September 25, 2025 • 47 mins
The homicide investigation into the death of Vadim Kruglov, a 37-year-old Russian national who called Washington State home, continues as the 70,000 attendees and a killer leave Black Rock City. While everyone focused on the Burning Man, the dying man was laying in a pool of his own blood, bleeding out from a stab wound to the throat. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss what the crime scene is like when the murder happens in a temporary city, where thousands of people are standing around one another but nobody sees a man murdered. A festival of art and piece ends with fire and murder.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Body Bus with Joseph's Gotten More. Arguably one of the
most terrifying movies that I ever saw when I was
a kid, was actually made in nineteen seventy three, and
it's a cult horror film. I don't know. It just
(00:22):
really scared the double light of me for whatever reason.
But the name of it was called The wicker Man,
and I think that the reason it was so terrifying
was that the idea was that there were sacrifices being made,
(00:43):
and you see this thing in these offerings that are
made at the end of that movie, and it was
something that really stuck with me, and not being obviously
in a tend to burning man, when I saw this
(01:03):
effigy that for years now has been burned in conclusion
to that event, it reminded me of The wicker Man.
I'm not the first person that has actually, you know,
talked about this over a period of time. But you
know what's even more terrified is that when life, maybe
(01:29):
on some level, imitates art, It's one thing to maybe
think about sacrifice human sacrifice, it's completely another thing when
it comes about that you have a homicide that's committed
(01:51):
and one of the most attended events in American history
for a protracted period of time. As a matter of fact,
when an attendee looks down at her feet, she sees
a man lying there in a pool of blood, and
chaos is all around, and there are, in fact no answers.
(02:18):
I'm Josephcott Morgan and this is Bodybags, David. I've been
talking about this event, you know, that happened out there
at out in Nevada, out of the that high desert,
(02:39):
the isolated areas out there. You know, I guess it's
been a couple of weeks now. I first was asked
to appear on Fox and Friends about about this homicide.
This fellow that was in attendance and had been there,
he's actually an artist. He's a Russian national actually who
had been living in the States for some time. It
(03:01):
was domiciled up in Washington State. And I just, you know,
they asked me what I thought about it, you know,
when I went on air with Fox and Friends, and
you know, just kind of break it down and how
complex the scene would be, how isolated it is. And
I was really shocked by the comments and that I
(03:24):
received from this. And I got to tell you what,
what a bunch of you know, pretentious, self involved individuals.
You know. When they were making comments in regards to
what I was, my perspective was was that, you know, uh,
(03:45):
this is a homicide investigation. I don't I don't really
have a dog in the fight. You know, whatever you
want to do out in the desert. If you want
to build a town and then set a big effigy
on fire, have at it, man. You know, make sure
that you stand back when you strike them mad.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
You're not going to be talking about it unless there's
a reason to talk about it on network television, which
means there was a murder, there's.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
A dead body.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah. I was coming into a friend the other day.
It's like, I, you know, about this particular topic, and
I was like, I couldn't believe the responses that I got.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
You know, people they were attacking you because you.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I had never been to Burning Man. It's like, well, damn, man,
I've never been to Moscow other you know, I've covered
cases that occurred there. I've covered cases that that happened
and you know, in far flong places around. We just
did the mushroom lady, you know a while back. And
as much as I'd like to go to Australia and
(04:46):
the people are lovely and uh.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
I've read that they've been asking us to.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Come down there. By the way, I've never been to Australia,
but I can talk about a homicide.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I think governments that the kind of government would lock
me up. I'm afraid of Australia that I don't want
to get you. I got to bring it back with
me to do. We have too much work to do. Okay,
we got burning Man. Okay, you've got this festival that
goes on a week. It's an art festival and they've
got the ten tenants of Burning Man. And look, man,
whatever you do that doesn't it's like, you know what, Joe,
(05:16):
you're not allowed to say.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
I don't care anymore. I don't care what you do.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, I'm It's like, if you're an adult in the
United States of America, do what you want. Man, have
at it. It's between you and your God. I don't care.
And you know why I don't care, because you're an adult.
You can do whatever you want. I don't have to care.
And the thing is, no, unless you need my permission,
then why do you care what I think? It's like
(05:41):
we've lost this you know.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
I've lost the plot completely, you know, and this is
kind of I think the reaction that guy is kind
of an example of that. But at the end of
the day, what I am interested in is when I
have a fellow who is a homicide victim and he's
bleeding out from his neck and there are no answers.
(06:07):
I approach this, and I don't want to give away
the plot here, but I approach this almost from an
academic standpoint, because I'll put it to you this way.
If I were to have a case that I wanted
to demonstrate to my students at university about what the
ultimate nightmare scenario is relative to scene security, collection of evidence, assessment,
(06:34):
having to get resources, which is something that we actually
talk about. Dude, that you've hit the apex here we're
at this is a perfect example of worst case scenario.
And you know when you work, when you work and
do planning for things, you always work out worst case
(06:56):
scenario because it's like, if you handle worst case scenario,
many times, the logic goes that when other things occur,
you'll be prepared for them. You prepare, you know the
old adage, you prepare for the worst. I was on
the nineteen ninety six Olympic Planning Committee. I was like
the representative for the medical examiner way you know, way
(07:19):
back when, and you know, and I would go in
these rooms and you know, and listen intently to what
they were talking about planning, you know, for worst case
scenario relative to police and fire and ambulance services. And
here I am, I'm the one medical examiner guy in
the back. You know, when we worked when the Olympics
(07:41):
came to town, they couldn't figure out how to classify
the medical examiner. And we had these kind of fancy
they were an early version of a barcode digital ID
that you had with your picture on it. But they
had certain codes on these things to say what your
role was while you have the ID, you know, and
(08:02):
I thought mine would say medical examiner on it or whatever.
We get our we actually get our IDs the day
of opening ceremony. Guess what badges they gave us and
what they said on them. They didn't even have a
skull and crossbones on them. They said vendor And I'm
thinking you got to be kidney, So wow, I'm an
(08:25):
EMMY investigator working in Atlanta. You're talking about these horrible things.
That could potentially happen. And I'm the vendor. What am
I going to do? Bring hot dogs to the scene.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I don't understand. And as it turned out, and as
it turned out, you know, we we had the Olympic
Park bombing and that was a nightmare because just like we.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Have a class on how you blame the wrong guy
for saving lives and get him to ruin the rest
of life.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, yeah, you're gonna get me started on my friend
Richard Jewel here and it won't be pretty.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
I do want to get into one thing, Joe and
bringing Man where they talk about it is a city
built out of nowhere. Okay, it's seventy thousand people strong,
and they build an entire city. And the whole idea
is you bring whatever you need for the week and
you leave.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
That's it. You don't leave anything behind.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And I will tell you that there's a massive cleanup
that goes on every year because half of the participants
leave stuff behind. Of course, I'm not blaming anybody for this.
For anybody who's ever been to the Talladega super Speedway. Wait,
if you drive I twenty between Atlanta and Birmingham, you
see the fastest track in the world. It's an amazing
site and every year, twice a year, there are seventy
(09:35):
thousand people camping out in the world's largest free camping area.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Just camping, just camping.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
They got camped, they got tense, and they it's a
but the thing is Joe, there is a camaraderie among
the people that go. A lot of people take their vacation.
Seventy five percent of the tickets are sold out of state.
So this is for two weeks out of the year,
an incredible city of over one hundred thousand people. All
of a sudden it becomes I think the third largest
city in the state of Alabama for the weeks of
(10:02):
the track. And so when I was looking at this
burning man, the murder, because there's always deaths at the
Talladega super Speedway, they are not what you would expect.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
A lot of times are very odd.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
There's always a lot of there's always a lot of
weird stories that.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Come out of these events.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
You know, where you have a bunch of people together
for a very short window, like at Woodstock. Do you
know how many people died of drug overdoses at Woodstock?
Do you have any babies were born at Woodstock.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I have heard that there were several I don't know
how many.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
We've all heard that, and it's all a lie. There
was never a baby born at Woodstock. There was not
an overdose death. One of the deaths actually was run
over by one of the trash trucks that rolled over
his sleeping bag that he was in because he was
passed out. Yeah, it didn't happen the way they tell
you it did. There's not one child born at Woodstock
(10:53):
that had to be registered up there in upstate New
York as a human being being born there. But I
tell you that because in this case, if you had
told me that this is the first time they had
an incident like this, where you've got a thirty seven
year old man who is really and truly coming from
Russia to the United States of America. And I can
just imagine the heart on this guy. And he's there
(11:16):
as an artist, and he's experiencing this whole week and
it's been a great week. And as you're going to
this major event that the whole week builds towards, we
end up with seventy thousand people ooping and hollering and
doing a dance around a guy that bleeds out and
nobody helps him. How does that happen? Joseph Scott Morgan.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, and I think that you know, first off, okay,
here's what you're doing with And I was actually press
I did not initiate this, just so you know, so
that everybody listening, I did not initiate this. This what
is it? Query? If you will. Somebody asked me, well,
would hallucinogens factor into these events? Would any kind of
(12:02):
substance that someone would have been taken? And I'm like, well, yeah,
I mean there are people that can imbibe and any
number of substances that are mind altering, and the reality,
their perception of reality is not what it would have
been otherwise. And and what I mean by that is
(12:24):
that you can see things if you're taking some mind
altering substance where you might perceive it as a threat otherwise,
you know, if you're if you're just like this normal
person that works in an office and you've gotten away
and say, yeah, yeah, I think I'm going to do
a head of acid or I'm going to do mushrooms
(12:45):
or I don't know, whatever, whatever, you know, pick your poison,
whatever it is, and it changes your worldview in that
moment and in the frenzy of the crowd, because we
have to understand that police believe, police believe that Adam
(13:05):
Gruglov he actually may have been killed. At that conclusive
moment where this effigy is set ablaze, now this signals
the end of this festival. It's like the big culmination.
And you know, you had mentioned that there were seventy
(13:27):
thousand people there, and that's very significant. One thing I
did find out along the way is that the numbers
have dropped. They're not as robust as they once were,
and it's probably the same you know in other instances.
(13:47):
I'm from New Orleans. My favorite thing to do in
New Orleans is during the year is not going to
Marty Grass. My favorite thing when I was living in
New Orleans was to go to New Orleans Jazz Fest,
which by far is consistently packed to the brim with people,
and as a matter of fact, I think the population
(14:09):
that attends that has increased every year. But you know what,
you got running water, you got toilets, you got some
of the best food in the world, you got some
of the best music, and you never know who's going
to be playing and again you're in the desert. You've
got nothing they you know, you'd mentioned this for our
(14:29):
friends out there that are not familiar. They actually conct
construct this town out of nothing. They call it a town.
But this dwelling, this temporary village. You have tents, you
have campers that are out there. So you've got people
that have kind of transported their domesticity, I guess, their
(14:55):
domestic life out there so that they can survive. And Dave,
I got to tell you, I got to tell you
that in and of itself, is a huge clue in
this case. As a matter of fact, I'm going to
reveal a bit of evidence that, in my opinion, is
going to lead potentially to identification of a killer. I've
(15:31):
tried to put myself in the shoes of an individual
that has been just enjoying themselves for an entire week.
You know, after you've been in a place, it's kind
of like camping. You know, you go into a location,
particularly if you're primitive camp which me and my family
have done, particularly when our kids were younger. We'd go
(15:54):
out and set up a tent and just kind of live,
you know, in the wilderness. You know, for a week
or so, and and and we enjoyed ourselves.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Story joe Gan bit of camping.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Okay, yeah, I like to do that when I was younger,
but as I when my back started getting bad, my
kids were at that age where they wanted to camp,
and I didn't want them to you forego that, and
so we did. But whenever we went, I always took
what I needed. I wanted them to enjoy. I wanted
them to have fun. But my guy, I always had
my generator, I always had my TV. I always had
(16:28):
a DVD player and an air conditioner, and I would
tell them, you guys want to camp in the tent.
It's right there. I set it up. There's a fire,
We'll sit around and sing. I'll tell you some scary stories.
But when you go lay down in that tent, I'm
going to be back here in the back of my ranger,
my mattress, my air conditioner, and y'all can just suck
it because I'm old.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I'm not kidding, primitive cacta.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I dig what you're saying, man, I mean I feel
the same way camp. Kimmy loves to camp. It's it's
it's not my jam. Necessarily, I got over it. It's
not something I necessarily want to do. I'm not a
big fan of driving down the road in a camper
because I'm terrified I'm going to wreck the thing, and
you invest thousands of thousands of dollars. I'm very cautionary
(17:16):
in that sense.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
You would be a train wreck and a motor home man.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yeah, there's no way. There's no way I could do it.
I could never enjoy myself. That is so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
It was My most fun trip was a motor home
trip in my family that all the kids hated, except
for Hannish because she barely remembers it. Not getting a
different story for a different day. But back to burning Man,
where you got all these people coming together and they're
spending a week together with people they don't know. And
by the way, all of the art and all the
things that are going on, you can look up the
ten tenants of burning Men. There are ten things they
live by philosophically and physically. There's a deal not having money,
(17:50):
you trade you part. As a matter of fact, one
of the things you can do is offer a conversation
for a drink. And I'm gonna be honest with you
I'm having spent a lot of my time in the
life in establishments with adults who like to drink and talk.
If somebody came and told me, hey, man, give me
a drink of that and we'll talk, I'll be like,
I'll give you a drink of that if you leave,
(18:11):
you know, if you go over there and talk to them.
But that's what burning men is all about. And at
the end of the week, you know, they bring art
there and show off. And they had some really big
stuff over the years. Now was it two years ago
they had a flood. A year or two ago there
were a massive storm.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Was a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, yeah, But now you're talking about they've recovered from
the horrible storm. Now you've got seventy thousand people there
and they've been partying all week, had a lot of fun,
met new friends, started new relationships, and they've got their art.
They're getting ready to burn because they destroy it. The
whole idea is you build it, you show it off,
and you destroy it. Now they do take a few
things back. Some people just can't do it. I hope
(18:48):
I could, but I don't know that I would, you know,
and burning it is a way of really etching it
in your mind, if something you did and realizing that
it has no value.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
And I love that thought. I loved it it.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, you know, actually it is a very cool thought
that a lot of the temporal stuff in this life
doesn't really have a lot of value, and it's the
moments that you spend with people that you care about.
And I don't know, I think we talked about that
to a great degree on body bags. We touch on
the fragility of life and how suddenly it can all
end and come to an end right quick as a
(19:21):
matter of fact. But can you imagine in dwelling a
space and for a week and maybe you know the
victim you've seen him about, because this guy he was
actually he's an artist and he had actually gone out
to construct one of these, you know, one of these
(19:41):
structures that was art. He's an artist and had spent
time doing it. And from what I understand it, it
was rather large, and you know, you want people to
take notice of it, But can you can you just
for a second transport yourself to the finders? And we've
(20:02):
talked about who a finder is previously on bodybacks, who
the finder was. They may have seen the victim. They
may have spoken with him, maybe they shared one of
those drinks that you mentioned. Okay, But then as the
thing comes to a finale at about nine o'clock that night,
(20:26):
this individual who is the finder, looks down at their
feet and an individual is motionless, and what do they see. Well,
they see what police have characterized as a significant pool
of blood. And it was the initiative of the person
(20:46):
that was the finder. There were Share steputies around and
trying to flag down a share deputy and get them
over there to assess this person. Now at night, Yeah,
it's at night. It's like nine pm when this went down,
when this individual was discovered. So let's just talk about
(21:09):
logistics here just for a second. If you're in the
life saving, life protecting and life saving business, can you
imagine how much has to go into getting someone from
a scene that is so isolated where they don't even
have self service, Dave, they don't have self service in
(21:31):
this area to try to get them to some facility
that could save their life. And are you going to
have those types of resources on site? Because I got
to tell you the reason she saw a pool of blood.
As it turns out, and according to authorities that has
(21:52):
just been released in the last few days. He had
a large sharp force injury singular to his throat. Now,
I got to tell you, if someone has had a
blade inserted into their neck, that might be other than
(22:14):
stabbing somebody directly in the heart, that might be the
most lethal area you could ever attack somebody. Yet, and
here's why. The vessel structures that are contained in all
of the organs of the neck, that kind of rope
their way around and snaked through and there you know
(22:35):
you've got venus return, you've got arterial delivery. Not to mention,
you've got an airway. There are so many critical areas
in the neck that just by clipping one of these areas,
you think about the croateid, you think about the juggler vein,
You're going to bleed out. And I don't care if
(22:55):
you had and I've said this before, but I don't care.
If you've got highly skilled surgeons that are standing by,
and you've got units of blood that you can hang,
there's a high probability this is going to be unsurvivable,
even if they've gotten to him in time. You know,
you think about applying direct pressure all those things to
(23:18):
kind of stem stem, the blood flow that's coming out
of this body. What are you going to do? This
is not like you've got to cut on the back
of your hand where you can wrap it up apply pressure.
And yet we're going to get you to the emergency room.
Might be an hour or so, but we'll get you there.
They'll be able to examine it, stit you up, and
maybe if you need surgery that can be done. No, no, no, no, no,
(23:38):
that's not what we're talking about. Out of all the
locations on the human body that you could sustain an injury,
the fact that you take a knife to the neck
is I think that it goes relative to the attacker.
In this case, there's a real sense of purpose of
lethality here.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
It's not like you swung the knife and kind of
sliced at them. This is you actually approach the individual
and inserted them right yeah, yeah, I mean right into
their next out. Then you begin to think about, well,
what in the world, what in the world, And I
would imagine investigators are asking this right now, what in
(24:22):
the world could someone what would have been their motivation
for having taken the young man's life. I mean, he's
only in his late thirties. He's an artist, you know.
I don't know if he had any confrontations with anybody
out there. I don't know if someone didn't like his art,
someone didn't like him because maybe he was from Russia.
(24:45):
I have no idea there. And the thing about it
is out there, Dave, there are people that come there
from all over the world.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Right, it's an art thing.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
I mean, beyond all the jokes of one might make
about you know, communes and things like that. You're dealing
with a world renowned event that's been taking place for
many years, seventy thousand people in one spot for a week,
that takes a lot of effort, a lot of time,
and a lot of organization. And still I'm thinking, if
that's me, And let's just say it was accidental, Joe.
(25:16):
You know, somebody's messing around in Boom, you get accidentally knife.
You're in the middle of seventy thousand people, all at night,
in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, and you said,
no cell phone, no wife, I know nothing. I'm thinking,
do you hope and pray there's an eighteen wheeler with
a CB and somebody can connect to a base station.
How do you get any help. I mean, I know
(25:37):
they've got medics, but how do you get help for
something like this in the middle of nowhere amongst thousands
of people.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah, and that would be that's the rub here. And
of course that carries over which we will get into.
That carries over into crompscene management as well.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
I mean, you start, how do you start with that, Joe?
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Because you mentioned the finder looks down and he's a
guy in a puddle of blood.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Okay, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
They have to yeah, and they have to track somebody
down that's wearing a badge and a vest and a
firearm that's just kind of standing there. Now. There were
representatives from the local county sheriff's department. You also had
individuals that were federal federal park rangers that are out
there who are police officers as well. I actually talked
(26:23):
to a student of mine, former student from my early
days of teaching, and I will not say what agency
he is with, but he's a federal police officer and
he was assigned to burning Man many years ago, and
he had reached out to me in a text message
(26:45):
and he said, have you been following the scene, you know,
out at burning Man? And I was like, yeah, actually
I made a comment on on television about it. He's like, yeah,
when when I worked out there many years ago and
I was a sign to do this, he said. I
got out there and he was like, how in the
(27:05):
hell are we going to manage this? Because you know,
you're kind of dropped down into this environment that has
been chosen. You can try to plan for any kind
of scenario relative to communication, relative to transport. You know,
you have to have resources and have somebody on alert.
(27:27):
That's like, because when a population of seventy thousand people,
you have no idea what kind of medical histories are
out there. They're going to be so varied. You might
have people that have terminal events going on in their life.
You might have people that have major drug problems. You
might have people that are genetically predisposed. You might have
people that have severe heart disease and they just want
(27:47):
to go out there and enjoy themselves. But you never
it's going to be a mixed back, So you have
to be prepared. Are you going to be able to
metavack somebody out of there? And what's the closest hospital
you can get them to? And I'm sure that a
lot of that stuff had been laid out. But when
it comes to how do you plan for a homicide
(28:09):
and you've got the potential of sixty nine thousand, nine
hundred and ninety nine suspects, where do you go from there? So,
(28:36):
Brother Dave, we know at this moment in time that
there is no suspect that they have, at least that
they've identified to this point in involving the homicide of
mister Krugelov.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Yeah, very quick question. Yeah, sure, Okay, we.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Know that he was found in a pool of blood.
Was he dead when they actually did?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah? I think that he was. And that's this is
the other thing. If you've got this kind of injury,
all right, you're going to die of what's referred to
as exanguination. And it's a ten dollars word that people
in my field in medicine love to use, which means
you bleed out and there's no way to stem the flow.
(29:23):
And I've had people Dave over the course of my
career that have bled out from the slightest little injury.
As a matter of fact, I was reviewing a case
I was teaching crumsene assessment the other day to one
of my undergrad undergrad classes at jack State. And I
worked a case in Atlanta many years ago where two
(29:45):
guys had gotten drunk and the other guy took a
folding pocket knife and merely stabbed stabbed his friend that
was in the hotel room with him in the crook
of his right arm. And that's also in medicine, they
refer to that as the ACF. It's an a cubital
(30:07):
fossa is the term, but it's the crook of the arm.
And there's again there's a network of vessels that pass
through there. Matter of fact, a major vessel that runs
through there as well. And he bled out simply from
a very it was I think, if I remember correctly,
(30:28):
that wound in the crook of his arm may have
been two thirds of an inch in depth, and it
killed him. He bled out there on the spot, So
you never know. And then I've had cases where people
had huge, gaping injuries to their chest and they survived
for hours. It just it didn't clip anything that was
(30:50):
critical at that point in time. The wound might look
absolutely horrible, but it's amazing, you know, when you begin
to think about sharp force injuries. We talked about sharp
force injuries, and we have stabbings, just as like a
quick review, a primer, if you will. We have stabbings,
and we have in sized injuries, and so in sized
(31:12):
injuries are like slices, so they are shallow, but they're
long most of the time. Stabbings they're deep and concentrated.
So you go into and look, our friends are very
bright that listen to the show. I think, I think
we've got the brightest audience out there. If you insert
(31:33):
it into a specific area, there's a higher probability that
deep within, deep within that anatomical structure, you've got a
high probability of clipping something, as it turns out at
this scene. And one of the bigger reveals over the
past few days is that authorities have now stated that
(31:57):
they recovered an knife at the scene, and the knife
is not a typical knife. We have been talking for
years now about Idaho and what were we talking about
k Bar over and over and over and over again
when Idaho occurred. You know, people were talking about rambow knives,
(32:24):
they were talking about military knives. They didn't they hadn't
absolutely identified anything yet. And of course we found out
that it was k Bar, which is in fact is
a lethal specifically meant that is specifically manufactured to kill
people with the for the military Dave. The knife that
they found is something that either you or I could
(32:46):
go to any big box store store and not go
to the sporting good section, but walk back into the
home goods section and pick up a block of these
knives and they come in a block, and everybody's going
to know what I'm talking about. It's these new ceramic
style knives that they have, and they have everything that
(33:07):
a standard steel knife set has. You know, you've got
a variety of different cutlery that are contained therein but
these things are made out of ceramics with a rubber handle,
very sharp. They get the job done. And the knife
that was actually utilized, and I think that this is
a big key to solving this thing, is a kitchen
knife that if you'll just envision in your mind, this
(33:31):
is the same style knife that you would use if
you were on your cutting board and you're chopping up onions,
or you're chopping up peppers, or you're preparing a meal
with It's got a very broad blade on it with
a very sharp tip. It's a lime green. I don't
know how it is to describe it lime green, neon green,
or whatever the case might be.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
That was the murder weapon.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
That was the murder weapon. So I got to tell
you there's.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Just that kind of knife job. I've never heard of
them until you started telling me about it.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, you've seen them, trust me, Trust me, you have
seen these. They're everywhere probably no, no, no, no, they are.
People get them as wedding gifts and they're ceramic. When
you see these things, they really stand out. It's like
it's like if you misplaced it in the kitchen, it
(34:22):
wouldn't be misplaced long. You'd be like, where did I
put my knife? And it's like glowing on the cap
or that brilliant you know when you see it. And
so what does that tell me as an investigator?
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Well?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Do you real?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Because what it tells me is that I don't own
those knives? So I'm not it.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
You're on the Christmas list, it's heading your way. So, uh,
Santa Claus is right around the corner, brother. Okay, So
in this particular case, I believe that this knife was
potentially a weapon of convenience. Now, what did we say?
People show up and they manufacture a city out of nothing,
(35:02):
and they bring their domestic bobbles with them out there.
You know what am I going to need in order
to survive for a week? Am I going to need
a gas stove? Am I going to need a generator?
Because you know, in the words of Blanche Dubois, you're
not going to be able to be dependent upon the
(35:24):
kindness of strangers, even though you have exchange that will
take place, and you're bartering for things, you want to
come prepared. Well, what are you going to bring? Well,
if you're let's just say that you love onions, all right,
and you're going to cook up some meal that contains onions,
well you need something to chop them up with. Oh yeah,
(35:45):
In my camper, I've got this block of lime green
knives that I purchased at Sam's or wholesale club, you know, BJ's,
Wholesale Club or you name it, Walmart, it doesn't matter.
And they've got these things sitting in their camper. Well,
why is it that somebody would draw this knife out
(36:07):
of the block that you would have it inserted into
and take it out there and thrust it through the
neck of this poor fellow. That's an artist that's been
creating things out there in the middle of the desert
for an entire week. Why is it. It's not like
they went to some major sporting goods store Dave and
(36:28):
literally went out and bought a k bar or bought
a survival knife. That's not what this is. This smacks
of somebody that's there in a domestic situation, temporary domestic situation,
that has this knife at their convenience. And interestingly enough,
I would see when I would work cases in both
(36:50):
Atlanta and New Orleans involving homeless people, I did come
across homeless people that would arm themselves, would like steak knives,
and they would use them for a variety of things.
You know, even sailors that are on boats years and
years ago and maybe today. I'm not a sailor, I'm
an old soldier, but they have the utility of having
(37:12):
a knife on their belt because there's all kinds of
things you have to do. You have to cut things
with it, you have to pry things open. That's you.
You wouldn't use this knife in order to build something
with It wouldn't last very long.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah, I wouldn't have that knife.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
I mean, it looks like something to be great in
the kitchen, and only in the kitchen. Like I have
knives that pardon me, when I'm leaving the house to
go fishing or doing something, I don't carry a knife
like that. I carry a knife that bold. I do
have a long one I do have.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
I do have a rainbow knife with it. You know.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
I've got my little screw with the compass and the
string and survival knife just in case, because you never
know what day you're going to jump off a cliffland
and the tree and say yours up up.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
It's something that could happen.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
And so I would didn't have a knife like this
on a temporary journey somewhere now. In my motor home, Joe,
in my motor home, I had stuff like this, Yes,
just for the motor home. It wasn't for anything else.
We didn't bring these in the house. This was just
our motor home stuff. It wasn't every day, it didn't
(38:19):
get mixed in. And that includes plates, perhaps everything the
whole nine years.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, I think I think most people operate that way.
You buy it specifically for that for your house on wheels,
if you will, absolutely, And so you know, when I
saw that they had released this information. I'm not going
to say it was like some huge episthanal moment for me,
but as an investigator, I would begin to think about, well,
(38:47):
if I have the knife, can I track it down
to a manufacture If it came from a specific manufacturer,
then what was a lot number in which it was
manufactured in when was the sing manufacturing? And what retailers
sell this thing? Where do you go? Because you know, listen,
(39:07):
first off, you've got a chaotic scene. I'm going to
get into that in just a second, but when you
think about seventy thousand people, that's an estimate, all right,
seventy thousand people that are congregated in this one locale. Dude,
as soon as the scene is over with, they're in
the wind, they're gone the crime scene. Joe, Well.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Out, look, if you come to my house because I'm
laying dead, the first thing you're doing is everybody stands still.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yeah, but you move.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
You know, if you're in a bar investigating and stabbing
everybody that's here when they haven't get back up your
hands against the wall, I mean it's.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Yeah, you're going to remove, You're going to remove the witnesses,
but you have this is the nightmare that the police
are faced with. You know, how do you cry? And
can you imagine You've got a very limited number of
law enforcement officers out there. I don't know how many
of these guys in rural Nevada have ever worked a homicide,
much less a park ranger, a federal park ranger. No
(40:11):
disrespect that. I've met some that are lovely people and
they do a great job, and they it's a dangerous
shop because they work in isolation. But it's not like
it's not like you're you know, you've got the Okay,
let's just say it this way. It's not like you
have Las Vegas or Clark County Sheriff's office with their
entire homicide division, right, that's that's going to show up
(40:33):
and work this case.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
They don't have the mobile command unit that's coming out there.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
No, no, And they look, this little sheriff's office up
there might very well have and they probably had something
set up like that. But how are you It's just
the idea overwhelming. You know. It's like the old adage
spitting in the ocean doesn't do too much good to
raise water level, you know, so you think, you think
(40:57):
about that and it would be the one word that
comes to mind would be bewildering. I think just from
a human standpoint, if you're the investigator and you're looking around,
you're thinking, oh my lord, how are we going to
ever manage? And it's not like this is something that
happens on an island that's isolated that no one's ever
(41:21):
going to talk about. Suddenly this little jurisdiction has the
entire eyes of the world on it. Okay, this is
a festival that has been going on for years and
years and years and years. People want to know and
can you imagine the calls that these people are getting.
They want to know what's going on? Are you going
(41:43):
to track this down? Are you going to track that down?
Here's another thing, there's a couple of things long way.
I'm kind of on a roll right now. But when
you think, because it's so even as I'm sitting here,
I think my heart rate is increasing a little bit.
To think crime scene management. You made a good point
(42:03):
just a second ago, Dave, about how do you quater
in this area off? How do you secure it? Because
that that is that's the underpinning of everything we do
in death scene investigations. We secure the perimeter of the scene. Well,
the big question is how big is your perimeter going
to be?
Speaker 3 (42:21):
Dude?
Speaker 1 (42:22):
How big is this thing going to be? How far
out are you going to expand it and to boot
this is happening at night? Are you going to look
for blood trails on this dirty desert surface? Is there
going to be anything there? Do you have any evidence
that somebody walked away and they've got blood tripping up
where they injured. Well, they certainly didn't carry the knife
(42:44):
off with them, They left it there. So did this
individual have any kind of blood that was on them
that was you know that may he if he clipped
an artery, you might have arterial spray, you know, which,
given the volume of blood that they're talking about, that
(43:05):
could have happened. But are you going to notice this
individual in a crowd of people that I don't know
what the bathroom facilities are like, I don't know if
they have portable showers. There's probably a lot of people
out there there, I don't know, they're kind of funky.
By now, everybody's going to have a little bit of
dirt on them, and this person just wanders off and
disappears into the crowd. Now, I will say this, this
(43:29):
gentleman actually had friends that were there, and they were
native Russians as well. He had had several friends that
were there allegedly with him. They're going to be a
source of information. I can almost dollars to donuts. I
can guarantee you that the police have, you know, because
(43:49):
they're vested. They want to know who kill their friend,
right one of them, and they want to be able
to explain it to his family over in Russia. And
so they're going to be asking them who was he
interacting with when he was here? Was there anybody that
popped up on your radar? Had you seen anybody walking
around with a lime green neon knife at any point
in time? Had he made mention of this sort of thing?
(44:13):
I was really thinking about, well, could there be any
transfer evidence on either him or more specifically on that knife.
The first thing that really came to mind is going
to be fingerprints, any kind of latent prints that are
(44:34):
left behind on the surface of that knife. Now, would
it be possible to lift them? Hard to say the
handle is actually rubber. I think that one of the
things that they would have to do would probably be
obviously secure that knife and get that knife to the
crime lab as soon as I can. They would probably
have to do superglue fuming on this thing, so that
(44:58):
when the super glue, you heat the super glue up
and you put it actually in an aquarium. You kind
of suspend it in the air and it's a super
glue heats up, it falls back down in a kind
of a it's in a vapor form, and it settles
on those fatty lip its that are left behind, you know,
(45:19):
from our greasy fingertips, and you can you can capture
a fingerprint that way.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Is that pause I learned from watching forty eight hour
I mean Beverly Hills Cop you.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Know, yeah, yeah, yeah, he did.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
So it's it's so very complex if you're thinking about footprints,
forget it, because you got so much stuff that's co
mingled out there, people shuffling around. How long did he
lay there? Were they able to do a post mortem
interval measurement on him, you know when they actually do
the assessment, because that goes back to well, first off,
(45:57):
we would have to establish a baseline into somebody last
see this guy living in breathing When was the last
time Smuddy spoke with him? I cannot fathom in my
mind a case recently where that bit of information is
is is so important. You know, it's exemplified in this
(46:20):
case because that's going to be key to this. And
then you marry that up with what you're finding, you know,
on the body. What's the body telling you about what happened?
I don't know. It's it's a huge mess, you know.
I got to tell you a tip of the cap
to the police that are working this. It's it's very easy,
(46:43):
obviously to come up with a cause and certainly a
manner of this. In this case, they ruled the manner
as a homicide as well it should be. This guy
did not stab himself in the neck. They're out there
actively looking. But the problem is is that where do
you begin. Where do you begin to find a suspect?
(47:05):
Is there any physical evidence that was left behind on
either the victim's body, on this instrument, or was there
any kind of circumstantial evidence associated with conversations that he
had had, things that were overheard, or maybe something that
an eyewitness picked up on. I don't know. I can
tell you this though. We're going to stay up speed
(47:28):
on this case. And Brother Dave and I are going
to come back, and we'll give you an update as
soon as we know more. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
this is Bodybacks
Body Bus with Joseph's Gotten More. Arguably one of the
most terrifying movies that I ever saw when I was
a kid, was actually made in nineteen seventy three, and
it's a cult horror film. I don't know. It just
(00:22):
really scared the double light of me for whatever reason.
But the name of it was called The wicker Man,
and I think that the reason it was so terrifying
was that the idea was that there were sacrifices being made,
(00:43):
and you see this thing in these offerings that are
made at the end of that movie, and it was
something that really stuck with me, and not being obviously
in a tend to burning man, when I saw this
(01:03):
effigy that for years now has been burned in conclusion
to that event, it reminded me of The wicker Man.
I'm not the first person that has actually, you know,
talked about this over a period of time. But you
know what's even more terrified is that when life, maybe
(01:29):
on some level, imitates art, It's one thing to maybe
think about sacrifice human sacrifice, it's completely another thing when
it comes about that you have a homicide that's committed
(01:51):
and one of the most attended events in American history
for a protracted period of time. As a matter of fact,
when an attendee looks down at her feet, she sees
a man lying there in a pool of blood, and
chaos is all around, and there are, in fact no answers.
(02:18):
I'm Josephcott Morgan and this is Bodybags, David. I've been
talking about this event, you know, that happened out there
at out in Nevada, out of the that high desert,
(02:39):
the isolated areas out there. You know, I guess it's
been a couple of weeks now. I first was asked
to appear on Fox and Friends about about this homicide.
This fellow that was in attendance and had been there,
he's actually an artist. He's a Russian national actually who
had been living in the States for some time. It
(03:01):
was domiciled up in Washington State. And I just, you know,
they asked me what I thought about it, you know,
when I went on air with Fox and Friends, and
you know, just kind of break it down and how
complex the scene would be, how isolated it is. And
I was really shocked by the comments and that I
(03:24):
received from this. And I got to tell you what,
what a bunch of you know, pretentious, self involved individuals.
You know. When they were making comments in regards to
what I was, my perspective was was that, you know, uh,
(03:45):
this is a homicide investigation. I don't I don't really
have a dog in the fight. You know, whatever you
want to do out in the desert. If you want
to build a town and then set a big effigy
on fire, have at it, man. You know, make sure
that you stand back when you strike them mad.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
You're not going to be talking about it unless there's
a reason to talk about it on network television, which
means there was a murder, there's.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
A dead body.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah. I was coming into a friend the other day.
It's like, I, you know, about this particular topic, and
I was like, I couldn't believe the responses that I got.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
You know, people they were attacking you because you.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I had never been to Burning Man. It's like, well, damn, man,
I've never been to Moscow other you know, I've covered
cases that occurred there. I've covered cases that that happened
and you know, in far flong places around. We just
did the mushroom lady, you know a while back. And
as much as I'd like to go to Australia and
(04:46):
the people are lovely and uh.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
I've read that they've been asking us to.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Come down there. By the way, I've never been to Australia,
but I can talk about a homicide.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I think governments that the kind of government would lock
me up. I'm afraid of Australia that I don't want
to get you. I got to bring it back with
me to do. We have too much work to do. Okay,
we got burning Man. Okay, you've got this festival that
goes on a week. It's an art festival and they've
got the ten tenants of Burning Man. And look, man,
whatever you do that doesn't it's like, you know what, Joe,
(05:16):
you're not allowed to say.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
I don't care anymore. I don't care what you do.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, I'm It's like, if you're an adult in the
United States of America, do what you want. Man, have
at it. It's between you and your God. I don't care.
And you know why I don't care, because you're an adult.
You can do whatever you want. I don't have to care.
And the thing is, no, unless you need my permission,
then why do you care what I think? It's like
(05:41):
we've lost this you know.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
I've lost the plot completely, you know, and this is
kind of I think the reaction that guy is kind
of an example of that. But at the end of
the day, what I am interested in is when I
have a fellow who is a homicide victim and he's
bleeding out from his neck and there are no answers.
(06:07):
I approach this, and I don't want to give away
the plot here, but I approach this almost from an
academic standpoint, because I'll put it to you this way.
If I were to have a case that I wanted
to demonstrate to my students at university about what the
ultimate nightmare scenario is relative to scene security, collection of evidence, assessment,
(06:34):
having to get resources, which is something that we actually
talk about. Dude, that you've hit the apex here we're
at this is a perfect example of worst case scenario.
And you know when you work, when you work and
do planning for things, you always work out worst case
(06:56):
scenario because it's like, if you handle worst case scenario,
many times, the logic goes that when other things occur,
you'll be prepared for them. You prepare, you know the
old adage, you prepare for the worst. I was on
the nineteen ninety six Olympic Planning Committee. I was like
the representative for the medical examiner way you know, way
(07:19):
back when, and you know, and I would go in
these rooms and you know, and listen intently to what
they were talking about planning, you know, for worst case
scenario relative to police and fire and ambulance services. And
here I am, I'm the one medical examiner guy in
the back. You know, when we worked when the Olympics
(07:41):
came to town, they couldn't figure out how to classify
the medical examiner. And we had these kind of fancy
they were an early version of a barcode digital ID
that you had with your picture on it. But they
had certain codes on these things to say what your
role was while you have the ID, you know, and
(08:02):
I thought mine would say medical examiner on it or whatever.
We get our we actually get our IDs the day
of opening ceremony. Guess what badges they gave us and
what they said on them. They didn't even have a
skull and crossbones on them. They said vendor And I'm
thinking you got to be kidney, So wow, I'm an
(08:25):
EMMY investigator working in Atlanta. You're talking about these horrible things.
That could potentially happen. And I'm the vendor. What am
I going to do? Bring hot dogs to the scene.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I don't understand. And as it turned out, and as
it turned out, you know, we we had the Olympic
Park bombing and that was a nightmare because just like we.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Have a class on how you blame the wrong guy
for saving lives and get him to ruin the rest
of life.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, yeah, you're gonna get me started on my friend
Richard Jewel here and it won't be pretty.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
I do want to get into one thing, Joe and
bringing Man where they talk about it is a city
built out of nowhere. Okay, it's seventy thousand people strong,
and they build an entire city. And the whole idea
is you bring whatever you need for the week and
you leave.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
That's it. You don't leave anything behind.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And I will tell you that there's a massive cleanup
that goes on every year because half of the participants
leave stuff behind. Of course, I'm not blaming anybody for this.
For anybody who's ever been to the Talladega super Speedway. Wait,
if you drive I twenty between Atlanta and Birmingham, you
see the fastest track in the world. It's an amazing
site and every year, twice a year, there are seventy
(09:35):
thousand people camping out in the world's largest free camping area.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Just camping, just camping.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
They got camped, they got tense, and they it's a
but the thing is Joe, there is a camaraderie among
the people that go. A lot of people take their vacation.
Seventy five percent of the tickets are sold out of state.
So this is for two weeks out of the year,
an incredible city of over one hundred thousand people. All
of a sudden it becomes I think the third largest
city in the state of Alabama for the weeks of
(10:02):
the track. And so when I was looking at this
burning man, the murder, because there's always deaths at the
Talladega super Speedway, they are not what you would expect.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
A lot of times are very odd.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
There's always a lot of there's always a lot of
weird stories that.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Come out of these events.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
You know, where you have a bunch of people together
for a very short window, like at Woodstock. Do you
know how many people died of drug overdoses at Woodstock?
Do you have any babies were born at Woodstock.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I have heard that there were several I don't know
how many.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
We've all heard that, and it's all a lie. There
was never a baby born at Woodstock. There was not
an overdose death. One of the deaths actually was run
over by one of the trash trucks that rolled over
his sleeping bag that he was in because he was
passed out. Yeah, it didn't happen the way they tell
you it did. There's not one child born at Woodstock
(10:53):
that had to be registered up there in upstate New
York as a human being being born there. But I
tell you that because in this case, if you had
told me that this is the first time they had
an incident like this, where you've got a thirty seven
year old man who is really and truly coming from
Russia to the United States of America. And I can
just imagine the heart on this guy. And he's there
(11:16):
as an artist, and he's experiencing this whole week and
it's been a great week. And as you're going to
this major event that the whole week builds towards, we
end up with seventy thousand people ooping and hollering and
doing a dance around a guy that bleeds out and
nobody helps him. How does that happen? Joseph Scott Morgan.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, and I think that you know, first off, okay,
here's what you're doing with And I was actually press
I did not initiate this, just so you know, so
that everybody listening, I did not initiate this. This what
is it? Query? If you will. Somebody asked me, well,
would hallucinogens factor into these events? Would any kind of
(12:02):
substance that someone would have been taken? And I'm like, well, yeah,
I mean there are people that can imbibe and any
number of substances that are mind altering, and the reality,
their perception of reality is not what it would have
been otherwise. And and what I mean by that is
(12:24):
that you can see things if you're taking some mind
altering substance where you might perceive it as a threat otherwise,
you know, if you're if you're just like this normal
person that works in an office and you've gotten away
and say, yeah, yeah, I think I'm going to do
a head of acid or I'm going to do mushrooms
(12:45):
or I don't know, whatever, whatever, you know, pick your poison,
whatever it is, and it changes your worldview in that
moment and in the frenzy of the crowd, because we
have to understand that police believe, police believe that Adam
(13:05):
Gruglov he actually may have been killed. At that conclusive
moment where this effigy is set ablaze, now this signals
the end of this festival. It's like the big culmination.
And you know, you had mentioned that there were seventy
(13:27):
thousand people there, and that's very significant. One thing I
did find out along the way is that the numbers
have dropped. They're not as robust as they once were,
and it's probably the same you know in other instances.
(13:47):
I'm from New Orleans. My favorite thing to do in
New Orleans is during the year is not going to
Marty Grass. My favorite thing when I was living in
New Orleans was to go to New Orleans Jazz Fest,
which by far is consistently packed to the brim with people,
and as a matter of fact, I think the population
(14:09):
that attends that has increased every year. But you know what,
you got running water, you got toilets, you got some
of the best food in the world, you got some
of the best music, and you never know who's going
to be playing and again you're in the desert. You've
got nothing they you know, you'd mentioned this for our
(14:29):
friends out there that are not familiar. They actually conct
construct this town out of nothing. They call it a town.
But this dwelling, this temporary village. You have tents, you
have campers that are out there. So you've got people
that have kind of transported their domesticity, I guess, their
(14:55):
domestic life out there so that they can survive. And Dave,
I got to tell you, I got to tell you
that in and of itself, is a huge clue in
this case. As a matter of fact, I'm going to
reveal a bit of evidence that, in my opinion, is
going to lead potentially to identification of a killer. I've
(15:31):
tried to put myself in the shoes of an individual
that has been just enjoying themselves for an entire week.
You know, after you've been in a place, it's kind
of like camping. You know, you go into a location,
particularly if you're primitive camp which me and my family
have done, particularly when our kids were younger. We'd go
(15:54):
out and set up a tent and just kind of live,
you know, in the wilderness. You know, for a week
or so, and and and we enjoyed ourselves.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Story joe Gan bit of camping.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Okay, yeah, I like to do that when I was younger,
but as I when my back started getting bad, my
kids were at that age where they wanted to camp,
and I didn't want them to you forego that, and
so we did. But whenever we went, I always took
what I needed. I wanted them to enjoy. I wanted
them to have fun. But my guy, I always had
my generator, I always had my TV. I always had
(16:28):
a DVD player and an air conditioner, and I would
tell them, you guys want to camp in the tent.
It's right there. I set it up. There's a fire,
We'll sit around and sing. I'll tell you some scary stories.
But when you go lay down in that tent, I'm
going to be back here in the back of my ranger,
my mattress, my air conditioner, and y'all can just suck
it because I'm old.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I'm not kidding, primitive cacta.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I dig what you're saying, man, I mean I feel
the same way camp. Kimmy loves to camp. It's it's
it's not my jam. Necessarily, I got over it. It's
not something I necessarily want to do. I'm not a
big fan of driving down the road in a camper
because I'm terrified I'm going to wreck the thing, and
you invest thousands of thousands of dollars. I'm very cautionary
(17:16):
in that sense.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
You would be a train wreck and a motor home man.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yeah, there's no way. There's no way I could do it.
I could never enjoy myself. That is so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
It was My most fun trip was a motor home
trip in my family that all the kids hated, except
for Hannish because she barely remembers it. Not getting a
different story for a different day. But back to burning Man,
where you got all these people coming together and they're
spending a week together with people they don't know. And
by the way, all of the art and all the
things that are going on, you can look up the
ten tenants of burning Men. There are ten things they
live by philosophically and physically. There's a deal not having money,
(17:50):
you trade you part. As a matter of fact, one
of the things you can do is offer a conversation
for a drink. And I'm gonna be honest with you
I'm having spent a lot of my time in the
life in establishments with adults who like to drink and talk.
If somebody came and told me, hey, man, give me
a drink of that and we'll talk, I'll be like,
I'll give you a drink of that if you leave,
(18:11):
you know, if you go over there and talk to them.
But that's what burning men is all about. And at
the end of the week, you know, they bring art
there and show off. And they had some really big
stuff over the years. Now was it two years ago
they had a flood. A year or two ago there
were a massive storm.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Was a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, yeah, But now you're talking about they've recovered from
the horrible storm. Now you've got seventy thousand people there
and they've been partying all week, had a lot of fun,
met new friends, started new relationships, and they've got their art.
They're getting ready to burn because they destroy it. The
whole idea is you build it, you show it off,
and you destroy it. Now they do take a few
things back. Some people just can't do it. I hope
(18:48):
I could, but I don't know that I would, you know,
and burning it is a way of really etching it
in your mind, if something you did and realizing that
it has no value.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
And I love that thought. I loved it it.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, you know, actually it is a very cool thought
that a lot of the temporal stuff in this life
doesn't really have a lot of value, and it's the
moments that you spend with people that you care about.
And I don't know, I think we talked about that
to a great degree on body bags. We touch on
the fragility of life and how suddenly it can all
end and come to an end right quick as a
(19:21):
matter of fact. But can you imagine in dwelling a
space and for a week and maybe you know the
victim you've seen him about, because this guy he was
actually he's an artist and he had actually gone out
to construct one of these, you know, one of these
(19:41):
structures that was art. He's an artist and had spent
time doing it. And from what I understand it, it
was rather large, and you know, you want people to
take notice of it, But can you can you just
for a second transport yourself to the finders? And we've
(20:02):
talked about who a finder is previously on bodybacks, who
the finder was. They may have seen the victim. They
may have spoken with him, maybe they shared one of
those drinks that you mentioned. Okay, But then as the
thing comes to a finale at about nine o'clock that night,
(20:26):
this individual who is the finder, looks down at their
feet and an individual is motionless, and what do they see. Well,
they see what police have characterized as a significant pool
of blood. And it was the initiative of the person
(20:46):
that was the finder. There were Share steputies around and
trying to flag down a share deputy and get them
over there to assess this person. Now at night, Yeah,
it's at night. It's like nine pm when this went down,
when this individual was discovered. So let's just talk about
(21:09):
logistics here just for a second. If you're in the
life saving, life protecting and life saving business, can you
imagine how much has to go into getting someone from
a scene that is so isolated where they don't even
have self service, Dave, they don't have self service in
(21:31):
this area to try to get them to some facility
that could save their life. And are you going to
have those types of resources on site? Because I got
to tell you the reason she saw a pool of blood.
As it turns out, and according to authorities that has
(21:52):
just been released in the last few days. He had
a large sharp force injury singular to his throat. Now,
I got to tell you, if someone has had a
blade inserted into their neck, that might be other than
(22:14):
stabbing somebody directly in the heart, that might be the
most lethal area you could ever attack somebody. Yet, and
here's why. The vessel structures that are contained in all
of the organs of the neck, that kind of rope
their way around and snaked through and there you know
(22:35):
you've got venus return, you've got arterial delivery. Not to mention,
you've got an airway. There are so many critical areas
in the neck that just by clipping one of these areas,
you think about the croateid, you think about the juggler vein,
You're going to bleed out. And I don't care if
(22:55):
you had and I've said this before, but I don't care.
If you've got highly skilled surgeons that are standing by,
and you've got units of blood that you can hang,
there's a high probability this is going to be unsurvivable,
even if they've gotten to him in time. You know,
you think about applying direct pressure all those things to
(23:18):
kind of stem stem, the blood flow that's coming out
of this body. What are you going to do? This
is not like you've got to cut on the back
of your hand where you can wrap it up apply pressure.
And yet we're going to get you to the emergency room.
Might be an hour or so, but we'll get you there.
They'll be able to examine it, stit you up, and
maybe if you need surgery that can be done. No, no, no, no, no,
(23:38):
that's not what we're talking about. Out of all the
locations on the human body that you could sustain an injury,
the fact that you take a knife to the neck
is I think that it goes relative to the attacker.
In this case, there's a real sense of purpose of
lethality here.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
It's not like you swung the knife and kind of
sliced at them. This is you actually approach the individual
and inserted them right yeah, yeah, I mean right into
their next out. Then you begin to think about, well,
what in the world, what in the world, And I
would imagine investigators are asking this right now, what in
(24:22):
the world could someone what would have been their motivation
for having taken the young man's life. I mean, he's
only in his late thirties. He's an artist, you know.
I don't know if he had any confrontations with anybody
out there. I don't know if someone didn't like his art,
someone didn't like him because maybe he was from Russia.
(24:45):
I have no idea there. And the thing about it
is out there, Dave, there are people that come there
from all over the world.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Right, it's an art thing.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
I mean, beyond all the jokes of one might make
about you know, communes and things like that. You're dealing
with a world renowned event that's been taking place for
many years, seventy thousand people in one spot for a week,
that takes a lot of effort, a lot of time,
and a lot of organization. And still I'm thinking, if
that's me, And let's just say it was accidental, Joe.
(25:16):
You know, somebody's messing around in Boom, you get accidentally knife.
You're in the middle of seventy thousand people, all at night,
in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, and you said,
no cell phone, no wife, I know nothing. I'm thinking,
do you hope and pray there's an eighteen wheeler with
a CB and somebody can connect to a base station.
How do you get any help. I mean, I know
(25:37):
they've got medics, but how do you get help for
something like this in the middle of nowhere amongst thousands
of people.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah, and that would be that's the rub here. And
of course that carries over which we will get into.
That carries over into crompscene management as well.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
I mean, you start, how do you start with that, Joe?
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Because you mentioned the finder looks down and he's a
guy in a puddle of blood.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Okay, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
They have to yeah, and they have to track somebody
down that's wearing a badge and a vest and a
firearm that's just kind of standing there. Now. There were
representatives from the local county sheriff's department. You also had
individuals that were federal federal park rangers that are out
there who are police officers as well. I actually talked
(26:23):
to a student of mine, former student from my early
days of teaching, and I will not say what agency
he is with, but he's a federal police officer and
he was assigned to burning Man many years ago, and
he had reached out to me in a text message
(26:45):
and he said, have you been following the scene, you know,
out at burning Man? And I was like, yeah, actually
I made a comment on on television about it. He's like, yeah,
when when I worked out there many years ago and
I was a sign to do this, he said. I
got out there and he was like, how in the
(27:05):
hell are we going to manage this? Because you know,
you're kind of dropped down into this environment that has
been chosen. You can try to plan for any kind
of scenario relative to communication, relative to transport. You know,
you have to have resources and have somebody on alert.
(27:27):
That's like, because when a population of seventy thousand people,
you have no idea what kind of medical histories are
out there. They're going to be so varied. You might
have people that have terminal events going on in their life.
You might have people that have major drug problems. You
might have people that are genetically predisposed. You might have
people that have severe heart disease and they just want
(27:47):
to go out there and enjoy themselves. But you never
it's going to be a mixed back, So you have
to be prepared. Are you going to be able to
metavack somebody out of there? And what's the closest hospital
you can get them to? And I'm sure that a
lot of that stuff had been laid out. But when
it comes to how do you plan for a homicide
(28:09):
and you've got the potential of sixty nine thousand, nine
hundred and ninety nine suspects, where do you go from there? So,
(28:36):
Brother Dave, we know at this moment in time that
there is no suspect that they have, at least that
they've identified to this point in involving the homicide of
mister Krugelov.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Yeah, very quick question. Yeah, sure, Okay, we.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Know that he was found in a pool of blood.
Was he dead when they actually did?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah? I think that he was. And that's this is
the other thing. If you've got this kind of injury,
all right, you're going to die of what's referred to
as exanguination. And it's a ten dollars word that people
in my field in medicine love to use, which means
you bleed out and there's no way to stem the flow.
(29:23):
And I've had people Dave over the course of my
career that have bled out from the slightest little injury.
As a matter of fact, I was reviewing a case
I was teaching crumsene assessment the other day to one
of my undergrad undergrad classes at jack State. And I
worked a case in Atlanta many years ago where two
(29:45):
guys had gotten drunk and the other guy took a
folding pocket knife and merely stabbed stabbed his friend that
was in the hotel room with him in the crook
of his right arm. And that's also in medicine, they
refer to that as the ACF. It's an a cubital
(30:07):
fossa is the term, but it's the crook of the arm.
And there's again there's a network of vessels that pass
through there. Matter of fact, a major vessel that runs
through there as well. And he bled out simply from
a very it was I think, if I remember correctly,
(30:28):
that wound in the crook of his arm may have
been two thirds of an inch in depth, and it
killed him. He bled out there on the spot, So
you never know. And then I've had cases where people
had huge, gaping injuries to their chest and they survived
for hours. It just it didn't clip anything that was
(30:50):
critical at that point in time. The wound might look
absolutely horrible, but it's amazing, you know, when you begin
to think about sharp force injuries. We talked about sharp
force injuries, and we have stabbings, just as like a
quick review, a primer, if you will. We have stabbings,
and we have in sized injuries, and so in sized
(31:12):
injuries are like slices, so they are shallow, but they're
long most of the time. Stabbings they're deep and concentrated.
So you go into and look, our friends are very
bright that listen to the show. I think, I think
we've got the brightest audience out there. If you insert
(31:33):
it into a specific area, there's a higher probability that
deep within, deep within that anatomical structure, you've got a
high probability of clipping something, as it turns out at
this scene. And one of the bigger reveals over the
past few days is that authorities have now stated that
(31:57):
they recovered an knife at the scene, and the knife
is not a typical knife. We have been talking for
years now about Idaho and what were we talking about
k Bar over and over and over and over again
when Idaho occurred. You know, people were talking about rambow knives,
(32:24):
they were talking about military knives. They didn't they hadn't
absolutely identified anything yet. And of course we found out
that it was k Bar, which is in fact is
a lethal specifically meant that is specifically manufactured to kill
people with the for the military Dave. The knife that
they found is something that either you or I could
(32:46):
go to any big box store store and not go
to the sporting good section, but walk back into the
home goods section and pick up a block of these
knives and they come in a block, and everybody's going
to know what I'm talking about. It's these new ceramic
style knives that they have, and they have everything that
(33:07):
a standard steel knife set has. You know, you've got
a variety of different cutlery that are contained therein but
these things are made out of ceramics with a rubber handle,
very sharp. They get the job done. And the knife
that was actually utilized, and I think that this is
a big key to solving this thing, is a kitchen
knife that if you'll just envision in your mind, this
(33:31):
is the same style knife that you would use if
you were on your cutting board and you're chopping up onions,
or you're chopping up peppers, or you're preparing a meal
with It's got a very broad blade on it with
a very sharp tip. It's a lime green. I don't
know how it is to describe it lime green, neon green,
or whatever the case might be.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
That was the murder weapon.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
That was the murder weapon. So I got to tell
you there's.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Just that kind of knife job. I've never heard of
them until you started telling me about it.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, you've seen them, trust me, Trust me, you have
seen these. They're everywhere probably no, no, no, no, they are.
People get them as wedding gifts and they're ceramic. When
you see these things, they really stand out. It's like
it's like if you misplaced it in the kitchen, it
(34:22):
wouldn't be misplaced long. You'd be like, where did I
put my knife? And it's like glowing on the cap
or that brilliant you know when you see it. And
so what does that tell me as an investigator?
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Well?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Do you real?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Because what it tells me is that I don't own
those knives? So I'm not it.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
You're on the Christmas list, it's heading your way. So, uh,
Santa Claus is right around the corner, brother. Okay, So
in this particular case, I believe that this knife was
potentially a weapon of convenience. Now, what did we say?
People show up and they manufacture a city out of nothing,
(35:02):
and they bring their domestic bobbles with them out there.
You know what am I going to need in order
to survive for a week? Am I going to need
a gas stove? Am I going to need a generator?
Because you know, in the words of Blanche Dubois, you're
not going to be able to be dependent upon the
(35:24):
kindness of strangers, even though you have exchange that will
take place, and you're bartering for things, you want to
come prepared. Well, what are you going to bring? Well,
if you're let's just say that you love onions, all right,
and you're going to cook up some meal that contains onions,
well you need something to chop them up with. Oh yeah,
(35:45):
In my camper, I've got this block of lime green
knives that I purchased at Sam's or wholesale club, you know, BJ's,
Wholesale Club or you name it, Walmart, it doesn't matter.
And they've got these things sitting in their camper. Well,
why is it that somebody would draw this knife out
(36:07):
of the block that you would have it inserted into
and take it out there and thrust it through the
neck of this poor fellow. That's an artist that's been
creating things out there in the middle of the desert
for an entire week. Why is it. It's not like
they went to some major sporting goods store Dave and
(36:28):
literally went out and bought a k bar or bought
a survival knife. That's not what this is. This smacks
of somebody that's there in a domestic situation, temporary domestic situation,
that has this knife at their convenience. And interestingly enough,
I would see when I would work cases in both
(36:50):
Atlanta and New Orleans involving homeless people, I did come
across homeless people that would arm themselves, would like steak knives,
and they would use them for a variety of things.
You know, even sailors that are on boats years and
years ago and maybe today. I'm not a sailor, I'm
an old soldier, but they have the utility of having
(37:12):
a knife on their belt because there's all kinds of
things you have to do. You have to cut things
with it, you have to pry things open. That's you.
You wouldn't use this knife in order to build something
with It wouldn't last very long.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah, I wouldn't have that knife.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
I mean, it looks like something to be great in
the kitchen, and only in the kitchen. Like I have
knives that pardon me, when I'm leaving the house to
go fishing or doing something, I don't carry a knife
like that. I carry a knife that bold. I do
have a long one I do have.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
I do have a rainbow knife with it. You know.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
I've got my little screw with the compass and the
string and survival knife just in case, because you never
know what day you're going to jump off a cliffland
and the tree and say yours up up.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
It's something that could happen.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
And so I would didn't have a knife like this
on a temporary journey somewhere now. In my motor home, Joe,
in my motor home, I had stuff like this, Yes,
just for the motor home. It wasn't for anything else.
We didn't bring these in the house. This was just
our motor home stuff. It wasn't every day, it didn't
(38:19):
get mixed in. And that includes plates, perhaps everything the
whole nine years.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, I think I think most people operate that way.
You buy it specifically for that for your house on wheels,
if you will, absolutely, And so you know, when I
saw that they had released this information. I'm not going
to say it was like some huge episthanal moment for me,
but as an investigator, I would begin to think about, well,
(38:47):
if I have the knife, can I track it down
to a manufacture If it came from a specific manufacturer,
then what was a lot number in which it was
manufactured in when was the sing manufacturing? And what retailers
sell this thing? Where do you go? Because you know, listen,
(39:07):
first off, you've got a chaotic scene. I'm going to
get into that in just a second, but when you
think about seventy thousand people, that's an estimate, all right,
seventy thousand people that are congregated in this one locale. Dude,
as soon as the scene is over with, they're in
the wind, they're gone the crime scene. Joe, Well.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Out, look, if you come to my house because I'm
laying dead, the first thing you're doing is everybody stands still.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yeah, but you move.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
You know, if you're in a bar investigating and stabbing
everybody that's here when they haven't get back up your
hands against the wall, I mean it's.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Yeah, you're going to remove, You're going to remove the witnesses,
but you have this is the nightmare that the police
are faced with. You know, how do you cry? And
can you imagine You've got a very limited number of
law enforcement officers out there. I don't know how many
of these guys in rural Nevada have ever worked a homicide,
much less a park ranger, a federal park ranger. No
(40:11):
disrespect that. I've met some that are lovely people and
they do a great job, and they it's a dangerous
shop because they work in isolation. But it's not like
it's not like you're you know, you've got the Okay,
let's just say it this way. It's not like you
have Las Vegas or Clark County Sheriff's office with their
entire homicide division, right, that's that's going to show up
(40:33):
and work this case.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
They don't have the mobile command unit that's coming out there.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
No, no, And they look, this little sheriff's office up
there might very well have and they probably had something
set up like that. But how are you It's just
the idea overwhelming. You know. It's like the old adage
spitting in the ocean doesn't do too much good to
raise water level, you know, so you think, you think
(40:57):
about that and it would be the one word that
comes to mind would be bewildering. I think just from
a human standpoint, if you're the investigator and you're looking around,
you're thinking, oh my lord, how are we going to
ever manage? And it's not like this is something that
happens on an island that's isolated that no one's ever
(41:21):
going to talk about. Suddenly this little jurisdiction has the
entire eyes of the world on it. Okay, this is
a festival that has been going on for years and
years and years and years. People want to know and
can you imagine the calls that these people are getting.
They want to know what's going on? Are you going
(41:43):
to track this down? Are you going to track that down?
Here's another thing, there's a couple of things long way.
I'm kind of on a roll right now. But when
you think, because it's so even as I'm sitting here,
I think my heart rate is increasing a little bit.
To think crime scene management. You made a good point
(42:03):
just a second ago, Dave, about how do you quater
in this area off? How do you secure it? Because
that that is that's the underpinning of everything we do
in death scene investigations. We secure the perimeter of the scene. Well,
the big question is how big is your perimeter going
to be?
Speaker 3 (42:21):
Dude?
Speaker 1 (42:22):
How big is this thing going to be? How far
out are you going to expand it and to boot
this is happening at night? Are you going to look
for blood trails on this dirty desert surface? Is there
going to be anything there? Do you have any evidence
that somebody walked away and they've got blood tripping up
where they injured. Well, they certainly didn't carry the knife
(42:44):
off with them, They left it there. So did this
individual have any kind of blood that was on them
that was you know that may he if he clipped
an artery, you might have arterial spray, you know, which,
given the volume of blood that they're talking about, that
(43:05):
could have happened. But are you going to notice this
individual in a crowd of people that I don't know
what the bathroom facilities are like, I don't know if
they have portable showers. There's probably a lot of people
out there there, I don't know, they're kind of funky.
By now, everybody's going to have a little bit of
dirt on them, and this person just wanders off and
disappears into the crowd. Now, I will say this, this
(43:29):
gentleman actually had friends that were there, and they were
native Russians as well. He had had several friends that
were there allegedly with him. They're going to be a
source of information. I can almost dollars to donuts. I
can guarantee you that the police have, you know, because
(43:49):
they're vested. They want to know who kill their friend,
right one of them, and they want to be able
to explain it to his family over in Russia. And
so they're going to be asking them who was he
interacting with when he was here? Was there anybody that
popped up on your radar? Had you seen anybody walking
around with a lime green neon knife at any point
in time? Had he made mention of this sort of thing?
(44:13):
I was really thinking about, well, could there be any
transfer evidence on either him or more specifically on that knife.
The first thing that really came to mind is going
to be fingerprints, any kind of latent prints that are
(44:34):
left behind on the surface of that knife. Now, would
it be possible to lift them? Hard to say the
handle is actually rubber. I think that one of the
things that they would have to do would probably be
obviously secure that knife and get that knife to the
crime lab as soon as I can. They would probably
have to do superglue fuming on this thing, so that
(44:58):
when the super glue, you heat the super glue up
and you put it actually in an aquarium. You kind
of suspend it in the air and it's a super
glue heats up, it falls back down in a kind
of a it's in a vapor form, and it settles
on those fatty lip its that are left behind, you know,
(45:19):
from our greasy fingertips, and you can you can capture
a fingerprint that way.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Is that pause I learned from watching forty eight hour
I mean Beverly Hills Cop you.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Know, yeah, yeah, yeah, he did.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
So it's it's so very complex if you're thinking about footprints,
forget it, because you got so much stuff that's co
mingled out there, people shuffling around. How long did he
lay there? Were they able to do a post mortem
interval measurement on him, you know when they actually do
the assessment, because that goes back to well, first off,
(45:57):
we would have to establish a baseline into somebody last
see this guy living in breathing When was the last
time Smuddy spoke with him? I cannot fathom in my
mind a case recently where that bit of information is
is is so important. You know, it's exemplified in this
(46:20):
case because that's going to be key to this. And
then you marry that up with what you're finding, you know,
on the body. What's the body telling you about what happened?
I don't know. It's it's a huge mess, you know.
I got to tell you a tip of the cap
to the police that are working this. It's it's very easy,
(46:43):
obviously to come up with a cause and certainly a
manner of this. In this case, they ruled the manner
as a homicide as well it should be. This guy
did not stab himself in the neck. They're out there
actively looking. But the problem is is that where do
you begin. Where do you begin to find a suspect?
(47:05):
Is there any physical evidence that was left behind on
either the victim's body, on this instrument, or was there
any kind of circumstantial evidence associated with conversations that he
had had, things that were overheard, or maybe something that
an eyewitness picked up on. I don't know. I can
tell you this though. We're going to stay up speed
(47:28):
on this case. And Brother Dave and I are going
to come back, and we'll give you an update as
soon as we know more. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
this is Bodybacks
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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