
(33:05):
which was more of an ear witness, she was driving
her back, was to the event. So you know, sometimes
you look at this, you see the physical evidence and
it doesn't actually always marry up with the narrative that's
being put forth. But in this case, the Fulton County
District Attorney got a conviction in it. I'm Joseph Scott
(33:28):
Morgan and this his body backs
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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