May 8, 2025 • 36 mins
Qaadir Lewis and Naazir Lewis are twins scheduled catch a 7am flight to Boston from Atlanta Hartsfield International airport on Friday March 7. The 19-year-old twins take an Uber from their home in Lawrenceville to the airport, but they arrive late and miss their flight. 29 hours later, just after 11am on Saturday March 8, two hikers at the Summit of Bell Mountain, find the twins dead, both suffering gunshot wounds. Bell Mountain is 90 miles away from their home in Lawrenceville, and the family says they were not hikers and had never been to Bell Mountain. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss a case with more twists and turns then the roads that lead to Bell Mountain. Did the Lewis twins enter into a murder/suicide pact as some investigators suggest? An why was a volunteer fire fighter arrested after being one of the first on the scene when the bodies were found?
Transcribe Highlights
00:00.00 Introduction
02:42.78 Bell Mountain, 36o degree view
06:09.83 10 minute hike, half mile hike to summit
11:06.77 Lake Lanier area, where Ozark was filmed
15:11.39 Volunteer fireman took pictures of the twins and posted online
25:36.67 Gunfire related murder/suicide
30:39.13 Evidence on body can determine range of fire
35:19.02 Family says the twins hate to spend money on gas
Conclusion
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Quality dams, but Joseph's gotten more. I still have a
memory from when I was a child of going to
the grocery store with my grandmother and we did that
every week essentially, and I was their travel buddy. But
the reason this memory stands out it was the first time,
(00:22):
and I was probably about maybe four, maybe five, it
was the first time I'd ever seen a set of twins.
And it was shocking, you know, when you're that age,
because you see duplicates. It's you know, as the young mind,
(00:42):
I don't think can really wrap their their perception around
that very well, and it was shocking. I remember asking
my grandmother about that, and you know, she didn't have
any definitive answers, and I do remember her saying, well,
we don't have any twins in our family. Got a
(01:03):
bunch of redheads, but no twins. As I've gotten older,
I've made friends with twins over the years, and as
a matter of fact, my wife's best friend she has
identical twins. But I want to talk about a set
of twins today. A set of twins that had a
trip planned to Boston back in March, and they were
(01:30):
to be at the Atlanta Airport and they didn't show up.
They didn't show up and were not found until someone
came across them ninety miles away from their home in
one of the most isolated locations in the state of Georgia,
(01:53):
on top of a mountain. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
this is Bodybacks Dave. We're going to talk today about
this very unusual case.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Joe, you said that right, nineteen year old twin brothers,
Kadir Lewis and Nazir Lewis are found dead at the
summit of Bell Mountain and the GBI SAIDs it was
a murder suicide. But you said this area is remote, right.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
The area where these two young men were found was
in a location in Towns County, Georgia, and that's one
of the least populated counties in the state of Georgia.
But I lived in this area over in a town
called Dalonago. Some of you guys might be familiar with it.
I taught college up there for years and years. A
(02:45):
lot of Hallmark movies are made up there. And to
get to Bell Mountain in Towns County, Georgia, it gives
quite the reward when you get there because it's got
a three hundred and sixty degree view of the Appalachian Mountains.
(03:07):
And one of the most striking things is that you
look down from the precipice of this mountain at almost
thirty three hundred feet down onto Lake Hyawassee, which actually,
to give you some idea geographically where it is. Part
of it is in North Georgia. The other part of
it is in North Carolina, so that gives you not
(03:29):
you can see over into North Carolina from there pretty easily,
and it is just you stand up there and you
you know, it's one of those moments where you behold
God's creation. It's absolutely gorgeous. But the fact that these
two young men were found up there is amazing and
(03:50):
obviously quite tragic.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You know, you started off by talking about twins, and
I have to tell you that I have twin brothers.
My little brothers are twins identical, and yeah, they have
their own language. The first time I ever got freaked
out was my parents. I'm six years older than my
twin brothers, and my parents had gone out and I
was there with them. I'm probably they were probably five, Okay,
(04:14):
so I'm eleven twelve years old, and it was they
should have been to sleep, right, And I hear him talking.
I can't make out what they're saying, but I can
hear them, and I'm responsible. I'm going to be one
in trouble if they're awake when mom and Dad get home.
So I go up there to chew them out, and
I try to hear what they're saying, right, can't understand it.
It's gibberish, And so I creep up and I open
(04:36):
the door and one of them is sitting that bet
you know, little the single bed, Yeah, sitting right there
in the same but anyway, one is sitting up in
the bed and he's just gibberish, gibberish, gibbish. And then
he slits back down on his pillow, and the other
one pops up and he starts talking gibberish, and then
he falls back down. The other one gets it. This
went on for minutes to the point where I'm like,
(04:58):
do I wake them up? I mean, I always heard
you don't wake up people that are talking in their sleep,
but this is freaking me out, man. So I actually
I did what any eleven twelve year old will do.
I found a ball and threw it at them that
way I wasn't waking them up.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
The ball was, but I thought they.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Were best buddy even at an early age. I was
thinking like a lawyer at any rate. But twins running
my family, the twins all over the place, actually, But
to go past this, because I've seen twins in action
and how they do interact with one another. My favorite
nieces are twins, and they have a different way of
looking at life, of looking at the relationships, and it's deeper.
(05:38):
Their kinship is just deeper. And anyway, when I saw
this story and the first word from the GBI, they
suspected murder suicide. And I've got a question for you
about that. But I want to fill the story in first. Okay,
it doesn't start at Bell Mountain, which, by the way,
you can park at the bottom of Bell Mountain and
(06:00):
in the parking lot there and you can walk to
the summit. Takes about ten minutes. Is a half mile. Now, granted,
it's steep and you are going to be breathing heavy
if you're fatten out of shape, but it's it's not
a tremendous walk through the woods. It's paved, Okay, it's made.
It's made to get to God's creation and see it
without dying on your way.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, Now this started off. You mentioned a plane flight
to Boston, and the guys called, they had a seven
am flight to head out of Hartsfield in Atlanta. Your
favorite place, Joe, and a place where I missed a
flight recently for the same reason.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Hang on, let me get it in a plug for
Heartsville real quick. As a matter of fact, they all saying,
is they all say, is that if you if you're
going to Hell, you literally have to change planes at
Hartsfield Atlanta Airport. So yeah, it's it's that kind of place.
I've been in every airport, every Asia, airport, in America,
(07:01):
and by far, how can I be kind? It's the
most challenging there, I put it to you that way.
There we go.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Well, the twins had a seven am flight to go
to Boston to visit with friends. They had their tickets,
they called an uber. Now they live in Lawrenceville, Georgia,
and they were going to Hartsfield, which means they should
have been up and on their way by four am
to catch a seven am flight. They didn't make it
in time for their flight. Now here's the catch. We
(07:29):
don't know what happened after that, right, maybe not as
luck would have it. We know that the guys missed
their flight, but now we know that that Friday they
ended up back in Lawrenceville because at ten thirty Friday night,
they were seen on surveillance video at a gas station
(07:55):
nine minutes from their home, a place where they go
and they grab snacks and drink water.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
By the way.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
It's interesting to know that both of these guys are
known as cheap skates. They do not like to waste
money on gas, They don't like to waste money on anything.
And so these twins, these nineteen year old twins, are
at this gas station convenience store at ten thirty and
they're drinking water because it's free, and eating snacks. There
is no sign of distress whatsoever. They're dressed like they
(08:24):
normally dress, and they're just hanging out. Two twin brothers
nineteen years old. Boom. Now, that was at ten thirty
that night. Twelve hours later, at eleven am, their bodies
are found at the summit of Bell Mountain, ninety miles
away from Lawrenceville, Georgia. Neither one of these twins is
(08:46):
a hiker, neither one has been to Bell Mountain, and
it's not a place you would drive at night to
get to the roads there, and I look these up.
They're not easy to find during the daytime. And this
is a place where you need to be familiar with
where you're going and have a real reason and purpose
for being there. Since they planned on being in Boston
(09:06):
with friends at the time they were found on Bell Mountain,
that's where the confusion comes in for their family. So
we do know that after missing their plane flight, they
did make it back to Lawrenceville. They were unfamiliar territory.
They were at the gas station at ten thirty that night.
What happened between the time they left the gas at
(09:27):
and twelve and a half hours later when nine to
one one got called with two bodies at the summit
of Bell Mountain? And how Joe can they come up
with a murder suicide?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
So and you know right now still to this point.
Now keep in mind this was back in March when
this occurred, and this story did not hit my desk
at all. It did not come across my feet. You
have a much more broad spectrum view of things than
I do. Because of all the stories you're chasing all
(10:01):
the time. But for me personally, I did not. I
did not see it to my discredit, because this is
something that I found very interesting in the sense that well,
first off, just the nature of it that you've got
two city kids that live in Lawrenceville. And if folks
don't know where Lawrenceville is, it's on the northeastern side
(10:24):
of Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
And first actually in Lawrenceville.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Oh okay, well you know this. It's right off of
I eighty five, which goes northeast. You can get to Greenville,
South Carolina and get to be on If any of.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
You watch the TV show on Netflix, Stranger Things, they
film all the mall scenes that you see in that
movie or that TV show because it's based in the eighties,
so mall is a center part of that thing. They
filmed the mall and most of the indoor scenes in Lawrenceville.
In Lawrenceville at Gwennap Place mall, well, it used to
be Gwinnet Place Mall. Just up I eighty five.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah, I got one more for you. Lakely is right
by there, and your favorite show of all time. I'll
go and tell everybody Ozark, which is supposed to be
taking place in Arkansas, Missouri, that area is actually filmed
there in Georgia on Lake Lanier. This area there, it's
not a place where let's see, how can I say
(11:20):
you have to have a bit of money in certain
areas up there, because it is one of the fastest
growing For a long time, it was the fastest growing
zip code in America. It's densely, densely populated, and this
is the environment that these kids lived in. And like
you said, I was watching an interview with the family,
and the family pointedly says, we've never even heard of
(11:44):
Towns County, much less Bell Mountain, and we've never been there.
The twins have never been there. And oh, by the way,
there's no indication that they were suicide on any level whatsoever.
So they've had more questions than answers. But as we
(12:08):
all know, particularly when it comes to the cases we
cover on body bags, that's kind of the norm, is it, So, Dave,
(12:29):
my understanding is is that this park, the hours are
essentially from eight am until dusk, and of course dusk
is going to be variable, but you know, March eighth
of this year, that's still well within the parameters of wintertime.
(12:51):
I mean you should say, yeah, it's going dark much
earlier than later, you know, like the time of year
that we're in right now, in the spring, late spring,
and so it's a different ball of wax. So the
question is whoever locked that gate, because I think the
gate was in fact locked and didn't see the car
(13:11):
parked in there. Did they drive in there and inspect
the area? And how far is the gate from the
parking lot? I mean, we've talked about how far a
walk it is, and this is more like a leisurely
walked than it is a hike, you know, and it's
not a big area. When the family there was a family,
I think it's the Bell family donated this land. This
(13:33):
whole thing's only eighteen acres and it's like the top
of the mountain and they donated this thing, and the
state of Georgia set up a state park there, I
think back in twenty sixteen. It's not an old one
and there are a lot of old ones up there,
you know. You think about that and did anybody roll
around through there? And the police have also said, and
(13:55):
here's one major problem with this, there's no video there.
There's no CCTV, so you can't account for somebody coming
and going in there. You're not going to be able
to clip that out. You know, we've got video. I
think you had mentioned we've got video of them back
in Gwinette County, Lawrenceville have I before, Yeah, having been
at the store. So how does that balance out in
(14:18):
the mind? And I guess one of the big questions
is how are they found?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Well, Okay, look, Joe, here's the part that I think.
I don't know how the GBI could come up with
an answer to how they were found and say it
was a murder suicide to family members. I don't know
how they can. I'm not challenging that they're the professionals,
(14:45):
not me. I just would think you'd have to have
more results in that, like the autopsy report should include
all everything. You know, when before you come up and
tell a family member that they're twins, nineteen year old
twins have committed murder suicide before you tell them that,
you ought to have every other answer solved. I know
they want answers, but the family is just no, they're
(15:06):
not going to believe that. Families don't believe it when
you tell them that they found their child with a
bullet in the head, that they committed suicide. People don't
want to believe that about people they love. We just
don't want to believe that. So they told them it
was a murder of suicide. But Joe, there's something even
worse than anything on this that I've seen so far.
And I actually saw this in the New York Post
(15:27):
and I thought, oh, they've missed on They run headlines
all the time that are wrong. But there is a
story that a volunteer fireman from Towns County, and by
the way, Towns County Sheriff's Department invited in the GBI
from the very beginning, the minute this case came in,
they called him in and said, we don't have and
(15:47):
you mentioned the size of the county and number of
the population. They said, we don't have. We do not
have what's needed to do this case justice. So they
called in the GBI to be the investigation of record.
So one of the people on scene was a volunteer firefighter,
a volunteer first responder for Towns County. And this person,
(16:13):
Joe allegedly, well no not allegedly, took pictures of these
two young men, nineteen year old twins, took pictures of
their dead bodies. Kadir and Nazir Lewis. He took pictures
and then shared them. Joe, he shared them and then
(16:34):
it wasn't just sharing them with his boss to say, hey,
I just wanted you to have this or you would
know this is going on social media. You know how
they found out kids at the school.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Kids at the high school. Yeah, and that's what kind
of flipped the switch relative to the sheriff's office to
look into this. Now, this volunteer firefighter was charged in
this case, yeah, with I don't know if it was obstruction.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Or or it was in you charbstruction.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah, and so that's a very broad spectrum charge that
you can kind of hang on somebody. But the problem
is is that now you know when a volunteer firefighter,
and God bless them, because it's a hard job that
no one they're volunteers, but they're firefighters. They have to
go through the academy and a lot of people enjoy
being volunteer firefighters. They've got a lot of buddies over
(17:26):
the years that have done that. When they roll out,
they are rolling out as as first responders, so they're
probably trained in basic life saving. So when a call
comes up, they're going to say, you know, we've got
two individuals down. They're not going to say that over
(17:49):
the air that we've got a murdered suicide because that
hasn't been concluded yet. All they know is that we've
got two people that have been found in this isolated
area on top of this mountain. So when this individual
would have rolled out, and there were probably maybe a
couple of the other ones. Sometimes they'll show up in
their private vehicles. If you ever see, like in your
rural areas, you'll see a guy in a pickup truck
(18:12):
and he's got a red light flashing on a private vehicle.
Red lights indicate fire, blue lights indicate law enforcement. They
will roll up many times. They might live near that area,
and they carry these very powerful radios that even in
those isolated areas, they can pick up transmissions with he
probably showed up, And when he showed up, your first
(18:36):
inclination is to take photos of the dead and disseminate them.
That's what we're doing because that's the way this worked out.
And the problem is is that this individual has injected
themselves into the investigative bubble at this point in time.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Hey, so this right away is he filming his own
Did he set this up? How did he get there
so fast? Was he the guy that committed the murder?
And now he's back there pretending that he was. You know,
is this something you've ever heard of before? Joe had
somebody taking photos.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
It actually happened in Atlanta, and it was to my
great shame, I had nothing to do with it, but
it was my case. But we actually had this was
not a volunteer. This was an Atlanta firefighter. We had
a guy that was involved in a foot chase with
the police on what's called the Grady Curve, which is
(19:33):
an elevated portion of seventy five to eighty five that
is conjoined in downtown Atlanta. He hops out of his car,
runs through oncoming traffic, and I get We postulated that
he jumped over the wall, thinking that it was only
like a I don't know, a like a ten foot
drop as a thirty foot drop, and he landed on
(19:57):
a wrought iron fence, and the spike of the fence
went through his foremen magnum, which is the large opening
in the base of your skull. It ripped his body
off of or ripped his head off of his shoulders,
and the head is impaled on this thing. And the
firefighter that was out there. This is in the early
(20:18):
days of digital cameras began snapping photos. And I've actually
got the photos that this individual took. They were sent
to me by an investigator that was homicide investigator. He says,
this is what happens when firefighters take photos. And I said,
(20:40):
how did you get these? Guess what he told me?
He said, these came off of a German website, a
German administrative website back during the days when there was
like all of these websites like rotten dot com that
don't exist anymore, that show these horrible things. And so
to the point of the twins, to the point of
(21:02):
the Twins, that data you think about that was in
the early early mid two thousands probably when that happened.
How much further reaching now is the internet social media
than it was back then. I mean, we didn't even
have things or think about things like Instagram and even
Twitter or x or whatever they call it now. And
(21:25):
you know, there was Facebook, but it didn't it wasn't
far and wild now everywhere. So these two kids, and
they are somebody's kids with a mama that loves them
very much in a family that loves them very much.
Now in this state of death, in an isolated area,
away from those that they love, they're dead, have been
(21:48):
out there for a while. This guy takes photographs and
disseminates them all over the place. So yeah, if if
I were an investigator, I don't know necessarily that he
had anything to do with it. But if you're an investigator,
you have to go question this person he's added onto
the list at this point in time, because if they're
(22:10):
suspecting that this is something other than a quote unquote
murder suicide, then you would run down the list because Dave,
it's not like you're in a densely populated area up
there where you're going to run across people that would
do harm to you. Okay, So there's very few people,
first off, that know that this place exists, including the
(22:32):
twins according to their family, and this is in isolation.
How do you get these two kids to get up here?
And they both got gunshot wounds. Family says they've never
been there before. And you're talking about driving through an
area that is it's beautiful, but it's scary. They've got
(22:52):
hairpin turns that run all through these areas, and there's
only two what would be considered I don't even want
to call him as thoroughfairs, but there's two state highways
that kind of run through this area. Everything else is
as my grandmother you say, pig trails. You have to
know where you're going. Sometimes your GPS doesn't even work
(23:13):
up there. So you got a lot going on here.
As far as how they arrived, they're inside a locked area,
their vehicles there. Oh and let me tell you one
other thing. When the police got into the vehicle, their
wallets are in there, and those plane tickets for that
flight to Boston is still there and has never been used.
(23:49):
A type of case that I was always fearful of
screwing up. Traditionally from me, at least was going to
be murder suicides. And I'll tell you why, because if
it's a murder suicide, there's violence involved. Generally there has
to be homicidal violence. And I was always terrified that
(24:13):
I was going to arrive at an incorrect conclusion and
that I would miss something. Because if you ever notice,
my friends, that when an individual, unless they're a high
profile subject, takes their life, never makes it into the
(24:34):
news cycle, never does as far as suicides are gone,
and do yourself a favorite. Pay attention to what I'm
saying right now. You will hear in the news today.
You know, we had a murder suicide and a guy
went in and killed his whole family and then killed himself.
How many other news cycles does it make it through?
(24:54):
It doesn't, It doesn't, maybe maybe two. There might be
a follow up article because they'll they'll catch your eye
with the horrific nature of slaughtering an entire family. The
individual kills himself and as far as the news media
is concerned, the news business, there's no other business to
be had here.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
There's no other story.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Joe, Yeah, there is no The well has run dry.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
It's solved. But my question goes back to, very quickly
after the discovery of the bodies, we have the GBI
allegedly telling the family it's a murder suicide, or so
they believe that happened. Very early on, when you start
dealing with gunfire related homicide and suicide, what are you
(25:40):
looking for and what does it tell you? How could
they look at two dead bodies on the ground and
say it was a murder suicide if there's no witness
in a video.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yeah, this is how it would work out. From me,
This is what I think that they're thinking. At least,
this is what I think they're thinking. Don't you love
that we haven't heard anything about a note, Not that
they would necessarily tell us, because there have been cases
out there where a note was left behind and we
(26:10):
don't find out about it until well after the fact.
But we haven't heard about that. Okay, we have. But conversely,
there has been according to the family, there's been no
suicidal ideation on either of these kids. And I would
imagine if there's no suicidal ideation, there's no what psychiatristfer
(26:32):
to as suicidal vocalization where they're saying, I want to
end my life, like they're entering into a pack to
end their lives together. All right, So how did they
arrive at this conclusion? Well, these we do know because
I think that let me check my notes here. I
think probably probably back in March seventeenth. March eighteenth, there
(27:01):
was a release from the state Medical Examiner that ruled
that rule these cases as gunshot wounds to the head,
all right, So my thought is they would probably if
they're calling some murder suicide, they would have had to
have recovered a weapon at the scene. That's the first
(27:21):
bit of information. So is the weapon lying immediately adjacent
to one of the twins, like to their hand? Okay,
is it in proximity of the body, because people, you
don't necessarily have to have a weapon in your hand
following suicide and it be a suicide because the body
(27:41):
does odd things afterwards, and it can come down to
how you fall, how you collapse, Bodies can spasm, It
depends on a lot of things. I've had. I've had
weapons that I've found that are some distance away from
the body, but yet still in that same space, and
it was ruled suicide, and I felt very comfortable with that.
(28:02):
So I'm thinking that they probably found a weapon. Now
what type of weapon other than it is probably a firearm,
because they're calling these gunshot wounds. I have no idea
because they haven't released that information. Secondly, you're going to
be looking at the pathology on both of their bodies. Well,
what do you mean by that, Morgan? Well, I'll tell
you what I mean by it. What I mean by
(28:22):
that is the fact that they will have gunshot wounds.
And if it is a let's say that this is
Let's take murder first. If this is a murder, a
word which I hate because it's a lawyer's word, I
prefer the word homicide. If this is a homicide, then
(28:42):
that means death at the hand of another. That's how
we define homicide in the medical legal world. You will
have a relationship between the end of the muzzle and
the bullet defect in the head. Now what that means
(29:03):
is what was your what was your range of fire?
What do you think the angle of fire was? So
was one of these individuals kneeling adjacent to the other
one and the other one walked up and popped them
in the head? Single gsw Is it a through and through?
(29:28):
Did they press into the wound or into the scalp
for instance, where you have have what would be like
a tight seal and pull the trigger or were they
standing away? Well, if they're standing backwards of the body,
and the relationship from the end of the muzzle to
(29:48):
that point where the projectile enters the body, you're going
to have soot deposition if it's if it's a close range,
it can be close to intermediate. So if it's close range,
you're going to have soot position around there you'll have
bits of a flex of unburned gunpowder. And depended upon
how that distribution of that evidence is spread out away
(30:12):
from the actual hole in the body gives you an
idea of range. Just think about spraying of water hose.
The further the further away you get from the nozzle itself,
it begins to expand outward, Okay, and you know it
forms like a big circle. So the further away you
are down range, the broader the circle gets until it
(30:32):
just kind of falls away. So they're looking at this
from that perspective. That's from the homicide perspective. Now, with
the suicide perspective, you can have self inflicted wounds, and
I've had them all over bodies. I've had people that
have taken weapons and flipped them upside down and placed
them at the back of their head to make it
(30:53):
look like they were executed. I've actually had that happen.
I've had individuals, multitude of individuals that have placed weapons
adjacent adjacent to their temple and pull the trigger intra
oral gunshot wounds into the mouth. I've had people fire
weapons beneath their chin. I've had people fire weapons into
(31:16):
their chest. I've had one that fired a weapon into
their stomach, bad choice because they languish for some time.
So you can have all of these different types of
attitudes relative to placement of the weapon, but there's something
that is pointing them there. And most of the time
(31:37):
day with suicides, the firing or discharging of a weapon,
the suicide is most of the time going to be
close contact or maybe even like a press contact. Press
contact means that the end of the muzzle is literally
(31:57):
just tight, it almost forms a seal in the skin,
and nothing expands outside of the muzzle. Really, it's all
blown into the body. That's a classic self inflicted gunshot wound.
Can you have those in homicides most of the time,
not unless the individual is passed out asleep or you
have them restrained in some way to get a contact
(32:21):
gunshot wound like that, because most people, your natural reaction
is that if you're aware that a weapon is being
placed to your head, you're going to move away. You know,
you're going to try to parry that move and move away.
So with suicides, that's one of the things that we
look for, and I think that that's probably how they're
reaching this conclusion. At least on the surface, we don't
(32:42):
have really anything else to go on in this case.
And this is still you know, this is back in March.
We're laying this down right now in the midst of
May Dave, and it's my understanding this case is still open, correct,
But yet they ruled it as a murder suicide.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Well, it didn't necessarily rule it a murder suicide. They
told the family that that's what they believed it was,
and the family was very public saying they didn't do it,
they wouldn't do that, and they're still saying that, and
I understand it, I don't.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
It's tough to lose a family member and to lose
somebody in and they have trouble understanding it because it
was twins, because they were so close to have this happen,
one of them had to harm the other one first,
and they're just having trouble with that. Those that knew
the twins, those that knew these two men, I know,
we've often referred to them as boys because there so
(33:34):
many times when we have young people now that are
in their teens, especially when they're twins and brothers, we
refer to them as the boys. It's just how we
refer to young people. And I think the shock is
that I'm thinking about the family. I am thinking about them.
I'm thinking about the horror what they must have felt
being told that, you know, they didn't know what happened.
(33:54):
They just knew that They've got two nineteen year olds
who had never been as far as they knew to
all Mountain Georgia. That they weren't hikers, they weren't people
who drove way out of their way because they were
cheaps gigs. They didn't want to put gas in their car.
So you're talking about driving ninety miles or you know,
from their house or ninety minutes from their house, I mean,
or ninety miles or ninety minutes.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Ninety miles, yeah, miles, And it's I mean, it's a
poke to get up there. And like I said, if
I wish that everybody that is listening to this could
appreciate the distance that we're talking about, and ninety miles
from many people is like, that's not much of a distance. Well,
this is not driving down I five in California. Okay,
(34:35):
this is not like a straight shot. You have to
know where you're going. This place is so out of
the way. They have to pump sunlight in there because
it is isolated. It's on top of a mountain. It's
not like someplace you just kind of stumble on.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
And that's that's why the family has so much trouble
with it, Joe. They didn't like to burn their gas
as it is. Do you really think they're going to drive?
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Yeah? I think it was a family member that I heard.
He actually stated. He actually stated in the interview that
they don't like to drive. And I thought he was
going to say, because you know, Atlanta traffic is notorious.
I thought he was going to say, they're fearful of
getting out on the road. No, no, no, no, no, that's
not We said they hate to spend money on gas.
(35:21):
You talk about two nineteen year olds that are that thrifty.
That's the only way. I don't want to use the
word cheap, but they're thrifty. And you said that they're
drinking water. They're not, you know, knocking back SODA's are.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Energetting drink, getting a snack and drinking water at the
local store at ten thirty at night.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Yeah, So you know, I think that the dynamic Again,
you bring this up, Dave, and you say you said
it so well, and thanks for sharing that about your family.
The language that twins have, and it is a very
specific language. I mean, they have a way of communicating
with one another. How in the world could two young
(35:56):
men so bright and so full of life wind up dead,
so far away from the home that they had with
their family, with those that loved them, in such a
far isolated place. Listen, if you are anyone you know
(36:19):
is having trouble in their life and they're thinking about
ending their own life, all you got to do. It's
called three numbers. Eight eight nine eight eight. You're not alone.
Help is available. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is
(36:41):
body Backs.
Quality dams, but Joseph's gotten more. I still have a
memory from when I was a child of going to
the grocery store with my grandmother and we did that
every week essentially, and I was their travel buddy. But
the reason this memory stands out it was the first time,
(00:22):
and I was probably about maybe four, maybe five, it
was the first time I'd ever seen a set of twins.
And it was shocking, you know, when you're that age,
because you see duplicates. It's you know, as the young mind,
(00:42):
I don't think can really wrap their their perception around
that very well, and it was shocking. I remember asking
my grandmother about that, and you know, she didn't have
any definitive answers, and I do remember her saying, well,
we don't have any twins in our family. Got a
(01:03):
bunch of redheads, but no twins. As I've gotten older,
I've made friends with twins over the years, and as
a matter of fact, my wife's best friend she has
identical twins. But I want to talk about a set
of twins today. A set of twins that had a
trip planned to Boston back in March, and they were
(01:30):
to be at the Atlanta Airport and they didn't show up.
They didn't show up and were not found until someone
came across them ninety miles away from their home in
one of the most isolated locations in the state of Georgia,
(01:53):
on top of a mountain. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
this is Bodybacks Dave. We're going to talk today about
this very unusual case.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Joe, you said that right, nineteen year old twin brothers,
Kadir Lewis and Nazir Lewis are found dead at the
summit of Bell Mountain and the GBI SAIDs it was
a murder suicide. But you said this area is remote, right.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
The area where these two young men were found was
in a location in Towns County, Georgia, and that's one
of the least populated counties in the state of Georgia.
But I lived in this area over in a town
called Dalonago. Some of you guys might be familiar with it.
I taught college up there for years and years. A
(02:45):
lot of Hallmark movies are made up there. And to
get to Bell Mountain in Towns County, Georgia, it gives
quite the reward when you get there because it's got
a three hundred and sixty degree view of the Appalachian Mountains.
(03:07):
And one of the most striking things is that you
look down from the precipice of this mountain at almost
thirty three hundred feet down onto Lake Hyawassee, which actually,
to give you some idea geographically where it is. Part
of it is in North Georgia. The other part of
it is in North Carolina, so that gives you not
(03:29):
you can see over into North Carolina from there pretty easily,
and it is just you stand up there and you
you know, it's one of those moments where you behold
God's creation. It's absolutely gorgeous. But the fact that these
two young men were found up there is amazing and
(03:50):
obviously quite tragic.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You know, you started off by talking about twins, and
I have to tell you that I have twin brothers.
My little brothers are twins identical, and yeah, they have
their own language. The first time I ever got freaked
out was my parents. I'm six years older than my
twin brothers, and my parents had gone out and I
was there with them. I'm probably they were probably five, Okay,
(04:14):
so I'm eleven twelve years old, and it was they
should have been to sleep, right, And I hear him talking.
I can't make out what they're saying, but I can
hear them, and I'm responsible. I'm going to be one
in trouble if they're awake when mom and Dad get home.
So I go up there to chew them out, and
I try to hear what they're saying, right, can't understand it.
It's gibberish, And so I creep up and I open
(04:36):
the door and one of them is sitting that bet
you know, little the single bed, Yeah, sitting right there
in the same but anyway, one is sitting up in
the bed and he's just gibberish, gibberish, gibbish. And then
he slits back down on his pillow, and the other
one pops up and he starts talking gibberish, and then
he falls back down. The other one gets it. This
went on for minutes to the point where I'm like,
(04:58):
do I wake them up? I mean, I always heard
you don't wake up people that are talking in their sleep,
but this is freaking me out, man. So I actually
I did what any eleven twelve year old will do.
I found a ball and threw it at them that
way I wasn't waking them up.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
The ball was, but I thought they.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Were best buddy even at an early age. I was
thinking like a lawyer at any rate. But twins running
my family, the twins all over the place, actually, But
to go past this, because I've seen twins in action
and how they do interact with one another. My favorite
nieces are twins, and they have a different way of
looking at life, of looking at the relationships, and it's deeper.
(05:38):
Their kinship is just deeper. And anyway, when I saw
this story and the first word from the GBI, they
suspected murder suicide. And I've got a question for you
about that. But I want to fill the story in first. Okay,
it doesn't start at Bell Mountain, which, by the way,
you can park at the bottom of Bell Mountain and
(06:00):
in the parking lot there and you can walk to
the summit. Takes about ten minutes. Is a half mile. Now, granted,
it's steep and you are going to be breathing heavy
if you're fatten out of shape, but it's it's not
a tremendous walk through the woods. It's paved, Okay, it's made.
It's made to get to God's creation and see it
without dying on your way.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, Now this started off. You mentioned a plane flight
to Boston, and the guys called, they had a seven
am flight to head out of Hartsfield in Atlanta. Your
favorite place, Joe, and a place where I missed a
flight recently for the same reason.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Hang on, let me get it in a plug for
Heartsville real quick. As a matter of fact, they all saying,
is they all say, is that if you if you're
going to Hell, you literally have to change planes at
Hartsfield Atlanta Airport. So yeah, it's it's that kind of place.
I've been in every airport, every Asia, airport, in America,
(07:01):
and by far, how can I be kind? It's the
most challenging there, I put it to you that way.
There we go.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Well, the twins had a seven am flight to go
to Boston to visit with friends. They had their tickets,
they called an uber. Now they live in Lawrenceville, Georgia,
and they were going to Hartsfield, which means they should
have been up and on their way by four am
to catch a seven am flight. They didn't make it
in time for their flight. Now here's the catch. We
(07:29):
don't know what happened after that, right, maybe not as
luck would have it. We know that the guys missed
their flight, but now we know that that Friday they
ended up back in Lawrenceville because at ten thirty Friday night,
they were seen on surveillance video at a gas station
(07:55):
nine minutes from their home, a place where they go
and they grab snacks and drink water.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
By the way.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
It's interesting to know that both of these guys are
known as cheap skates. They do not like to waste
money on gas, They don't like to waste money on anything.
And so these twins, these nineteen year old twins, are
at this gas station convenience store at ten thirty and
they're drinking water because it's free, and eating snacks. There
is no sign of distress whatsoever. They're dressed like they
(08:24):
normally dress, and they're just hanging out. Two twin brothers
nineteen years old. Boom. Now, that was at ten thirty
that night. Twelve hours later, at eleven am, their bodies
are found at the summit of Bell Mountain, ninety miles
away from Lawrenceville, Georgia. Neither one of these twins is
(08:46):
a hiker, neither one has been to Bell Mountain, and
it's not a place you would drive at night to
get to the roads there, and I look these up.
They're not easy to find during the daytime. And this
is a place where you need to be familiar with
where you're going and have a real reason and purpose
for being there. Since they planned on being in Boston
(09:06):
with friends at the time they were found on Bell Mountain,
that's where the confusion comes in for their family. So
we do know that after missing their plane flight, they
did make it back to Lawrenceville. They were unfamiliar territory.
They were at the gas station at ten thirty that night.
What happened between the time they left the gas at
(09:27):
and twelve and a half hours later when nine to
one one got called with two bodies at the summit
of Bell Mountain? And how Joe can they come up
with a murder suicide?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
So and you know right now still to this point.
Now keep in mind this was back in March when
this occurred, and this story did not hit my desk
at all. It did not come across my feet. You
have a much more broad spectrum view of things than
I do. Because of all the stories you're chasing all
(10:01):
the time. But for me personally, I did not. I
did not see it to my discredit, because this is
something that I found very interesting in the sense that well,
first off, just the nature of it that you've got
two city kids that live in Lawrenceville. And if folks
don't know where Lawrenceville is, it's on the northeastern side
(10:24):
of Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
And first actually in Lawrenceville.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Oh okay, well you know this. It's right off of
I eighty five, which goes northeast. You can get to Greenville,
South Carolina and get to be on If any of.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
You watch the TV show on Netflix, Stranger Things, they
film all the mall scenes that you see in that
movie or that TV show because it's based in the eighties,
so mall is a center part of that thing. They
filmed the mall and most of the indoor scenes in Lawrenceville.
In Lawrenceville at Gwennap Place mall, well, it used to
be Gwinnet Place Mall. Just up I eighty five.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah, I got one more for you. Lakely is right
by there, and your favorite show of all time. I'll
go and tell everybody Ozark, which is supposed to be
taking place in Arkansas, Missouri, that area is actually filmed
there in Georgia on Lake Lanier. This area there, it's
not a place where let's see, how can I say
(11:20):
you have to have a bit of money in certain
areas up there, because it is one of the fastest
growing For a long time, it was the fastest growing
zip code in America. It's densely, densely populated, and this
is the environment that these kids lived in. And like
you said, I was watching an interview with the family,
and the family pointedly says, we've never even heard of
(11:44):
Towns County, much less Bell Mountain, and we've never been there.
The twins have never been there. And oh, by the way,
there's no indication that they were suicide on any level whatsoever.
So they've had more questions than answers. But as we
(12:08):
all know, particularly when it comes to the cases we
cover on body bags, that's kind of the norm, is it, So, Dave,
(12:29):
my understanding is is that this park, the hours are
essentially from eight am until dusk, and of course dusk
is going to be variable, but you know, March eighth
of this year, that's still well within the parameters of wintertime.
(12:51):
I mean you should say, yeah, it's going dark much
earlier than later, you know, like the time of year
that we're in right now, in the spring, late spring,
and so it's a different ball of wax. So the
question is whoever locked that gate, because I think the
gate was in fact locked and didn't see the car
(13:11):
parked in there. Did they drive in there and inspect
the area? And how far is the gate from the
parking lot? I mean, we've talked about how far a
walk it is, and this is more like a leisurely
walked than it is a hike, you know, and it's
not a big area. When the family there was a family,
I think it's the Bell family donated this land. This
(13:33):
whole thing's only eighteen acres and it's like the top
of the mountain and they donated this thing, and the
state of Georgia set up a state park there, I
think back in twenty sixteen. It's not an old one
and there are a lot of old ones up there,
you know. You think about that and did anybody roll
around through there? And the police have also said, and
(13:55):
here's one major problem with this, there's no video there.
There's no CCTV, so you can't account for somebody coming
and going in there. You're not going to be able
to clip that out. You know, we've got video. I
think you had mentioned we've got video of them back
in Gwinette County, Lawrenceville have I before, Yeah, having been
at the store. So how does that balance out in
(14:18):
the mind? And I guess one of the big questions
is how are they found?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Well, Okay, look, Joe, here's the part that I think.
I don't know how the GBI could come up with
an answer to how they were found and say it
was a murder suicide to family members. I don't know
how they can. I'm not challenging that they're the professionals,
(14:45):
not me. I just would think you'd have to have
more results in that, like the autopsy report should include
all everything. You know, when before you come up and
tell a family member that they're twins, nineteen year old
twins have committed murder suicide before you tell them that,
you ought to have every other answer solved. I know
they want answers, but the family is just no, they're
(15:06):
not going to believe that. Families don't believe it when
you tell them that they found their child with a
bullet in the head, that they committed suicide. People don't
want to believe that about people they love. We just
don't want to believe that. So they told them it
was a murder of suicide. But Joe, there's something even
worse than anything on this that I've seen so far.
And I actually saw this in the New York Post
(15:27):
and I thought, oh, they've missed on They run headlines
all the time that are wrong. But there is a
story that a volunteer fireman from Towns County, and by
the way, Towns County Sheriff's Department invited in the GBI
from the very beginning, the minute this case came in,
they called him in and said, we don't have and
(15:47):
you mentioned the size of the county and number of
the population. They said, we don't have. We do not
have what's needed to do this case justice. So they
called in the GBI to be the investigation of record.
So one of the people on scene was a volunteer firefighter,
a volunteer first responder for Towns County. And this person,
(16:13):
Joe allegedly, well no not allegedly, took pictures of these
two young men, nineteen year old twins, took pictures of
their dead bodies. Kadir and Nazir Lewis. He took pictures
and then shared them. Joe, he shared them and then
(16:34):
it wasn't just sharing them with his boss to say, hey,
I just wanted you to have this or you would
know this is going on social media. You know how
they found out kids at the school.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Kids at the high school. Yeah, and that's what kind
of flipped the switch relative to the sheriff's office to
look into this. Now, this volunteer firefighter was charged in
this case, yeah, with I don't know if it was obstruction.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Or or it was in you charbstruction.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah, and so that's a very broad spectrum charge that
you can kind of hang on somebody. But the problem
is is that now you know when a volunteer firefighter,
and God bless them, because it's a hard job that
no one they're volunteers, but they're firefighters. They have to
go through the academy and a lot of people enjoy
being volunteer firefighters. They've got a lot of buddies over
(17:26):
the years that have done that. When they roll out,
they are rolling out as as first responders, so they're
probably trained in basic life saving. So when a call
comes up, they're going to say, you know, we've got
two individuals down. They're not going to say that over
(17:49):
the air that we've got a murdered suicide because that
hasn't been concluded yet. All they know is that we've
got two people that have been found in this isolated
area on top of this mountain. So when this individual
would have rolled out, and there were probably maybe a
couple of the other ones. Sometimes they'll show up in
their private vehicles. If you ever see, like in your
rural areas, you'll see a guy in a pickup truck
(18:12):
and he's got a red light flashing on a private vehicle.
Red lights indicate fire, blue lights indicate law enforcement. They
will roll up many times. They might live near that area,
and they carry these very powerful radios that even in
those isolated areas, they can pick up transmissions with he
probably showed up, And when he showed up, your first
(18:36):
inclination is to take photos of the dead and disseminate them.
That's what we're doing because that's the way this worked out.
And the problem is is that this individual has injected
themselves into the investigative bubble at this point in time.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Hey, so this right away is he filming his own
Did he set this up? How did he get there
so fast? Was he the guy that committed the murder?
And now he's back there pretending that he was. You know,
is this something you've ever heard of before? Joe had
somebody taking photos.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
It actually happened in Atlanta, and it was to my
great shame, I had nothing to do with it, but
it was my case. But we actually had this was
not a volunteer. This was an Atlanta firefighter. We had
a guy that was involved in a foot chase with
the police on what's called the Grady Curve, which is
(19:33):
an elevated portion of seventy five to eighty five that
is conjoined in downtown Atlanta. He hops out of his car,
runs through oncoming traffic, and I get We postulated that
he jumped over the wall, thinking that it was only
like a I don't know, a like a ten foot
drop as a thirty foot drop, and he landed on
(19:57):
a wrought iron fence, and the spike of the fence
went through his foremen magnum, which is the large opening
in the base of your skull. It ripped his body
off of or ripped his head off of his shoulders,
and the head is impaled on this thing. And the
firefighter that was out there. This is in the early
(20:18):
days of digital cameras began snapping photos. And I've actually
got the photos that this individual took. They were sent
to me by an investigator that was homicide investigator. He says,
this is what happens when firefighters take photos. And I said,
(20:40):
how did you get these? Guess what he told me?
He said, these came off of a German website, a
German administrative website back during the days when there was
like all of these websites like rotten dot com that
don't exist anymore, that show these horrible things. And so
to the point of the twins, to the point of
(21:02):
the Twins, that data you think about that was in
the early early mid two thousands probably when that happened.
How much further reaching now is the internet social media
than it was back then. I mean, we didn't even
have things or think about things like Instagram and even
Twitter or x or whatever they call it now. And
(21:25):
you know, there was Facebook, but it didn't it wasn't
far and wild now everywhere. So these two kids, and
they are somebody's kids with a mama that loves them
very much in a family that loves them very much.
Now in this state of death, in an isolated area,
away from those that they love, they're dead, have been
(21:48):
out there for a while. This guy takes photographs and
disseminates them all over the place. So yeah, if if
I were an investigator, I don't know necessarily that he
had anything to do with it. But if you're an investigator,
you have to go question this person he's added onto
the list at this point in time, because if they're
(22:10):
suspecting that this is something other than a quote unquote
murder suicide, then you would run down the list because Dave,
it's not like you're in a densely populated area up
there where you're going to run across people that would
do harm to you. Okay, So there's very few people,
first off, that know that this place exists, including the
(22:32):
twins according to their family, and this is in isolation.
How do you get these two kids to get up here?
And they both got gunshot wounds. Family says they've never
been there before. And you're talking about driving through an
area that is it's beautiful, but it's scary. They've got
(22:52):
hairpin turns that run all through these areas, and there's
only two what would be considered I don't even want
to call him as thoroughfairs, but there's two state highways
that kind of run through this area. Everything else is
as my grandmother you say, pig trails. You have to
know where you're going. Sometimes your GPS doesn't even work
(23:13):
up there. So you got a lot going on here.
As far as how they arrived, they're inside a locked area,
their vehicles there. Oh and let me tell you one
other thing. When the police got into the vehicle, their
wallets are in there, and those plane tickets for that
flight to Boston is still there and has never been used.
(23:49):
A type of case that I was always fearful of
screwing up. Traditionally from me, at least was going to
be murder suicides. And I'll tell you why, because if
it's a murder suicide, there's violence involved. Generally there has
to be homicidal violence. And I was always terrified that
(24:13):
I was going to arrive at an incorrect conclusion and
that I would miss something. Because if you ever notice,
my friends, that when an individual, unless they're a high
profile subject, takes their life, never makes it into the
(24:34):
news cycle, never does as far as suicides are gone,
and do yourself a favorite. Pay attention to what I'm
saying right now. You will hear in the news today.
You know, we had a murder suicide and a guy
went in and killed his whole family and then killed himself.
How many other news cycles does it make it through?
(24:54):
It doesn't, It doesn't, maybe maybe two. There might be
a follow up article because they'll they'll catch your eye
with the horrific nature of slaughtering an entire family. The
individual kills himself and as far as the news media
is concerned, the news business, there's no other business to
be had here.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
There's no other story.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Joe, Yeah, there is no The well has run dry.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
It's solved. But my question goes back to, very quickly
after the discovery of the bodies, we have the GBI
allegedly telling the family it's a murder suicide, or so
they believe that happened. Very early on, when you start
dealing with gunfire related homicide and suicide, what are you
(25:40):
looking for and what does it tell you? How could
they look at two dead bodies on the ground and
say it was a murder suicide if there's no witness
in a video.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yeah, this is how it would work out. From me,
This is what I think that they're thinking. At least,
this is what I think they're thinking. Don't you love
that we haven't heard anything about a note, Not that
they would necessarily tell us, because there have been cases
out there where a note was left behind and we
(26:10):
don't find out about it until well after the fact.
But we haven't heard about that. Okay, we have. But conversely,
there has been according to the family, there's been no
suicidal ideation on either of these kids. And I would
imagine if there's no suicidal ideation, there's no what psychiatristfer
(26:32):
to as suicidal vocalization where they're saying, I want to
end my life, like they're entering into a pack to
end their lives together. All right, So how did they
arrive at this conclusion? Well, these we do know because
I think that let me check my notes here. I
think probably probably back in March seventeenth. March eighteenth, there
(27:01):
was a release from the state Medical Examiner that ruled
that rule these cases as gunshot wounds to the head,
all right, So my thought is they would probably if
they're calling some murder suicide, they would have had to
have recovered a weapon at the scene. That's the first
(27:21):
bit of information. So is the weapon lying immediately adjacent
to one of the twins, like to their hand? Okay,
is it in proximity of the body, because people, you
don't necessarily have to have a weapon in your hand
following suicide and it be a suicide because the body
(27:41):
does odd things afterwards, and it can come down to
how you fall, how you collapse, Bodies can spasm, It
depends on a lot of things. I've had. I've had
weapons that I've found that are some distance away from
the body, but yet still in that same space, and
it was ruled suicide, and I felt very comfortable with that.
(28:02):
So I'm thinking that they probably found a weapon. Now
what type of weapon other than it is probably a firearm,
because they're calling these gunshot wounds. I have no idea
because they haven't released that information. Secondly, you're going to
be looking at the pathology on both of their bodies. Well,
what do you mean by that, Morgan? Well, I'll tell
you what I mean by it. What I mean by
(28:22):
that is the fact that they will have gunshot wounds.
And if it is a let's say that this is
Let's take murder first. If this is a murder, a
word which I hate because it's a lawyer's word, I
prefer the word homicide. If this is a homicide, then
(28:42):
that means death at the hand of another. That's how
we define homicide in the medical legal world. You will
have a relationship between the end of the muzzle and
the bullet defect in the head. Now what that means
(29:03):
is what was your what was your range of fire?
What do you think the angle of fire was? So
was one of these individuals kneeling adjacent to the other
one and the other one walked up and popped them
in the head? Single gsw Is it a through and through?
(29:28):
Did they press into the wound or into the scalp
for instance, where you have have what would be like
a tight seal and pull the trigger or were they
standing away? Well, if they're standing backwards of the body,
and the relationship from the end of the muzzle to
(29:48):
that point where the projectile enters the body, you're going
to have soot deposition if it's if it's a close range,
it can be close to intermediate. So if it's close range,
you're going to have soot position around there you'll have
bits of a flex of unburned gunpowder. And depended upon
how that distribution of that evidence is spread out away
(30:12):
from the actual hole in the body gives you an
idea of range. Just think about spraying of water hose.
The further the further away you get from the nozzle itself,
it begins to expand outward, Okay, and you know it
forms like a big circle. So the further away you
are down range, the broader the circle gets until it
(30:32):
just kind of falls away. So they're looking at this
from that perspective. That's from the homicide perspective. Now, with
the suicide perspective, you can have self inflicted wounds, and
I've had them all over bodies. I've had people that
have taken weapons and flipped them upside down and placed
them at the back of their head to make it
(30:53):
look like they were executed. I've actually had that happen.
I've had individuals, multitude of individuals that have placed weapons
adjacent adjacent to their temple and pull the trigger intra
oral gunshot wounds into the mouth. I've had people fire
weapons beneath their chin. I've had people fire weapons into
(31:16):
their chest. I've had one that fired a weapon into
their stomach, bad choice because they languish for some time.
So you can have all of these different types of
attitudes relative to placement of the weapon, but there's something
that is pointing them there. And most of the time
(31:37):
day with suicides, the firing or discharging of a weapon,
the suicide is most of the time going to be
close contact or maybe even like a press contact. Press
contact means that the end of the muzzle is literally
(31:57):
just tight, it almost forms a seal in the skin,
and nothing expands outside of the muzzle. Really, it's all
blown into the body. That's a classic self inflicted gunshot wound.
Can you have those in homicides most of the time,
not unless the individual is passed out asleep or you
have them restrained in some way to get a contact
(32:21):
gunshot wound like that, because most people, your natural reaction
is that if you're aware that a weapon is being
placed to your head, you're going to move away. You know,
you're going to try to parry that move and move away.
So with suicides, that's one of the things that we
look for, and I think that that's probably how they're
reaching this conclusion. At least on the surface, we don't
(32:42):
have really anything else to go on in this case.
And this is still you know, this is back in March.
We're laying this down right now in the midst of
May Dave, and it's my understanding this case is still open, correct,
But yet they ruled it as a murder suicide.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Well, it didn't necessarily rule it a murder suicide. They
told the family that that's what they believed it was,
and the family was very public saying they didn't do it,
they wouldn't do that, and they're still saying that, and
I understand it, I don't.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
It's tough to lose a family member and to lose
somebody in and they have trouble understanding it because it
was twins, because they were so close to have this happen,
one of them had to harm the other one first,
and they're just having trouble with that. Those that knew
the twins, those that knew these two men, I know,
we've often referred to them as boys because there so
(33:34):
many times when we have young people now that are
in their teens, especially when they're twins and brothers, we
refer to them as the boys. It's just how we
refer to young people. And I think the shock is
that I'm thinking about the family. I am thinking about them.
I'm thinking about the horror what they must have felt
being told that, you know, they didn't know what happened.
(33:54):
They just knew that They've got two nineteen year olds
who had never been as far as they knew to
all Mountain Georgia. That they weren't hikers, they weren't people
who drove way out of their way because they were
cheaps gigs. They didn't want to put gas in their car.
So you're talking about driving ninety miles or you know,
from their house or ninety minutes from their house, I mean,
or ninety miles or ninety minutes.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Ninety miles, yeah, miles, And it's I mean, it's a
poke to get up there. And like I said, if
I wish that everybody that is listening to this could
appreciate the distance that we're talking about, and ninety miles
from many people is like, that's not much of a distance. Well,
this is not driving down I five in California. Okay,
(34:35):
this is not like a straight shot. You have to
know where you're going. This place is so out of
the way. They have to pump sunlight in there because
it is isolated. It's on top of a mountain. It's
not like someplace you just kind of stumble on.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
And that's that's why the family has so much trouble
with it, Joe. They didn't like to burn their gas
as it is. Do you really think they're going to drive?
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Yeah? I think it was a family member that I heard.
He actually stated. He actually stated in the interview that
they don't like to drive. And I thought he was
going to say, because you know, Atlanta traffic is notorious.
I thought he was going to say, they're fearful of
getting out on the road. No, no, no, no, no, that's
not We said they hate to spend money on gas.
(35:21):
You talk about two nineteen year olds that are that thrifty.
That's the only way. I don't want to use the
word cheap, but they're thrifty. And you said that they're
drinking water. They're not, you know, knocking back SODA's are.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Energetting drink, getting a snack and drinking water at the
local store at ten thirty at night.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Yeah, So you know, I think that the dynamic Again,
you bring this up, Dave, and you say you said
it so well, and thanks for sharing that about your family.
The language that twins have, and it is a very
specific language. I mean, they have a way of communicating
with one another. How in the world could two young
(35:56):
men so bright and so full of life wind up dead,
so far away from the home that they had with
their family, with those that loved them, in such a
far isolated place. Listen, if you are anyone you know
(36:19):
is having trouble in their life and they're thinking about
ending their own life, all you got to do. It's
called three numbers. Eight eight nine eight eight. You're not alone.
Help is available. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is
(36:41):
body Backs.
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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