May 16, 2024 • 37 mins
Dr. Werner Spitz is a man who spent his lifetime looking straight into the soul of man and looking death in the eye. On this episode of Body Bags, Joseph Scott Morgan gives a heartfelt tribute to a mentor he never met, a teacher that never gave him a test but one whose approval was sought in every written word and study as a death investigator. Dr. Werner Spitz passed away at the age of 97 on April 14, 2024, and this show is a special tribute to a man that actually did write the book of his profession, "Spitz and Fisher's Medicolegal Investigation of Death; Guidelines for the Application of Pathology to Crime Investigation.
Transcribe Highlights
00:33.95 Introduction to the life of Werner Spitz
05:59.93 Discussion of Spitz impact on forensic pathologists
09:53.32 Discussion of fleeing Nazi Germany
13:51.43 Talk about being the lone voice of truth that you see
17:35.73 Discussion of Mary Jo Kopechne
24:16.10 Discussion of Spitz being called into high profile situations
28:15.52 Talk about examination using photographs
31:38.41 Discussion of not being afraid to take on cases others wouldn't
36:52.60 Talk about paying for an opinion
37:01.94 Conclusion Those who fail to remember history, are doomed to repeat it
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Think about living in
Alabama as this. When spring comes along, we do enjoy
the glorious weather that we have here, but we also
(00:29):
live day to day with a chill that goes up
and down our spine. About the possibility of the worst
weather you can possibly ever imagine. We've had deaths for
years and years related to tornadic activity. With that, we
learn to understand when there's a gathering storm something off
(00:51):
to our west. Most of the time that's headed our way.
But you know, in life in general, you can see
where there are are gathering storms headed your way. The
fellow I'm going to talk about today his family saw
such a storm gathering in Europe prior to World War Two,
(01:14):
and if his family had not made the decision to
leave their little town in Germany, it's quite possible that
the world would have been deprived of when the single
(01:37):
greatest scientific minds of the twentieth century. Today in memoriam,
we're going to be discussing the life of doctor Werner Schwitz.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Backs. We've
(02:01):
talked a little bit Dave about my history as a
death investigator and for those that aren't necessarily familiar with that,
I'm not going to assume that everybody knows me. My
journey in this field started in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, and
I was working in the morgue. I was not working
(02:23):
full time as an investigator. Then I was volunteering working
in a morgue. That would have been in eighty five,
and I became enamored with the field of forensics and
death investigation because of a friend of mine named Bill Donovan.
Bill has passed on now, but he was truly my
mentor probably one of the best forensic scientists I ever knew,
(02:46):
and I viewed him as a brother and older brother.
But Bill said, if you're going to work in this field,
you have to have the correct information. And he said
the best information I can give you. And of course
this is you know, before the days of the Internet
(03:07):
and all that sort of thing. He says, I'm going
to give you something that you're not going to find
in a library, certainly a public library. And it was
the second edition of a Medical Legal Investigation of Death
Guidelines for the Application of Pathology to Crime Investigation. I
(03:27):
was given a second edition all right. And when Bill
handed me this book, which was absolutely gigantic, particularly to
you know, a twenty something at that point in time
that was not well read, it felt like he had
it handed me a boat anchor, because the thing is
(03:48):
so heavy, it's so dense, and oh my gosh, I
started flipping through this thing and I couldn't believe the
images I will see because it depicted every horror that
you can everything from start to animal attacks to any
kind of homicide, you can imagine, sexual related things, related deaths,
(04:10):
related to sexual activities. I mean at decomposition. I mean,
it was just this wealth of knowledge that you could
not generally find and most people were not aware of.
But as I came to find out, the book itself
was a real benchmark in forensic science history because it
was it was truly the first time anybody had actually
(04:33):
codified this collection of data all in one text that
was at that time had become the gold standard and
was being used everywhere by forensic fellows, people doing fellowships,
practicing forensic pathologists, and even police. But it doesn't go
by that long title that I gave you. You know
what the name of this book is To people that
(04:55):
work in the field. It's simply called Spits and Fisher.
And anytime you say Spitz and Fisher, people automatically conjure
up this image of this book in their mind, and
they know it. It jumps to mind. And this book
is like when I got the second edition, which I
think was printed in like seventy seven or eighty, I
(05:17):
can't recall. And this thing is still in print, and
it had originally been printed in the sixties. And here's
how I know that. Do you know who wrote the
Ford in this thing?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Einstein?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
No, it's a non scientist. Ramsey Clark actually wrote the
Ford and he was the Attorney General under Kennedy and
then became the Attorney General under Johnson. If I'm not mistaken,
I might have that wrong. But that's how far back
this went. And of course, being the chief I guess
(05:54):
you could view him as the chief law and federal
law enforcement agent in the nation. It carried some weight
with it when he essentially endorsed this book. But these
two authors. Russell Fisher, who passed on many years ago,
he was an interesting fellow in his own right. He
was the chief medical Examiner for the state of Maryland
(06:17):
and was working in Maryland when they still had corners.
He oversaw the transition to get away to do completely
away with a corner system in Maryland and turned it
into a statewide medical examiner's office. And that's another topic
we're going to talk about for another day, the corner system.
But Russell Fisher essentially oversaw the doing a way of
(06:41):
the corner system in Maryland and integrating the new medical
examiner system. But his partner in this book, Werner Spitz,
was an interesting character in and of himself because he
was the chief medical examiner in Wayne County, Michigan Detroit
(07:03):
in case you didn't know which. Of course, back in
the seventies, particularly Detroit began to gain a reputation as
a very violent town and you saw a lot of
forensic pathology that came out of there. So if you're
working as a death investigator in that environment in Detroit,
(07:26):
there's a lot that comes across your plate. There's a
lot that you can learn. But I think that it's
important to understand that that was at the end, I
guess closer to the end of doctor Spitz's career. Werner
Spitz he started he was born, interestingly enough, in what
(07:46):
was then Germany but is now Poland, and they saw
his parents, who both by the way, both his mom
and dad were physicians. They saw the rise of Nazism
and they fled. They actually fled and escaped the Nazis.
I think doctor Spitz was born in nineteen twenty six.
(08:08):
And the reason I wanted to do this is to
do this episode of Bodybags, is that doctor Spitz has
just passed away. And I got to tell you, Dave,
I don't know of a of a of a man
that had more of an impact on my life than
(08:33):
he did. But I never met him. I was in
a room with him one time, and I've met a
lot of friends of pathologists, but I never got a
chance to meet doctor Spitz. Because anytime you were around
him at a national meeting, you weren't the only one
around him. And look where all he is and was,
(08:55):
and you know, everybody would turn to him for advice.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
You know, when you told me you wanted to do this,
my first thought was I read there was an article
in Time magazine a couple of years ago, and it
was talking about him, specifically how he didn't coin the
phrase medical detective, but he certainly loved that he liked
that term. But they wrote this article on him. It
(09:23):
was two years ago in April, and they were, you know,
they were writing about him and the Casey Anthony, the
Kaylee Anthony case that he was called Christmas Eve who
come down and they needed his opinion on that's that's who,
that's who. Werner's fitz was that they had this huge
(09:47):
case Kaylee Anthony, Casey Anthony, the whole thing the world
is watching, and they called him to come in and
give us your medical opinion of what happened.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And that goes to who he was. I think, uh,
I love that the fact that you brought up this,
this term of medical detective, I find it intot. I
think there's a couple of there's a TV show out
there or something called the Medical Detectives or something like that,
and I think, you know, you might think you're the
medical detectives, but Werner Spitz was actually the medical detective.
(10:22):
He he was the person I think first that that
thought of this idea, because by their nature, physicians clinicians
are they're truly investigators. That's why I tell I tell people,
and this, you know, kind of goes hand in hand
with this. If I were to go out and seek
(10:46):
out a group of people that I was going to
hire if I was starting a medical legal staff, okay,
to work as investigators. Do you know who I would
hire as my investigators. I would actually hire nurses. I
wouldn't hire cops. Because the lion's share of death that
(11:08):
you work for in a medical examiner system and in
a corner system, they are not I'll tell you what
they are not. They are not homicides. That makes up
the very tiny percentage. The most of the cases that
you work are natural deaths. In a homicides or part
of suicides accidents has certainly undetermines, but you have to
(11:31):
have somebody that has an understanding of the big picture.
You know how our systems function, how they all come together.
Because you have to you have to look into these
deaths and look every single death that you go out
on or that you work. You're not surrounded by a
group of forensic scientists that are there, or crime scene
investigators or detectives. You're essentially that lone voice in the
(11:56):
wilderness that's out adjacent to a bed of somebody that
has passed a way in their sleep. What are you
going to call this? How do you term it? And
people say, well, it's just a natural death. Well, natural
is a classification for manner. It's not the cause, what
what's the What's what are the cause to factors of death?
And that's why medical people, I think, in my field
(12:18):
medical legal death investigation makes such tremendous investigators because by
their nature, by their nature, nurses and physicians are investigators.
They're curious. They want to try to understand scientifically form
and function. Doctor Spitz was he he was, you know,
(12:59):
he's a jibt. We all stand kind of in his shadow.
And so when he passed away, it's it's literally kind
of the turning of a page, if you will, where
you're going from that generation to the next generation. And
some of you know, Russell Fisher is, you know, he's
he was ten years older, you know, than doctor Spiz
and doctor Spiss died I think ninety six years old
(13:21):
when he finally passed off this mortal coil to steal
the words of the Bard. He he had passed on
some years before. But you know, I think about the
mes that are out there, the corners that that generation
has gone away. I worked with doctor William Eckert, who
again was one of these giants that was in that
(13:42):
group of people, you know, like that. We think about
Tom Degucci, the chief medical examiner or corner for LA
that you and I have talked about extensively, who's a
hero of mine. We still you know, have with us,
doctor Michael Biden, and of course a per that that
I greatly admire, cyrilh Weck. He's still with us up
(14:04):
at Ducane in Pittsburgh, but that generation is slowly leaving.
And doctor Spitz is another, you know, kind of benchmark.
But I think that all of all of those people
along the way recognized his expertise because my gosh, Dave,
can you just briefly, briefly, uh and it you got
(14:25):
to we've got in there. We only have a limited
amount of time. Can you just mention the cases that
this man consulted on over the years, just to give
our audience and yeah, yeah, just because there are hundreds here, Yeah,
but there there are some that you yeah, I bet
you dollars to donuts, folks are going to recognize these names.
(14:48):
The floors here, my front yours.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
We mentioned to you know, Casey Anthony in that case,
and it came to my attention because I'm thinking, all right,
he's ninety seven when he passes away, and at the
age of eighty. Okay, at eighty years old, he's being
flown from Michigan to Orlando, Florida on Christmas to look
(15:10):
at this back to give an opinion to the attorneys
about what happened. You know, he's not one of those
people you could buy. He was a person that you
hired to get his medical opinion of what took place
in this prison's passing.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
And let me let me interject this right here. I
will take exception. I'll go toe to toe with anybody
out there that ever implies that he could be bought. Yeah,
you know he is not. He was not that kind
of person. He's not a gun for hire, that term,
I really do. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just
(15:45):
interject this into this.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Just so you know, for people like me on the
journalist's side of crime reporting and what have you, I
don't understand. I don't know the medical stuff like you do.
I know the medical legal people we've heard of out
when you mentioned Werner s Fitz. I know his name
because he's associated with JFK. Martin, Luther King Jr. Mary
(16:10):
Joe Kopecne. Think about that for just a minute, because
you had the whole Kennedy thing is going on. He
was there consulting on JFK to figure out what happened,
and all he could say was why did they do this?
In terms of how bad they messed up the autopsy
of the President of the United States of America. You know,
he was the one who said there wasn't one person
(16:30):
in the room that should have been doing this.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Have we talked about that before day. He's the one
that took it. He's actually the person that took exception
to the naval pathologists that were assigned to this case.
And hey, he was he was literally, you're gonna get
me started here.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I encourage you to listen to our episode about JFK.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
I really do, I do, please please do? He was literally.
Vernon Spits was literally an hour and a fifteen minute
plane flight from the hospital where JFK's autopsy was performed.
He could have been there, a matter of fact, he
could have. They could have brought him there, and a
(17:17):
lot of other people. Russell Fisher was right up the road,
you know, but you had these people that could have
you know, interjected themselves, the world would be a kind.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Of a different place at this a lot different. He
understood that, I think, and I think that's what actually
brought him to the point where I mean about the
Casey Anthony because in Time magazine when they wrote the piece,
it says the skeleton. He was talking about how he
was brought in to look at this toddler and at
this point we at all because by this point she
(17:50):
was still missing and they had found the body, a
body they're trying to identify the body. They're trying to
identify what happened because there were different stories being told
about what they've believed theoretically happened in the life and
death of this little todd broke all of our hearts.
I don't know anybody that was not impacted by that case.
And it's interesting because you know Casey and Anthony. At
(18:14):
the point that he was called in, she had already
been indicted for her daughter's murder. Her defense lawyer was
seeking a medical opinion. And it's important to note that
when you got bernerd Spitz to come and give you
an opinion, it was his opinion of what he witnesses
and the facts that he sees it's not what you
(18:34):
might be wanting, and you might burn the papers when
he's done, but he's going to give you his opinions.
So they were going after it, and he spent his
Christmas Eve examining the skull of this toddler. After he
finished up his work, he packed up and went home.
In the article in Time Magazine, I encourage you to read,
it points out that the next morning he's up with
(18:56):
his family opening Christmas presents. Twelve hours earlier, he's examining
the skull of a toddler who he passed away, and
he's asked his opinion of that. But he can compartmentalize
his life to be able to be with his family
and to be in the moment with his family, which
is a tough account. I cannot imagine what that must
be like, Joe. And there have been times I've mentioned
(19:16):
to you, based on what I know you've gone through,
I don't know how you get out of bed some
days for real, just with the things that you have done.
And I think you are doing a great service to
many people by sharing your story publicly, like you are
here on Body Bags and on every other program that
you appear on. As an expert, because I think people
need to know it's not just a good crime story.
(19:39):
There's a dead person here, and we need to know why.
You're never going to get closure, but you can have answers,
and we deserve answers. That person, the dead person's family
needs answers, you.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Know, yeah, they do. And I think that doctor Spitz
understood that early on. I think maybe that was I
think that that again, this is just me projecting.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Okay, Ramsey to got to add that one into this mix.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, yeah, well look he you know, look he was
in you had mentioned, uh, you had mentioned Mary Joe Kopecnik.
He was actually involved in the Phil Spector case as well.
I didn't know that. Yeah, the Phil Spector case. Uh,
I'm just you know, there's there's they go. The list
goes on and yeah, the Prepping murder case, he was
involved in that. Richard or Maris uh and so just
(20:29):
and and the list just goes on and on and on.
But you know it's yeah, there are a lot of
these cases that kind of rise to the top because
the media, you know, creates this kind of world around
these cases. But you know, doctor Spitz was the kind
of person and I've heard this second hand that he
(20:53):
he was willing to give of his time. He was
not a person seeking media attention. But first off, I
think that a lot of it has to go with
the fact that he comes from a family of physicians.
His son, doctor Spitt's son is actually a pathologist as well,
and so, you know, this is something that has continued on.
But you know, he came into the world with this
(21:15):
kind of inquisitive mindset, and when you begin to learn
his history and you begin to see who he was,
you understand why people that have complex problems would want
to turn to somebody like him to give the answers,
because he was always inquisitive up until he passed on.
(21:38):
He had that ability. That was what he you know,
I've heard a couple of quotes about him. He didn't fish,
he didn't golf. He you know, this is me paraphrasing,
he pathologied. That was his that was his advocation and
his vocation. And so isn't that an interesting thing? And
another fascinating part of this is that he loved going
(22:02):
out to enjoy good steak dinner with people and to
uh you know, uh sit around and tell great stories
and you know, at the end of the day. Uh,
those of us, as you can tell from my big
mouth because I'm running all the time. We are storytellers,
you know, we tell the stories of the dead. And
when you think about all of the life and deaths
(22:25):
that he was kind of intertwined with over the years,
he was able to, uh, to paint, paint a story.
And this is the key to being a really good
forensic practitioner, where you can understand such these such complex
(22:45):
scientific constructs and to sit in a room with total
strangers that are deciding matters of life and death and
being able to break them down to their base components
and explain it to people that don't have any education whatsoever,
and that they can come to a conclusion based upon
the evidence that you're presenting that could determine if somebody
(23:08):
is going to go home or if they're going to
go to president. When I found out that doctor Spitz
(23:32):
had had passed on, I didn't immediately think about our
JFK episode, Dave, But you know, reflectively, we talked about
that that that episode, we talked about JFK's assassination at
great length, and we talked about all of the players
that kind of entered into that room on that on
that day, and honestly, I when he passed away, all
(23:55):
I could think about was the textbook. I forgot that
he was actually that initial group of forensic pathologists that
were asked to consult on the JFK assassination, and that
it just, you know, it just kind of struck me.
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
See, that's what I remember from our episode. It's so
funny when you when I saw that he had passed,
my first thought was how you mentioned that he was,
that werner Spitz was so close and you mentioned all
the other yo. Yeah, all the other big name pathologists
who have just so much that could have been brought
to the autopsy of the President of the United States
(24:32):
of America, besides the fact that he should have never
been moved from Texas to Washington. Take that off the table,
take all the things to win. And when you realize
all of the things they had, they being the people
in charge, had to ignore and not do, you realized
something bad was afoot. I'll leave it at that. You
guys make your own conclusions. I encourage you to listen
to our episode and listen to what werner Spitz said
(24:55):
about what was done in that room with the body
of the former the president of the United States of America.
He was given color photos to look at to study.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Right, And here was my question, Joe, because he came
up with some very firm ideas on what he believed
took place based on the photos. Is that something that
you've ever been asked to do, to make a determination
or a recommendation or a suggestion or given opinion based
not on the actual physical examination of the body, but
(25:30):
to do it through photographs or something other than actually
his body.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yeah. I have, and generally ill stay away from consulting
on any kind of cases. I refer a lot of cases.
I have people that reach out to me constantly because
they they see me on air and that sort of thing, and.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Till most people want you to tell them what they
believe has happened.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, instead of just kind of the unvarnished truth. Uh, doctor,
and listen, I can see why because you know, not
only was doctor Spitzen author, uh, And not only was
he a practicing forensic pathologist and an administrator of a
very busy office. At his core, he's a teacher and
(26:12):
so and I can look at it through my teacher
eyes when I'm thinking about the JFK assassination retrospectively and
what he saw, because he's probably thinking about this, yeah,
as a practicing forensic pathologist, but he's also thinking, where
going to hell do you guys get your training? And
why aren't you applying basic principles here? Because it's very
(26:33):
very frustrating, you know, when you're doing a forensic autopsy there.
You know, we always go on about how all cases
are different. Well, yeah they are, but there are some
basic rules and tenants that you have to abide by
or you're you know, there's what you have is not
going to be worth the gunpowder to blow to hell
(26:54):
in the end, Garbage in, garbage out. And that's the
way it works. If you were going to bake a
cake that comes out of a box, if you don't
follow each one of those steps along the way, you
might have something that's kind of a cake, but it's
not really a cake, and it's certainly not something I
want to consume. And that's very basic. But that's the
understanding here. And you know, when he looks at these
(27:16):
steps along the way with JFK and everything that he saw,
everything that he read, he was really the first person
that are one of the first people that came up
with there were things that were really done wrong here
because when he got this data and this is before
this is before the House Committee Select Committee on Sassinoy,
(27:41):
this is prior to that. So you've got this group.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
By the way, he was added to that group because
of who he was.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah, yeah, precisely, and all the other individuals that were involved,
you know, that had that were esteemed like this at
that particular time. And look, I don't necessarily agree with
his findings. You know, I've stated frontly I think that
it's more than one shooter. He he essentially validated what
(28:08):
the Warrant Commission had put forward. However, what he did
and I don't throw around the term brave, but when
you've got people that are how can I delicately put this,
When you've got people that are in that sphere that
seem to have trouble in their life as a result
of going against the flow, and he would have been
(28:30):
maybe aware of that, it's kind of a brave and
you're looking you're looking in the eyes of the FEDS
at that point in time and their conclusions that they reached.
He was one of the first people to dip his
toe in the water and say, look, you guys kind
of screwed up here. And so that that is a
mark of bravery in that sense, I think in that time,
(28:52):
and he was willing. I think that he was willing
to do this in a lot of the cases. He
I hesitate to talk about this a lot, but I
will say in very broad terms that he certainly stuck
his neck out when it came to Jean Pinney. He
was not afraid to do that. And there was a
(29:13):
lawsuit that followed after his conclusions that he had arrived
at but again, but again, and they did they settled
out of court. But again, you've got a man here
who's highly esteemed that was really willing, and I would
imagine he had an awareness of what could be coming
down the tracks if he even said anything, and it did.
(29:35):
It came predictably, it came his way. But I don't
you know, it probably didn't matter to him because he's
speaking the truth as he saw it relative to scientific
facts as he saw it. And so I think that
that's that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
How like me will say I disagree with him when
I absolutely know nothing more than basically a Saturday Morning
Cartoon on science. You know, we happen all the time.
I've heard more people say, oh, I totally disagree with that,
and you're going, really okay, So you've got doctors here,
You've got you know, Berner Spitz. Look, man, I might
disagree with him, but it's not on science because I
(30:09):
can't discuss science on that level when I listen to
you talk about things, Joe, I might not want it
to seem that way, but I have no way to
validate what you know. I'm just throwing a curveball. I
don't know. I really don't. But we are amazing people
that can come up with such a firm opinion and
throw it out there for all the world without any
science backing it up. Where Werner Spitz says something backed
(30:30):
up by science and what he believes. And I'll tell
you what It made sense to me when I heard
I heard what.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
He was saying, and that's that's his perception of the
reality of that of that moment, Tom And uh, it's
it's a slippery slope, it is. And look even and
he understood this, I think because he You're not going
to sit here and tell me the universal.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
You not yet, Dave, But I know, but yeah, he
had to know.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
I cannot imagine that doctor Spits agreed with every single
thing that the police came to him with, or every
single thing the prosecutor came to him with, because he
was so incredibly such a bright light in the world
of forensics. And look, let's face it, many times the
people in the legal world, they they don't want to
(31:20):
hear the truth. And it's really hard because it doesn't
necessarily go wrong with the narrative that they're kind of
working up, you know, to explain things. And that can
be either prosecution or defense. Okay, we're not picking on
anybody here, but when you look at science, when you
look at science and you say, okay, this is what
I believe happened based upon my background and my education,
(31:46):
my experience, and this is how it went. These are
the steps, and he takes you through it and he
explains it step by step by step. Legal community generally
doesn't dig that too much because there's and there's not
a lot of gray, you know, and the legal community
kind of, you know, they they dance in the gray.
Many times you don't. And that's and that's it runs
(32:10):
contrary to what we do in medical legal death investigation.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Let me ask you about this because as he's brought
in used the top mom case Kathy Anthony case where
he's brought in by the defense and he examines the
body of a toddler.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Who's what remained of the body?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, what remained and he comes up with his conclusions,
which you mentioned he was not about bought and paid
for Gunslinger. He gave his opinion and left based on
you know, I'm paid to be here to give you
my opinion, not to tell you what you want to
hear or what you believe happened. And when he got
done with that particular examination, I don't know how many
people know this. You know, he actually did not believe
(32:47):
that the what he found necessarily backed up what the
prosecution was saying happened. It's not saying that Casey Anthony
was innocent or anything. He's just saying what he saw
with the body right, was not consistent with the story,
with the theory the prosecution had. And I've always thought
about that because they did lose that case, and I thought,
I wonder how many times I've seen cases that we
(33:10):
because we're only hearing one side. You know, the TV
side or what have you. But he was able to
come in and look at just the physical evidence, yeah,
and have an opinion based on that. My opinion is
based on the garbage I know about Casey Anthony, not
the baby, I mean, not the tddler. I don't know
anything about the title other than duct tape over the mouth.
So when you come into that situation, Joe, Yeah, and
you're called in by as a consultant or as an expert, whatever,
(33:34):
and you give them your opinion, are they do de
bound to use it? Or can they throw that away
and keep on going with what they want?
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, well they can. And of course if you're brought
in as you know, let's don't let's don't be naive
here for one moment. If you're brought in as a consultant,
you're being paid all right to do that. But you
know what the state pays for the forensic pathologists that
work for the State Medical Examiner's office. They pay for
the people that work at the crime lab there, you know, people,
(34:06):
everybody's paid. Everybody is paid, you know, and of course attorneys,
you know, one of the things they'll do when they
get experts on the STANDO one of the first things
they do. And look, if you don't believe me, look
it up, because it's it's always Can you please tell
us how much you're being paid right now as as
you know, And that's that's been said over and over again,
(34:26):
as if it's bad to receive compensation for what you're doing,
and it implies something else. But with you know, with
a person of the intellectual ability of doctor Spitz, and
I have his textbook right beside me at all times, okay,
(34:47):
I have I have I have evidence of his politic
and I've seen them played out, you know, from text
to whatever. For someone of him his ability. This is
what many scientists would like. I don't want to hear
about your conclusions, whether it's the defense or the prosecution.
(35:10):
I don't want to hear about what you think may
have happened. Let me see the evidence before you ever
influence me at all, because it is you are influenced,
I think, by by these these outside forces that are
trying to sway you one way or another. And it
is a push pull, you know, just you know, the
(35:31):
idea of forensics. We've talked about this before the forum.
This is where debate and argument take place, and so
you've got this head to head clash. So you've got
this I think they call it a conflict model, is
what the courts call it, where you're always in conflict
with one of the other. Then that winds up hopefully
leading to whatever they term is justice. And so there
(35:52):
is a push pull, and it's hard to be a neutral,
a neutral entity within that environment because it's very dynamic.
Things are flying back and forth. And so with doctor Spitz,
he brings this huge brain of his into this environment,
this inquisitive person that he was, and to be able
(36:13):
to sit there and look at data where he is
not going to be influenced by anything else, and he
is going to come to a scientific conclusion independent of
maybe what the state medical examiner came up with or
what the defense is telling him. That he simply because
you know, it's like an old friend told me many
years ago, the only thing you ever die with is
(36:35):
your good name. And I think that when Werner Spitz
passed on away from this earth, he died with that
good name intact. On April fourteenth, twenty twenty four, my
field lost a giant. So to this giant, I would
(36:59):
like to say humbly and gratefully, I would like to
extend to thanks to a teacher who never knew his student,
and from a student who never met his teacher, a
sincere thank you for all that you did, from me
and for everybody else in the world of forensics. Here's
(37:21):
the you, doctor Bernerspietz. May you rest in peace. I'm
Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybags
Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Think about living in
Alabama as this. When spring comes along, we do enjoy
the glorious weather that we have here, but we also
(00:29):
live day to day with a chill that goes up
and down our spine. About the possibility of the worst
weather you can possibly ever imagine. We've had deaths for
years and years related to tornadic activity. With that, we
learn to understand when there's a gathering storm something off
(00:51):
to our west. Most of the time that's headed our way.
But you know, in life in general, you can see
where there are are gathering storms headed your way. The
fellow I'm going to talk about today his family saw
such a storm gathering in Europe prior to World War Two,
(01:14):
and if his family had not made the decision to
leave their little town in Germany, it's quite possible that
the world would have been deprived of when the single
(01:37):
greatest scientific minds of the twentieth century. Today in memoriam,
we're going to be discussing the life of doctor Werner Schwitz.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Backs. We've
(02:01):
talked a little bit Dave about my history as a
death investigator and for those that aren't necessarily familiar with that,
I'm not going to assume that everybody knows me. My
journey in this field started in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, and
I was working in the morgue. I was not working
(02:23):
full time as an investigator. Then I was volunteering working
in a morgue. That would have been in eighty five,
and I became enamored with the field of forensics and
death investigation because of a friend of mine named Bill Donovan.
Bill has passed on now, but he was truly my
mentor probably one of the best forensic scientists I ever knew,
(02:46):
and I viewed him as a brother and older brother.
But Bill said, if you're going to work in this field,
you have to have the correct information. And he said
the best information I can give you. And of course
this is you know, before the days of the Internet
(03:07):
and all that sort of thing. He says, I'm going
to give you something that you're not going to find
in a library, certainly a public library. And it was
the second edition of a Medical Legal Investigation of Death
Guidelines for the Application of Pathology to Crime Investigation. I
(03:27):
was given a second edition all right. And when Bill
handed me this book, which was absolutely gigantic, particularly to
you know, a twenty something at that point in time
that was not well read, it felt like he had
it handed me a boat anchor, because the thing is
(03:48):
so heavy, it's so dense, and oh my gosh, I
started flipping through this thing and I couldn't believe the
images I will see because it depicted every horror that
you can everything from start to animal attacks to any
kind of homicide, you can imagine, sexual related things, related deaths,
(04:10):
related to sexual activities. I mean at decomposition. I mean,
it was just this wealth of knowledge that you could
not generally find and most people were not aware of.
But as I came to find out, the book itself
was a real benchmark in forensic science history because it
was it was truly the first time anybody had actually
(04:33):
codified this collection of data all in one text that
was at that time had become the gold standard and
was being used everywhere by forensic fellows, people doing fellowships,
practicing forensic pathologists, and even police. But it doesn't go
by that long title that I gave you. You know
what the name of this book is To people that
(04:55):
work in the field. It's simply called Spits and Fisher.
And anytime you say Spitz and Fisher, people automatically conjure
up this image of this book in their mind, and
they know it. It jumps to mind. And this book
is like when I got the second edition, which I
think was printed in like seventy seven or eighty, I
(05:17):
can't recall. And this thing is still in print, and
it had originally been printed in the sixties. And here's
how I know that. Do you know who wrote the
Ford in this thing?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Einstein?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
No, it's a non scientist. Ramsey Clark actually wrote the
Ford and he was the Attorney General under Kennedy and
then became the Attorney General under Johnson. If I'm not mistaken,
I might have that wrong. But that's how far back
this went. And of course, being the chief I guess
(05:54):
you could view him as the chief law and federal
law enforcement agent in the nation. It carried some weight
with it when he essentially endorsed this book. But these
two authors. Russell Fisher, who passed on many years ago,
he was an interesting fellow in his own right. He
was the chief medical Examiner for the state of Maryland
(06:17):
and was working in Maryland when they still had corners.
He oversaw the transition to get away to do completely
away with a corner system in Maryland and turned it
into a statewide medical examiner's office. And that's another topic
we're going to talk about for another day, the corner system.
But Russell Fisher essentially oversaw the doing a way of
(06:41):
the corner system in Maryland and integrating the new medical
examiner system. But his partner in this book, Werner Spitz,
was an interesting character in and of himself because he
was the chief medical examiner in Wayne County, Michigan Detroit
(07:03):
in case you didn't know which. Of course, back in
the seventies, particularly Detroit began to gain a reputation as
a very violent town and you saw a lot of
forensic pathology that came out of there. So if you're
working as a death investigator in that environment in Detroit,
(07:26):
there's a lot that comes across your plate. There's a
lot that you can learn. But I think that it's
important to understand that that was at the end, I
guess closer to the end of doctor Spitz's career. Werner
Spitz he started he was born, interestingly enough, in what
(07:46):
was then Germany but is now Poland, and they saw
his parents, who both by the way, both his mom
and dad were physicians. They saw the rise of Nazism
and they fled. They actually fled and escaped the Nazis.
I think doctor Spitz was born in nineteen twenty six.
(08:08):
And the reason I wanted to do this is to
do this episode of Bodybags, is that doctor Spitz has
just passed away. And I got to tell you, Dave,
I don't know of a of a of a man
that had more of an impact on my life than
(08:33):
he did. But I never met him. I was in
a room with him one time, and I've met a
lot of friends of pathologists, but I never got a
chance to meet doctor Spitz. Because anytime you were around
him at a national meeting, you weren't the only one
around him. And look where all he is and was,
(08:55):
and you know, everybody would turn to him for advice.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
You know, when you told me you wanted to do this,
my first thought was I read there was an article
in Time magazine a couple of years ago, and it
was talking about him, specifically how he didn't coin the
phrase medical detective, but he certainly loved that he liked
that term. But they wrote this article on him. It
(09:23):
was two years ago in April, and they were, you know,
they were writing about him and the Casey Anthony, the
Kaylee Anthony case that he was called Christmas Eve who
come down and they needed his opinion on that's that's who,
that's who. Werner's fitz was that they had this huge
(09:47):
case Kaylee Anthony, Casey Anthony, the whole thing the world
is watching, and they called him to come in and
give us your medical opinion of what happened.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And that goes to who he was. I think, uh,
I love that the fact that you brought up this,
this term of medical detective, I find it intot. I
think there's a couple of there's a TV show out
there or something called the Medical Detectives or something like that,
and I think, you know, you might think you're the
medical detectives, but Werner Spitz was actually the medical detective.
(10:22):
He he was the person I think first that that
thought of this idea, because by their nature, physicians clinicians
are they're truly investigators. That's why I tell I tell people,
and this, you know, kind of goes hand in hand
with this. If I were to go out and seek
(10:46):
out a group of people that I was going to
hire if I was starting a medical legal staff, okay,
to work as investigators. Do you know who I would
hire as my investigators. I would actually hire nurses. I
wouldn't hire cops. Because the lion's share of death that
(11:08):
you work for in a medical examiner system and in
a corner system, they are not I'll tell you what
they are not. They are not homicides. That makes up
the very tiny percentage. The most of the cases that
you work are natural deaths. In a homicides or part
of suicides accidents has certainly undetermines, but you have to
(11:31):
have somebody that has an understanding of the big picture.
You know how our systems function, how they all come together.
Because you have to you have to look into these
deaths and look every single death that you go out
on or that you work. You're not surrounded by a
group of forensic scientists that are there, or crime scene
investigators or detectives. You're essentially that lone voice in the
(11:56):
wilderness that's out adjacent to a bed of somebody that
has passed a way in their sleep. What are you
going to call this? How do you term it? And
people say, well, it's just a natural death. Well, natural
is a classification for manner. It's not the cause, what
what's the What's what are the cause to factors of death?
And that's why medical people, I think, in my field
(12:18):
medical legal death investigation makes such tremendous investigators because by
their nature, by their nature, nurses and physicians are investigators.
They're curious. They want to try to understand scientifically form
and function. Doctor Spitz was he he was, you know,
(12:59):
he's a jibt. We all stand kind of in his shadow.
And so when he passed away, it's it's literally kind
of the turning of a page, if you will, where
you're going from that generation to the next generation. And
some of you know, Russell Fisher is, you know, he's
he was ten years older, you know, than doctor Spiz
and doctor Spiss died I think ninety six years old
(13:21):
when he finally passed off this mortal coil to steal
the words of the Bard. He he had passed on
some years before. But you know, I think about the
mes that are out there, the corners that that generation
has gone away. I worked with doctor William Eckert, who
again was one of these giants that was in that
(13:42):
group of people, you know, like that. We think about
Tom Degucci, the chief medical examiner or corner for LA
that you and I have talked about extensively, who's a
hero of mine. We still you know, have with us,
doctor Michael Biden, and of course a per that that
I greatly admire, cyrilh Weck. He's still with us up
(14:04):
at Ducane in Pittsburgh, but that generation is slowly leaving.
And doctor Spitz is another, you know, kind of benchmark.
But I think that all of all of those people
along the way recognized his expertise because my gosh, Dave,
can you just briefly, briefly, uh and it you got
(14:25):
to we've got in there. We only have a limited
amount of time. Can you just mention the cases that
this man consulted on over the years, just to give
our audience and yeah, yeah, just because there are hundreds here, Yeah,
but there there are some that you yeah, I bet
you dollars to donuts, folks are going to recognize these names.
(14:48):
The floors here, my front yours.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
We mentioned to you know, Casey Anthony in that case,
and it came to my attention because I'm thinking, all right,
he's ninety seven when he passes away, and at the
age of eighty. Okay, at eighty years old, he's being
flown from Michigan to Orlando, Florida on Christmas to look
(15:10):
at this back to give an opinion to the attorneys
about what happened. You know, he's not one of those
people you could buy. He was a person that you
hired to get his medical opinion of what took place
in this prison's passing.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
And let me let me interject this right here. I
will take exception. I'll go toe to toe with anybody
out there that ever implies that he could be bought. Yeah,
you know he is not. He was not that kind
of person. He's not a gun for hire, that term,
I really do. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just
(15:45):
interject this into this.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Just so you know, for people like me on the
journalist's side of crime reporting and what have you, I
don't understand. I don't know the medical stuff like you do.
I know the medical legal people we've heard of out
when you mentioned Werner s Fitz. I know his name
because he's associated with JFK. Martin, Luther King Jr. Mary
(16:10):
Joe Kopecne. Think about that for just a minute, because
you had the whole Kennedy thing is going on. He
was there consulting on JFK to figure out what happened,
and all he could say was why did they do this?
In terms of how bad they messed up the autopsy
of the President of the United States of America. You know,
he was the one who said there wasn't one person
(16:30):
in the room that should have been doing this.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Have we talked about that before day. He's the one
that took it. He's actually the person that took exception
to the naval pathologists that were assigned to this case.
And hey, he was he was literally, you're gonna get
me started here.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I encourage you to listen to our episode about JFK.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
I really do, I do, please please do? He was literally.
Vernon Spits was literally an hour and a fifteen minute
plane flight from the hospital where JFK's autopsy was performed.
He could have been there, a matter of fact, he
could have. They could have brought him there, and a
(17:17):
lot of other people. Russell Fisher was right up the road,
you know, but you had these people that could have
you know, interjected themselves, the world would be a kind.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Of a different place at this a lot different. He
understood that, I think, and I think that's what actually
brought him to the point where I mean about the
Casey Anthony because in Time magazine when they wrote the piece,
it says the skeleton. He was talking about how he
was brought in to look at this toddler and at
this point we at all because by this point she
(17:50):
was still missing and they had found the body, a
body they're trying to identify the body. They're trying to
identify what happened because there were different stories being told
about what they've believed theoretically happened in the life and
death of this little todd broke all of our hearts.
I don't know anybody that was not impacted by that case.
And it's interesting because you know Casey and Anthony. At
(18:14):
the point that he was called in, she had already
been indicted for her daughter's murder. Her defense lawyer was
seeking a medical opinion. And it's important to note that
when you got bernerd Spitz to come and give you
an opinion, it was his opinion of what he witnesses
and the facts that he sees it's not what you
(18:34):
might be wanting, and you might burn the papers when
he's done, but he's going to give you his opinions.
So they were going after it, and he spent his
Christmas Eve examining the skull of this toddler. After he
finished up his work, he packed up and went home.
In the article in Time Magazine, I encourage you to read,
it points out that the next morning he's up with
(18:56):
his family opening Christmas presents. Twelve hours earlier, he's examining
the skull of a toddler who he passed away, and
he's asked his opinion of that. But he can compartmentalize
his life to be able to be with his family
and to be in the moment with his family, which
is a tough account. I cannot imagine what that must
be like, Joe. And there have been times I've mentioned
(19:16):
to you, based on what I know you've gone through,
I don't know how you get out of bed some
days for real, just with the things that you have done.
And I think you are doing a great service to
many people by sharing your story publicly, like you are
here on Body Bags and on every other program that
you appear on. As an expert, because I think people
need to know it's not just a good crime story.
(19:39):
There's a dead person here, and we need to know why.
You're never going to get closure, but you can have answers,
and we deserve answers. That person, the dead person's family
needs answers, you.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Know, yeah, they do. And I think that doctor Spitz
understood that early on. I think maybe that was I
think that that again, this is just me projecting.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Okay, Ramsey to got to add that one into this mix.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, yeah, well look he you know, look he was
in you had mentioned, uh, you had mentioned Mary Joe Kopecnik.
He was actually involved in the Phil Spector case as well.
I didn't know that. Yeah, the Phil Spector case. Uh,
I'm just you know, there's there's they go. The list
goes on and yeah, the Prepping murder case, he was
involved in that. Richard or Maris uh and so just
(20:29):
and and the list just goes on and on and on.
But you know it's yeah, there are a lot of
these cases that kind of rise to the top because
the media, you know, creates this kind of world around
these cases. But you know, doctor Spitz was the kind
of person and I've heard this second hand that he
(20:53):
he was willing to give of his time. He was
not a person seeking media attention. But first off, I
think that a lot of it has to go with
the fact that he comes from a family of physicians.
His son, doctor Spitt's son is actually a pathologist as well,
and so, you know, this is something that has continued on.
But you know, he came into the world with this
(21:15):
kind of inquisitive mindset, and when you begin to learn
his history and you begin to see who he was,
you understand why people that have complex problems would want
to turn to somebody like him to give the answers,
because he was always inquisitive up until he passed on.
(21:38):
He had that ability. That was what he you know,
I've heard a couple of quotes about him. He didn't fish,
he didn't golf. He you know, this is me paraphrasing,
he pathologied. That was his that was his advocation and
his vocation. And so isn't that an interesting thing? And
another fascinating part of this is that he loved going
(22:02):
out to enjoy good steak dinner with people and to
uh you know, uh sit around and tell great stories
and you know, at the end of the day. Uh,
those of us, as you can tell from my big
mouth because I'm running all the time. We are storytellers,
you know, we tell the stories of the dead. And
when you think about all of the life and deaths
(22:25):
that he was kind of intertwined with over the years,
he was able to, uh, to paint, paint a story.
And this is the key to being a really good
forensic practitioner, where you can understand such these such complex
(22:45):
scientific constructs and to sit in a room with total
strangers that are deciding matters of life and death and
being able to break them down to their base components
and explain it to people that don't have any education whatsoever,
and that they can come to a conclusion based upon
the evidence that you're presenting that could determine if somebody
(23:08):
is going to go home or if they're going to
go to president. When I found out that doctor Spitz
(23:32):
had had passed on, I didn't immediately think about our
JFK episode, Dave, But you know, reflectively, we talked about
that that that episode, we talked about JFK's assassination at
great length, and we talked about all of the players
that kind of entered into that room on that on
that day, and honestly, I when he passed away, all
(23:55):
I could think about was the textbook. I forgot that
he was actually that initial group of forensic pathologists that
were asked to consult on the JFK assassination, and that
it just, you know, it just kind of struck me.
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
See, that's what I remember from our episode. It's so
funny when you when I saw that he had passed,
my first thought was how you mentioned that he was,
that werner Spitz was so close and you mentioned all
the other yo. Yeah, all the other big name pathologists
who have just so much that could have been brought
to the autopsy of the President of the United States
(24:32):
of America, besides the fact that he should have never
been moved from Texas to Washington. Take that off the table,
take all the things to win. And when you realize
all of the things they had, they being the people
in charge, had to ignore and not do, you realized
something bad was afoot. I'll leave it at that. You
guys make your own conclusions. I encourage you to listen
to our episode and listen to what werner Spitz said
(24:55):
about what was done in that room with the body
of the former the president of the United States of America.
He was given color photos to look at to study.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Right, And here was my question, Joe, because he came
up with some very firm ideas on what he believed
took place based on the photos. Is that something that
you've ever been asked to do, to make a determination
or a recommendation or a suggestion or given opinion based
not on the actual physical examination of the body, but
(25:30):
to do it through photographs or something other than actually
his body.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yeah. I have, and generally ill stay away from consulting
on any kind of cases. I refer a lot of cases.
I have people that reach out to me constantly because
they they see me on air and that sort of thing, and.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Till most people want you to tell them what they
believe has happened.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, instead of just kind of the unvarnished truth. Uh, doctor,
and listen, I can see why because you know, not
only was doctor Spitzen author, uh, And not only was
he a practicing forensic pathologist and an administrator of a
very busy office. At his core, he's a teacher and
(26:12):
so and I can look at it through my teacher
eyes when I'm thinking about the JFK assassination retrospectively and
what he saw, because he's probably thinking about this, yeah,
as a practicing forensic pathologist, but he's also thinking, where
going to hell do you guys get your training? And
why aren't you applying basic principles here? Because it's very
(26:33):
very frustrating, you know, when you're doing a forensic autopsy there.
You know, we always go on about how all cases
are different. Well, yeah they are, but there are some
basic rules and tenants that you have to abide by
or you're you know, there's what you have is not
going to be worth the gunpowder to blow to hell
(26:54):
in the end, Garbage in, garbage out. And that's the
way it works. If you were going to bake a
cake that comes out of a box, if you don't
follow each one of those steps along the way, you
might have something that's kind of a cake, but it's
not really a cake, and it's certainly not something I
want to consume. And that's very basic. But that's the
understanding here. And you know, when he looks at these
(27:16):
steps along the way with JFK and everything that he saw,
everything that he read, he was really the first person
that are one of the first people that came up
with there were things that were really done wrong here
because when he got this data and this is before
this is before the House Committee Select Committee on Sassinoy,
(27:41):
this is prior to that. So you've got this group.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
By the way, he was added to that group because
of who he was.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah, yeah, precisely, and all the other individuals that were involved,
you know, that had that were esteemed like this at
that particular time. And look, I don't necessarily agree with
his findings. You know, I've stated frontly I think that
it's more than one shooter. He he essentially validated what
(28:08):
the Warrant Commission had put forward. However, what he did
and I don't throw around the term brave, but when
you've got people that are how can I delicately put this,
When you've got people that are in that sphere that
seem to have trouble in their life as a result
of going against the flow, and he would have been
(28:30):
maybe aware of that, it's kind of a brave and
you're looking you're looking in the eyes of the FEDS
at that point in time and their conclusions that they reached.
He was one of the first people to dip his
toe in the water and say, look, you guys kind
of screwed up here. And so that that is a
mark of bravery in that sense, I think in that time,
(28:52):
and he was willing. I think that he was willing
to do this in a lot of the cases. He
I hesitate to talk about this a lot, but I
will say in very broad terms that he certainly stuck
his neck out when it came to Jean Pinney. He
was not afraid to do that. And there was a
(29:13):
lawsuit that followed after his conclusions that he had arrived
at but again, but again, and they did they settled
out of court. But again, you've got a man here
who's highly esteemed that was really willing, and I would
imagine he had an awareness of what could be coming
down the tracks if he even said anything, and it did.
(29:35):
It came predictably, it came his way. But I don't
you know, it probably didn't matter to him because he's
speaking the truth as he saw it relative to scientific
facts as he saw it. And so I think that
that's that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
How like me will say I disagree with him when
I absolutely know nothing more than basically a Saturday Morning
Cartoon on science. You know, we happen all the time.
I've heard more people say, oh, I totally disagree with that,
and you're going, really okay, So you've got doctors here,
You've got you know, Berner Spitz. Look, man, I might
disagree with him, but it's not on science because I
(30:09):
can't discuss science on that level when I listen to
you talk about things, Joe, I might not want it
to seem that way, but I have no way to
validate what you know. I'm just throwing a curveball. I
don't know. I really don't. But we are amazing people
that can come up with such a firm opinion and
throw it out there for all the world without any
science backing it up. Where Werner Spitz says something backed
(30:30):
up by science and what he believes. And I'll tell
you what It made sense to me when I heard
I heard what.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
He was saying, and that's that's his perception of the
reality of that of that moment, Tom And uh, it's
it's a slippery slope, it is. And look even and
he understood this, I think because he You're not going
to sit here and tell me the universal.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
You not yet, Dave, But I know, but yeah, he
had to know.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
I cannot imagine that doctor Spits agreed with every single
thing that the police came to him with, or every
single thing the prosecutor came to him with, because he
was so incredibly such a bright light in the world
of forensics. And look, let's face it, many times the
people in the legal world, they they don't want to
(31:20):
hear the truth. And it's really hard because it doesn't
necessarily go wrong with the narrative that they're kind of
working up, you know, to explain things. And that can
be either prosecution or defense. Okay, we're not picking on
anybody here, but when you look at science, when you
look at science and you say, okay, this is what
I believe happened based upon my background and my education,
(31:46):
my experience, and this is how it went. These are
the steps, and he takes you through it and he
explains it step by step by step. Legal community generally
doesn't dig that too much because there's and there's not
a lot of gray, you know, and the legal community
kind of, you know, they they dance in the gray.
Many times you don't. And that's and that's it runs
(32:10):
contrary to what we do in medical legal death investigation.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Let me ask you about this because as he's brought
in used the top mom case Kathy Anthony case where
he's brought in by the defense and he examines the
body of a toddler.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Who's what remained of the body?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, what remained and he comes up with his conclusions,
which you mentioned he was not about bought and paid
for Gunslinger. He gave his opinion and left based on
you know, I'm paid to be here to give you
my opinion, not to tell you what you want to
hear or what you believe happened. And when he got
done with that particular examination, I don't know how many
people know this. You know, he actually did not believe
(32:47):
that the what he found necessarily backed up what the
prosecution was saying happened. It's not saying that Casey Anthony
was innocent or anything. He's just saying what he saw
with the body right, was not consistent with the story,
with the theory the prosecution had. And I've always thought
about that because they did lose that case, and I thought,
I wonder how many times I've seen cases that we
(33:10):
because we're only hearing one side. You know, the TV
side or what have you. But he was able to
come in and look at just the physical evidence, yeah,
and have an opinion based on that. My opinion is
based on the garbage I know about Casey Anthony, not
the baby, I mean, not the tddler. I don't know
anything about the title other than duct tape over the mouth.
So when you come into that situation, Joe, Yeah, and
you're called in by as a consultant or as an expert, whatever,
(33:34):
and you give them your opinion, are they do de
bound to use it? Or can they throw that away
and keep on going with what they want?
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, well they can. And of course if you're brought
in as you know, let's don't let's don't be naive
here for one moment. If you're brought in as a consultant,
you're being paid all right to do that. But you
know what the state pays for the forensic pathologists that
work for the State Medical Examiner's office. They pay for
the people that work at the crime lab there, you know, people,
(34:06):
everybody's paid. Everybody is paid, you know, and of course attorneys,
you know, one of the things they'll do when they
get experts on the STANDO one of the first things
they do. And look, if you don't believe me, look
it up, because it's it's always Can you please tell
us how much you're being paid right now as as
you know, And that's that's been said over and over again,
(34:26):
as if it's bad to receive compensation for what you're doing,
and it implies something else. But with you know, with
a person of the intellectual ability of doctor Spitz, and
I have his textbook right beside me at all times, okay,
(34:47):
I have I have I have evidence of his politic
and I've seen them played out, you know, from text
to whatever. For someone of him his ability. This is
what many scientists would like. I don't want to hear
about your conclusions, whether it's the defense or the prosecution.
(35:10):
I don't want to hear about what you think may
have happened. Let me see the evidence before you ever
influence me at all, because it is you are influenced,
I think, by by these these outside forces that are
trying to sway you one way or another. And it
is a push pull, you know, just you know, the
(35:31):
idea of forensics. We've talked about this before the forum.
This is where debate and argument take place, and so
you've got this head to head clash. So you've got
this I think they call it a conflict model, is
what the courts call it, where you're always in conflict
with one of the other. Then that winds up hopefully
leading to whatever they term is justice. And so there
(35:52):
is a push pull, and it's hard to be a neutral,
a neutral entity within that environment because it's very dynamic.
Things are flying back and forth. And so with doctor Spitz,
he brings this huge brain of his into this environment,
this inquisitive person that he was, and to be able
(36:13):
to sit there and look at data where he is
not going to be influenced by anything else, and he
is going to come to a scientific conclusion independent of
maybe what the state medical examiner came up with or
what the defense is telling him. That he simply because
you know, it's like an old friend told me many
years ago, the only thing you ever die with is
(36:35):
your good name. And I think that when Werner Spitz
passed on away from this earth, he died with that
good name intact. On April fourteenth, twenty twenty four, my
field lost a giant. So to this giant, I would
(36:59):
like to say humbly and gratefully, I would like to
extend to thanks to a teacher who never knew his student,
and from a student who never met his teacher, a
sincere thank you for all that you did, from me
and for everybody else in the world of forensics. Here's
(37:21):
the you, doctor Bernerspietz. May you rest in peace. I'm
Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybags
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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