D4vd’s Tesla Discovery, Travis Decker’s Remains, and a Colorado Funeral Home Nightmare

Forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan joins to unpack the body found in singer D4vd’s Tesla, the suspected remains of fugitive Travis Decker, Trey Reed’s suspicious death, Burning Man’s first homicide, and Colorado’s funeral home scandal. Tune in for all the details.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This program features the individual opinions of the hosts, guests,
and callers, and not necessarily those of the producer, the station,
it's affiliates or sponsors. This is True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio, where we talk
true crime all the time. It's Sunday, September twenty first,
and I am Courtney Armstrong. I'm joined as always by
crime analysts Body Movin. Beloved Stephanie Lydecker is out this evening,
but we are lucky enough to be joined by Joseph

(00:40):
Scott Morgan.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
He is the iconic forensic expert.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
He is the host of the Bodybags podcast, and he
is here for another scientific Sunday.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
So welcome Joseph.

Speaker 4 (00:54):
Hey, I'm fortunate enough to be with you. Guys.

Speaker 5 (00:57):
There you get flatter us my favorite night the week ago.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Our amen and listen. It's a good Sunday. We have
a stacked night of headlines tonight. We're going to be
discussing the forensics and the emerging theories of the singer
David's shocking case. This has been coming out sort of
slowly over the course of ten plus days, and as

(01:21):
more and more information comes forth, it becomes messier and messier. Plus,
could Travis Decker's remains finally have been found. There have
been a few false starts in this heroic manhunt, but
we'll have an update on that, and later in the show,
we're going to have some new information. It's about a

(01:41):
mysterious death that took place at this year's Burning Man.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
We spoke a bit about it before.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
There is now more information, but I think first we
should get into this David case. It really has just
blown up and we started covering it on September eighth,
where all we knew was there was a body in
a car registered to David.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
So body, can you sort of lay the landscape.

Speaker 5 (02:08):
Yeah, give a little background on this on this you know,
developing story. So police served a search warrant at a
Hollywood Hills home a tied to the singer David. They
seized evidence and they're pursuing leads after the body of
fifteen year old Celeste Revs Hernandez was found in the
trunk or do we say trunk or frunk when it

(02:30):
comes to is understanding. So Tesla's their trunk is in
the front of the car, right like kind of like
the old Bugs right, the Volksbega bugs. So it was
found in the in the fronk of his tesla. So
Celesti's reported missing from Mike Elsoner, California, on April fifth,
twenty twenty four. Her remains were discovered on September eighth,

(02:50):
twenty twenty five, just last a couple of weeks ago,
now wrapped in a bag in the front truck of
David's tesla after neighbors reported a foul order. It got
impounded and it sat at the impound lot for a
few days and there was a foul order coming from it,
and you know, they came out and investigated and found
her body. It's just awful. So David, he's a musician,

(03:13):
if you don't know, he's a musician, and he was
on his current world tour withered and that started August
fifth in del Mar, California. So they took out computer,
some electronics and other items. We don't know exactly everything
that they took yet, right, this is an ongoing investigation,
so they're being kind of tight lipped about it. But

(03:35):
because we have the wonderful Joseph Scott Morgan here and
this was a body found in a trunk. What a
good opportunity for us to talk. I mean, this is
a horrific situation and maybe we can get some comfort
and some knowledge out of Joseph Scott Morgan and maybe
some answers that we just don't have yet by looking
at these forensics. Right. So that's what we're trying to

(03:55):
do here on the show is get to the bottom
of things.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Right.

Speaker 5 (04:00):
So, investigators searched his home. They were reportedly you know,
they're checking drains on plumbing for possible traces of blood
and tissue. Is this normal, Joseph? Yeah, Is this a
normal kind of thing to do when they suspect dismemberment?

Speaker 4 (04:17):
Well? Yeah, first off, it's if we have a violent
crime where we believe there has been blood letting and
clean up afterwards, we're going to check the drains. And
in this particular case, my suspicion is is that they
have gone into anywhere that there is a sink in
the tubs, and more than likely they have gone so

(04:38):
far as to remove not just like when you look
into the bowl of a sink, you think about, you know,
around the edge the rim of the drain. It's not
just there, it's also underneath where the trap is that
kind of s shape high for you, right, yeah, yeah,
And we'll pull that whole thing out and that entire

(04:58):
structure will be early examined. We can actually place cameras
in there and take photos down in there while it's
in place, and then remove it, take it back to
the lab and collect anything that we might believe is
in there. And it's kind of a secured area. And
you'd be surprised how much stuff gets caught up in

(05:19):
the trap just through daily life, you know, and how
much more so if you're talking about tissue, human tissue.
It's not just blood, it's any tissue that might be
associated with a body. Because we have to keep in mind,
this is not us saying this. This is the authorities
that have used the term dismemberment. And that's very important

(05:42):
here because we were talking about it off air just
a moment ago. Dismemberment is an action word, right, you know,
this is this is important to understand. And in order
to dismember a human remain, you have to have privacy,
you have to have access to tools. If there are
electrical tools, you have to have access to power source

(06:04):
or a battery charger. Then, when you think about it,
what level of knowledge does an individual have about human anatomy,
Because we do some dismemberment, if you will, in morgues,
because there's certain things we have to retain. And if
you don't have any kind of anatomical understanding, like weak
points in the body, where you're not going to have

(06:26):
to solve their areas. Most civilians don't understand that, and
they get caught up in these things and they think
that it's going to solve all their problems, and of
course it doesn't, at least more problems because you're creating
more evidence. Every time a blade touches the skin, touch
its bone, You're creating more evidence over and over, and

(06:47):
it becomes almost exponential. So it's really difficult to hide,
very difficult.

Speaker 5 (06:52):
I'm really glad that you brought that up because I
kind of wanted to ask you about this. So when
she was reported missing in April twenty twenty four, a
missing person's poster and her family listed her, you know,
as weighing one hundred and twenty pounds. Yeah, and we
learned through reports that police are saying that her remains
were seventy pounds. And there's two questions about this that

(07:14):
I want to ask you, Joseph, if it's okay. Number one,
can we tell from the fifty pound weight loss how
long she was decomposing? That's number one And number two
they specifically mentioned dismembered. But if she decomposed for a while,
could it be that she was dearticulated or are they

(07:35):
very specific when they use the word dismemberment.

Speaker 4 (07:37):
Now, they're very They have evidence of dismemberment, and I'm
talking about things like tool marks in sized areas that
so they don't just flippantly use that term. You have
to have verifiable evidence that dismemberment has taken because that's
that's a heck of a supposition there. You have to
have evidence of it. So you will see post mortem

(07:59):
trauma body, you visualize it, you document it. Just articulation.
When you think about that, many things can be implied
and that does happen with certain decomposing bodies where the
body will actually pull apart in weak areas, anatomically weak
areas like joints and that sort of thing. Sure, that's
not what they're saying here. And as to the mass

(08:21):
of the body, this is very significant. They're saying one
twenty in life and now they're saying, and we do
have a positive ID. We have to go back and
say that we have a positive ID on Celeste Rivas
and so with her remains, they're actually calling calling this
seventy pounds all that remains of her. There's a lot

(08:43):
of explanations for that that, you know, will we can
get into.

Speaker 5 (08:47):
Well, I would love to get into it. I would
absolutely love to get into it. What do you think
some of those might be? But let's just remind everybody
we're talking about Celestreevus. Her body was found in David's
singer and David's tesla. This is true friend tonight on iHeartRadio.
We're just digging into this right now. Joseph, what are
some of those things that you were mentioning that could

(09:08):
contribute to that fifty pounds?

Speaker 4 (09:10):
Well, yeah, first off, you've got the idea of dismemberment.
So you're going to lose some mass as a result
of that action. Okay, you're going to lose body fluids,
You're going to lose tissue, you can lose bits of
bone and all of that cumulatively. You know, you begin
to think about weight, you're losing that along the way. Also,

(09:34):
we still don't have a real good handle and I'm
glad we don't because the police are protecting this information.

Speaker 5 (09:40):
That's important, So glad, yes, but we.

Speaker 4 (09:43):
Still don't have any idea how long she has been deceased.
And so with that, if you factor that in scientifically,
there are certain decompositional changes that take place that reduce weight,
and one a big part of this is actually dehydration.
You know, we think about we get dehydrated. The dead
cannot rehydrate and you cannot rehydrate dead cell so as

(10:07):
these and what the biggest component of our bodies in
life is water, right, so you know you're losing you're
losing that fluid content and that reduces the mass of
the body. So that's a very important piece to this,
I think. But again have to get a handle on
how long I'd like to know. This is my big

(10:30):
questions to investigator. When was she actually last known to
have been alive, Who communicated with her, who visualized her?
We're talking of about a tesla. Guys, my lord, these
things have got cameras.

Speaker 5 (10:44):
All over them.

Speaker 4 (10:46):
And this car is registered to David out of Houston, Texas.
They're saying, originally from New York, he was born in
New York, He's from Texas, and this car is registered
him out of Houston, in the Houston area, and it's like,
I don't know, guys, it's like, what a block and
a half or two blocks.

Speaker 5 (11:05):
Away from five hundred feet away.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
Where he was domiciled in the Hollywood Hills. Just because
her remains are found in the car does not mean
that her remains have always been in that car somewhere
else and then in the car's move. Yeah, right.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Just a couple of things I did want to acknowledge
is that there has been a lot of speculation and
some of it does seem substantive, but so far as
speculation of different theories about connections between David and celesse Reeves,
police at this moment have not confirmed a relationship.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
Also, this case is being treated.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
As a homicide, understandably so detectives are pursuing several leads,
but no suspects have been publicly named. So I just
thought that was worth mentioning. And one other thing, back
to the weight Joseph from one twenty in life and
then the approximately seventy pounds of remains. It was a

(12:07):
really big heat wave in Los Angeles in the days
leading up to when the remains were found.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
Could that have an impact on the dehydration?

Speaker 4 (12:17):
Yeah, it certainly could. And as any listen, everybody in
the sound of our voices knows, I don't care if
you live in the far north of America or in
Canada or wherever. It's in the middle of summer and
you get into cabin of your car. You can't even
touch the steering wheel, right, it's hot. You sit on
the seat and it's like, oh my lord, you know
I want to get the air rolling. How much more

(12:38):
so in la during the summer and a car. That's
why we don't leave our children in cars. We don't
leave pets in cars because it's like an oven. So
this environment is literally cooking, you know, from within, and
you put organic material and it can be any organic material,

(12:59):
doesn't just have to be one of our fellow human beings,
and it's going to change. It's going to change the structure, okay,
just simply by introduction of heat, and it greatly. And
that's that's one of the things they have to do
to factor this into their calculus to try to understand,
you know, where she was. And let me give you

(13:20):
if you like this, let me give you one more.
They led they've ruled this as a homicide, but y'all,
I got to tell you, they don't have a cause
of death, and that tells you a lot about status
of the body. Because if they don't have a cause
of death, that means that doesn't mean that they they're
not going to release one. But as you notice, they

(13:44):
called it a homicide, they still haven't given us a cause.
The homicide is the manner because you know, people the
dead or not standardly dismember generally, there's some kind of
homicidal event that precedes this, and so they're thinking, they're
they're trying to think this through. I can tell you

(14:04):
there are tons of scientific eyes on this. I would
imagine La County m E. Slash Corner has probably had
at least two or three forensic pathologists take a look
at this in house alone.

Speaker 5 (14:16):
Oh really, yeah? That many? Yes, So I went to
the La Medical Examiner's website, and the Medical Examiner. I
don't know if you know this guy or girl is
doctor ansel Nam. Anyway, we're going to continue talking about
this because I need to pick Joseph's brain a bunch
more about this. Keep it right here at True Crime Tonight.
We're talking true crime all the time.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
This is True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We are talking
true crime all the time. I'm Courtney Armstrong, joined by
crime analyst Body Movin. Stephanie Leidecker is out for the evening,
but we we are lucky enough to have Joseph Scott
Morgan with us. It's Forensics Sundays, and Joseph Scott Morgan,
of course, is the forensic expert and host of the

(15:11):
podcast Body Bags.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Listen.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
We would love to hear from you, so give us
a call. We're at eighty eight three to one crime,
so join the conversation. If there's anything you want to
ask Joseph about forensics on any of these cases, that
would be great. Later in the show we're going to
be talking about the newly emerging forensics in a death
that took place at burning Man. But now we're going

(15:35):
to dive back in to continue the discussion about David
and the remains of Celeste Reves that have been found
inside a car his tesla registered to him. Body Could
you again just reset for people just joining.

Speaker 5 (15:48):
Us for sure? So David, he's a singer. He was
on world tour, and while he's on tour, what has
been reported is they found a dismembered teenager in the
fronk of his tesla. And what the fronk is in
a tesla, The trunk is in the front, so we're
calling it a fronk. And it's been reported that these

(16:10):
remains that they found were of Celeste Revas, who's been
missing since April of twenty twenty four, and so now
people are kind of digging up info on this, you know,
any kind of connection between you know, this poor teenager
that's found in this trunk of the car to the
owner of the car, which again is David. So we're

(16:33):
right now we're kind of talking about it's been reported
that her body was found in an advanced state of
DCOM and so luckily we have Joseph Scott Morgan here
to kind of break this all down. What does this mean?
Advanced state of DCOMP And one of the things that
they that we've learned that they used to identify her
was this tattoo on her finger. And this tattoo that

(16:53):
she had on her finger was apparently like a sh
and it's very popular amongst gen z and even millennials
that you know this this tattoo, So it's not like
a totally uncommon tattoo. But what I was curious about
was if her body is an advanced state of decomp
how can they identify two on her? Because doesn't your skin.

(17:14):
Isn't your skin the first thing to like decomp decompose?

Speaker 4 (17:18):
Yeah, well, it presents with decompositional changes. But tattoos are
quite amazing. They're resilience after death. We can actually, I
don't hate to use the term, we can breathe life
into the tattoo. It's not really what we do. But
first off, you can kind of clear off the top
layer of skin, which is easily done with decomposing bodies.

(17:39):
When you get down into the dermis. You know, we
have the epidermis and the dermis. You get down into
the dermis and it might be the epidermist because of
color changes in body, it might block you visually, but
if you suspect that you see something, you can kind
of clear out that top layer and you'd be surprised
at how vibrant some of the tattoos are. We also

(18:00):
use alternative lighting. Many times, we can use infrared and
those sorts of things, and or we can call in
a photographer that does that's not my Bailey Wick, but
been around when it's done, and you can capture these
images that are really really significant. You know, tattoos have
been used for years to get IDs. The problem is

(18:22):
is that what's the old joke. You know, people walk
around with like the Chinese word for water on their body,
have no idea what it means. But tattoos, they used
to be so unique people and you could actually identify
people or the tattoo artists by virtue of the school

(18:43):
that the artists used to come from. And there's a
whole history of forensics and tattoos out there. But I digress.
It's quite possible. It's easy to do that. You can
recognize sometimes you can recognize tattoos easier than you can't trauma.

Speaker 5 (19:00):
Yeah, there's nothing that we could learn then from them
just identifying that that she had a tattoo. I was
kind of thinking, you know, if they were able to
see this tattoo, then maybe she wasn't in the trunk
that long, right, But that doesn't that's it.

Speaker 4 (19:14):
Yeah, now I understand where you're going there. And then yeah,
and it's a. It's a valid question. I think the
problem is, as we had mentioned previously, that the temperature
in this case, and this is always the biggest impact
for us in the world of postportum interval PMI is
you have to do the calculation of day to day

(19:36):
heating and cooling and that and heat speeds everything up.
You just think about the first time you took a
chemistry class and you walked in there was a bunch
of burner or an alcohol burner. You know, most experiments
have started many times with heat, and so heat, you know,
starts this process and it really really you have to
be very in tune to just just the environmental changes

(20:00):
on a daily basis. You said that, you know, our
friends out out in the LA area, we're going through
a major heat wave. Yes, it was hot time, and
you have to track that back to try to understand, well,
how long had this individual they have now identified as her,
how long had she been When was the last time?
Not how long, but when's the last time she was

(20:21):
known to be a lot, because that's really our only
point of reference, and that can either come from digital
evidence like being seen on CCTV or phone records, or
maybe a little bit less reliable. When was the last
time somebody actually saw her? You'd have to source that
information and try to understand is this person giving me,

(20:43):
you know, the straight dope here, I don't know right.

Speaker 5 (20:46):
Well, Fox eleven out of Los Angeles is reporting that
the car was outside the home for around a month,
a little less than a month, and so that's when
and that's why I got told because it looked to
be abandoned. So I mean at least let's say, four weeks.
But we should note though that this investigation, it's being

(21:07):
treated as a homicide, but there is no official manner
of death at the moment, so there's no there's really
been no updates from LAPD. Right, there's been no press conference,
there's no suspects. Yeah, David you know, is not been
charged with this. He apparently is cooperating with the investigation.

(21:27):
So we just want to make it clear, like you know,
that this is an ongoing investigation. We're not going to
hear a lot from LAPD at least until we get
a manner of death. Right, and the fact that they
don't have a manner of death, that is a little telling,
isn't it.

Speaker 3 (21:40):
Right.

Speaker 5 (21:40):
We were kind of talking about this right before the
break and you were getting ready to get into it,
and I got kind of excited. The fact that they
don't have a manner of death tells us something, doesn't it.

Speaker 4 (21:50):
Yeah, but many things can be inferred. I think, as
I'd mentioned, most of the time, if you have a
body that has in fact been dismembered, and that's been
stated over and over again in the press, the press
actually says this came from the authorities. Most of the time,
when you have these cases with a dismemberment, they're going
to give you a manner of homicide because there's no
other logical, well realistic explanation for that. I have covered

(22:15):
one case in the past where God had dismembered his father,
but it wasn't homicide. It was he was afraid he's
gonna get caught with drugs. And it is a long story,
but anyway that happened down in Florida. People might remember
that case is really bizarre. They never recovered the father's head,
as a matter of fact. But in this particular case,
in this particular case, why why are you going to

(22:38):
find the remains of a young girl? Let me, I
want to say one thing real quick, she's a child, She's.

Speaker 5 (22:47):
A baby child.

Speaker 4 (22:49):
This is a Child's very important for everybody to understand.
And she's moving and living in a world of adults
and you have to have you have to have an
explanation for this, and that's going to be the key
that's going to lead, I think, at least, because who
has anger this much anger toward a child that if

(23:11):
she had lived, she would be fifteen, right, because there's
a probability that she never made it.

Speaker 5 (23:18):
He's actually fourteen, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, but they're saying
that right now. The Medical Examiner's website for the Los
Angeles County says that her date of death is September eighth,
But I do believe they're just using that date because
that's the day that she they are and that's still
update that I assume.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
Yeah, and that's another important forensic part here, that date
of death. We have two things. You have people hear
the terms that get them confused. You hear time of
death and time of pronouncement. She was pronounced on that date.
The actual date of death is a scientific finding, so
pronouncement is a governmental finding. You know. That's like I

(23:55):
proclaim you deceased, and that you can have a skill
ULTI remain you can have the fresh dead. Either way,
they have to officially buy what's referred to as the
certifier of death, which is the corner. They have to
be proclaimed deceased at that point in time. But that's
not the date or time of actual death. That's merely

(24:18):
the time of pronouncement, two separate things.

Speaker 5 (24:22):
This is true Crime tonight on iHeartRadio. I'm Boddy Moving
and I'm here with Courtney Armstrong and we are so
lucky to have Joseph Scott Morgan. He is a forensic
death investigator, and we've been going over poor Celeste Reevas.
She's fifteen, possibly fourteen years old, and she was found
in the trunk of singer David's tesla on the eighth.

(24:43):
But I understand Courtney that you have an update on
Travis Decker.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
Yes, absolutely so. Travis Decker.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
We have been following since this tragedy began, which was
I believe it was on June first. Travis Decker is
an Army veteran and he has been wanted for three
counts of first degree murder and three counts of first
degree kidnapping for the deaths of his three daughters, all
under the age of ten, and this happened when he

(25:15):
left home with his daughters for a planned visit on
the thirtieth of May and he never returned. So there
has been an investigation and a man hunt going on
for this entire time, and investigators have found bone fragments
as well as some other human remains and clothing that

(25:36):
looks similar to what Travis Decker was wearing before his
three daughters were found deceased at this campsite in the
Cascades of Washington.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
Earlier.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
So this is interesting to me because there had been
an earlier report of bones were found and there was
a big question mark and it turned out to be
animal bones. Joseph, as a layperson, it seemed to me
that it would be incredibly obvious immediately of an animal
versus a human. But can you explain how that can

(26:11):
be a question mark?

Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yeah, good question, Yeah, absolutely, it's really scientifically, it's fascinating
because in every jurisdiction I've worked in, we would a
couple of times a year we have somebody show up
at the Emmy's office, at the corner's office with a
bone in hand, and I want to know I found
this in my yard. It's just a human and most

(26:33):
of the time it was the remnants of a barbecue
that that happened quite a bit. It's rare that you actually,
you know that someone comes across a non historic remain
every now and then. If you lived in an area,
particularly down the South or you know, mid Atlantic, where

(26:54):
there were Civil War battlefields a few years ago, you
would find remains, you know, that way, that were never
and many times dogs are involved. Dogs will bring bones
up into yards all the time. That happens with great frequency.
As a matter of fact. Now you have to be
able the bone itself if you're talking safe for instance,

(27:19):
like beef bones, like a beef rib. Anybody that's ever
seen a beef rib, you've ever gone for barbecue in Texas.
These things are massive and you look at that and
you know, okay, it's a rib. But this is not human.
And we use the term robust and grassile. Grassile means fine.

(27:41):
And so we're looking at bones. But the morphology of
the bone, the way the bone appears, like the fore
legs of a cow. You think about what is equivalent
to our femur. Their fever is going to be the
diameter of the thing is going to be massive. You
can look at it. But and look, I'm not saying

(28:02):
if people have questions, bring it to the corner.

Speaker 5 (28:05):
Man, you don't do it. I didn't know they would
do that.

Speaker 4 (28:08):
Yeah, you you missed up, Tony. You have to look
at them because you don't you know. I invite anybody
that has a question like that to reach out to
the authorities because you never know. You never know. I mean,
there are people that are trained to look at these
and in this particular case, we had the animal animal remains,
and I think I remember we talked about this and
we got kind of excited about this. We thought that

(28:28):
we had a resolution. As it turned out, it turned
out to be nothing. But now they have these remains
and they are saying specifically human they are. So we'll
see how this rolls out. I'm this case. Is this
case affected me? I think it affected y'all too. I
don't want to superpose my thoughts on these precious little

(28:49):
babies and what they went through. It's just heartbreaking, and
I think that a lot of us wanted to know that.
I don't know from me personally. You want to you
want to have the idea the man isn't roaming the countryside,
you know what I'm saying. Yeah, this is terrifying stuff.
Terrifying stuff.

Speaker 5 (29:07):
He's just out right, I mean yeah, he's just out
there living his life. Nobody wants that, you know, Like, yeah,
we want him punished, right and to answer for his crime.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yes, we DNA testing is.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
The results are anticipated to come back in the next
several days. But at this announcement of the discovery, which
happened on Thursday, the Sheriff's office said it has been
in contact with the Decker family and as we're providing
them with updates and support, so it seems like they
may finally be closing in.

Speaker 5 (29:38):
Well, I hope, so hopefully we'll get some answers. Well,
coming up, what famous football player is funding the autopsy
for Trey Reed, the Mississippi student found haul last week?
And later we're going to be unpacking the forensics in
that Colorado funeral misconduct.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
We want to hear from you, so give us a call.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
We're at eight a eight to three to one crime
or you can always leave us a talk back. They
come in very quickly. So just go to the iHeartRadio app.
You go to the top right hand corner, you click
the microphone, leave a voice memo, and then you are
on the show. We love folk, we love a talk back,
We love a call in, or you can get to

(30:16):
us on socials. We are at True Crime Tonight's show
on TikTok and Instagram and True Crime Tonight on Facebook.
Later in the show, We're going to be diving deeper
into Colorado's disturbing funeral home problems. There's been more than
one and one was already too many. But first we
are going to hit a talkback.

Speaker 4 (30:37):
Hi True Crime Night.

Speaker 6 (30:39):
Lee Joseph Scott Morgan mentioned a story a few weeks
ago about a child that was missing and he was nonverbal.
I think was in Tennessee and I saw something this
week that he was found and he was eaten by
an alligator and the mom was arrested. Can we get
more information?

Speaker 4 (30:59):
You guys are better at that than I am.

Speaker 5 (31:01):
Thanks by thank you for the talk back, and yes,
of course, this is such a sad, sad, sad story,
and I learned about it actually today. I think you
guys discussed us while I was out, because wow, this
poor boy. So visitation and funeral services were held this
past Saturday on the fourteenth, September fourteenth for twelve year
old Brian Vesquez. He's auta Louisiana. His body was found

(31:27):
inside an alligator, and his mother has been arrested and
charged with negligent homicide and child cruelty. Amongst these allegations
of like long standing abuse and so Brian Vesquez he
was a nonverbal twelve year old from the East area
of New Orleans. He disappeared on August fourteenth after kind

(31:47):
of like leaving his house from a bedroom window early
in the morning. This is so awful. So his mother
has been charged with negligent homicide. How does how how
is how is this even related to him ending up
in a in the body of an alligator.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
I mean, it's so it's just tragic beyond as you said,
and especially you know, beginning with going out through a window.
But it seems like there has been a history of
abuse with the mother. Case documents prior incident when Brian,

(32:26):
when he was just really a baby infant three months old,
he had suffered some severe injuries a skull fracture, broken legs,
a collapse lung, and his mother has been previously convicted
for cruelty to a juvenile back in twenty thirteen, and
he was removed from the home at the time but
later returned, So that's going to be part of it.

(32:50):
And then I don't know if you guys saw, but
there's also there was also a delay in the police response.
So the authority also acknowledged that there was a significant
delay of about five hours between when this nonverbal twelve
year old boy was reported missing and when officers responded.

(33:11):
That delay is under an internal investigation. So it seems
like failings on many levels.

Speaker 5 (33:18):
Oh, this is so awful. So I'm hoping that there's
some kind of resolution like how did did he slip
and fall into some kind of pond or something like what?
I don't I don't understand. But apparently her negligence of
being a mother, uh you know, caused him to maybe escape.

(33:38):
I use the word escape, but maybe I shouldn't use
that word, but leave the home right through this window.
I mean, it's not like they're implying that mom fed
him to the alligator, right or no?

Speaker 4 (33:51):
No, no, And you know this is.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
Crazy.

Speaker 4 (33:56):
My hometown, that's your home, right yeah. Yeah. And so
the area where they're talking about this is in east
the East Side So if you're if people have been
to New Orleans when you come in on it, if
you're coming from the east, this is where you make
the entry. As a matter of fact, New Orleans East
is the area that was so desperately impact Trina. Yeah,

(34:18):
and so there in the ninth ward, Yeah, in that
area there and in New Orleans. The thing about it
is is that you'll have homes that border actual canals.
The canals don't have like fencing or anything like that.
On you can step off the edge of the canal
and the next thing you know, you're in thirteen feet

(34:39):
of water. And this and the canals all drain either
they might drain toward Lake Poncha Train or down toward
the river where you've got the marshes and everything and
everything leads to the gulf. So these are habitats, I
mean wild habitats, you know out in these areas where yeah,
there are lots lots of gaters, lots of gaters out there,

(35:02):
work cases involving gaters. And if you've got a child
that is compromised like this, this poor little angel, and
mama's not minding the store, if you will, this is negligence,
you know, it's not yes, you might have a history
of abuse, But this goes to another portion of this
investigatively is negligence because you if you have a child

(35:24):
like this, you don't want them to have the ability
to open a window and just disappear into the night.
So that speaks to do care if you will. And
you know, you think about him just wandering around and
if he's disoriented, maybe he's in the dark, it doesn't matter.
And you step off and you're in like a lush

(35:45):
grassy area and there's a lot of lush, grassy, grassy
areas down there, thick grass. You're just sitting there and
the next thing you know, you step off into a pond. Well,
all bets are off because you don't know what's in
that murky water. And it's it's actual very terrifying consideration.
But in my opinion, at least to what I know

(36:05):
about this right now, that's that's what sounds like happened.

Speaker 5 (36:11):
How do forensics teams confirm human remains when they're found
inside an animal.

Speaker 4 (36:15):
Like an well, yeah, you know this is I think
that one of the things is you have to be
able to identify the animal specifically, and you would get it.
And the thing that, you know, the thing that's kind
of troubling is that if this was if they're calling
it New Orleans, ease, this is n OPD. This is
because the like Miami Dade, the city and the county

(36:40):
are one and the same, so Orleans. In Louisiana we
have parishes, so it would be Orleans Parish, which is
the same as New Orleans, and so thus jurisdictions, n
OPD would have worked this area. So if they got
to call out on it and it took them five
hours to get there and you got to the child,
that's this compromised. You'd have to know how the call

(37:02):
came up and then where do you look, you know,
is this in proximity to his domicile? And if you
would have to call out wildlife and fisheries, this is
not something that NPD would handle. While like fisheries, the
game wardens if you will, who are police officers as
well state police officers. They would come out, they would
assess the situation and they would begin to search this area.

(37:23):
If there is a gator in that area, if they
think might have been involved in this, they're going to
do everything they can to get that gator, and then
at that point in time, if hate gunnuns road, but
if this has happened, there would be an examination of
that animal, and then if there are partial remains, something

(37:45):
that's left behind that was not consumed by this animal,
they would take those two things and compare them.

Speaker 5 (37:53):
Well, there was surveillance footage that showed Brian near that lagoon.
Brian is the victim in this He's the nonverbal twelve
year old. There was surveillance footage that showed him near
that lagoon where his body was found, and apparently he
was missing for about two weeks before they found his
body in this alligator. So I'm just it's just fascinating

(38:13):
to me, like how they So do they have to
I don't want to say this because it's going to
make me sound crazy, but do they have to kill
the alligator?

Speaker 4 (38:22):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (38:22):
Yeah, Okay, definitely.

Speaker 4 (38:24):
And most of the time gators don't eat immediately. They kill,
cap they capture kill. Oh they store, Yeah, they store,
and that's one of the things they use their tail for.
They'll swish out a bank underneath and they will actually
take a remain. It doesn't matter what it is, whatever
it is that they're choosing and they will store that.
Alligators don't have a People think about their their bite

(38:47):
ability and they've got a great bite going down, but
they're very weak when they open their mouth, and so
the ingestion process it takes some time for them. So
I have found, at least the cases that I've worked,
and particularly when working with Wilette Fisheries who knows all
about this, there has to be a period of time

(39:10):
where the what they're eating is actually digestible for them,
and so that's why they have this area where they
store and then they returned back. I'd like to know
more about the dynamics of actually how they identified this,
because you know, investigatively, it's it's interesting and it's it's

(39:31):
also it's a cautionary tale as well to mind your
children no matter what. And this seems like a long
term problem. It sounds like not only is there parental failure,
there is maybe law enforcement failure as well, because they
didn't get on this soon enough.

Speaker 5 (39:50):
Well, the Orleans Parish Corner's Office did confirm the cause
of death is drowning with blunt trauma consistent with an
alligator attack. So they must have owned something that gave
them you know, whether it was like you said, you know,
impact or or whatnot to the body with this blendforce
trauma of the some kind of I hate to you know, but.

Speaker 4 (40:13):
No, it's okay, no, I mean, that's that's just the
reality of it. That's what we're talking about here. And yeah,
and also they were they would be able to confirm
drowning as well. So that means that this child would
have taken water on into their lungs, which would not
be outside the realm possibility they might find water in
the lungs also in the inner ear, something you look for,

(40:35):
and drowning And of course we know that that alligators
do the death roll, and that's one of the ways
that they subdue prey. I hate to reduce his child prey,
It certainly isn't. But this little angel, you know, he
met up a fate that he did not deserve in
this particular instance.

Speaker 5 (40:55):
Well, the neighborhood in which he lives in had the
community member tew the vigil to honor Brian following his death,
and we're certainly glad to know that. But it's not
yet clear exactly when Brian died. During the window he
was missing the corner has not been able to pinpoint
the precise moment, and we're going to continue to follow
this case and keep you guys updated on everything. This

(41:17):
is True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. I'm Boddy Movin and
I'm here with Courtney Armstrong and forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan.
We've been talking about Brian Besquez and we want to
hear from you. Hit us up on the talkbacks or
give us a call at eighty eight thirty one Crime.
I understand, we have a talk back.

Speaker 7 (41:33):
Hi, Tika, this is Nancy from Atlanta, and you're talking
about the guy and the change of clothes. I think
he probably was double closed and so he was able
to take off what he was on the rooftop with
and probably discarded those, I would think, but then he

(41:56):
had already had the clothes underneath. The T shirt would
be easy. And we don't really know do we really
know what I'm not sure if I know what color
his pants were when he was up there, But anyway,
that was just my thoughts. Anyway, I can't wait to
listen to you tonight. Have a good one bye.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
Thank thank you, thank you so much for that.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
And what that talk back was in reference to is
the accused shooter Tyler Robinson, who is the suspect for
shooting Charlie Kirk, the political activist, which has obviously taken
this nation really on hold. So that's, I mean, that's
an interesting theory. Again, it is, it's a question mark still,

(42:44):
it is. I don't know if either of you have
any specific thoughts.

Speaker 4 (42:48):
Yeah, actually, I'll just give you my experience with multiple
layers of clothing. I've worked cases where you have people
that live and work on the streets in the criminal element,
and many times they will, particularly people that commit robberies
that are really good at it, they'll wear multiple layers
of clothing and as they have committed a crime, they

(43:10):
will and it's amazing how they'll do this. The clothing
is in stark contrast. Maybe the clothing they have within
is in start contrast to that that they have externally.
So if you're looking for a guy with a white
T shirt, you look for a guy that's now got
a I mean, now this guy has a red T
shirt on our blue T shirt. He's not fitting the script.

(43:32):
Maybe he had a hat on, he took the hat off.
Maybe hat shades on it's no longer wearing shades, or
maybe now he is wearing shades. And so you'll see
this many times on the street. You'll have I had
homicide victims over the years, and I remember the first
time I ever saw it. I had actually have a
guy that had three layers of clothing on. This is

(43:52):
in New Orleans. It's rarely cool in New Orleans. And
so you've got somebody that's got three layers of clothing on,
and you're thinking, wow, my lord, why so many And
the detectives educated me really quickly about this. This is,
this is what this guy's involved in. So he wants
to give the appearance of something else, but very salient question.

Speaker 5 (44:13):
Comment, Now it is, and we know we've seen the photos.
There is surveillance images of him too, wearing this maroon
shirt and light colored like shorts, you know, after the shooting.
So it is, it is. But prior to the shooting,
the surveillance remember the surveillance photos that we got from
the FBI, he was wearing like the dark clothing, like

(44:35):
the dark shirt and whatnot. And then just recently, surveillance
images from Dairy Queen of about seventeen minutes away have
surfaced of him after the shooting getting an ice cream
cone and he's wearing that maroon shirt, so it does
appear like he changed clothes. So thank you for that
talk back. It is very well taken. Keep it right here.

(44:55):
True crime tonight. We're talking true crime all the time.
So later on in the show, we're going to be
continuing to diving into the shocking pattern of abuse in
these Colorado funeral homes. We've covered it a little bit

(45:18):
and Joseph has a new case to unpack. But now
let's talk about this weekend's true crime news. Courtney, what
have you been following? Okay, So, Tray Reid.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
He is the twenty one year old first year student
at Delta State University in Mississippi, and very sadly, he
was found hanging from a tree on campus the morning
of September fifteenth. Very quickly, this death was ruled a
suicide by authorities. However, Trey Reid's family has retained a

(45:51):
civil rights attorney, a guy named Ben Crump, and they're
pursuing an independent autopsy.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
This autopsy is.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Being funded by Colin Kaepernick and he is the NFL,
the former NFL player, and he runs the Know your
Rights initiative. So this one, I mean, it just talk
about having more question marks than there are answers. And understandably,

(46:22):
Trey Read's family is very skeptical and really wants independent verification.

Speaker 5 (46:29):
I can't say that I blame them, no.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
And I actually I have a question for you, Joseph
when when you were on last week, I don't recall
which case we were talking about, but it was to
sort of leave every area open, and that suicide, which
would close down a homicide investigation is sort of a
pause is taken until many avenues.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
That's us, That's right.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
So do you have a thought about how quickly this
was deemed a suicide?

Speaker 4 (47:08):
Well? Yeah, I mean part of me does. I guess
in my experience, at least in my little slice the pie,
the second leading methodology for suicide, behind gunshot wound is hanging.
So my suspicion is is that they saw evidence that

(47:32):
this may have been a case of utilizing the noose
in order to end his life. Now, you have to
be very careful here relative to because many times this
is what happens. You can have people that will take
hanging and use that as a disguise. For some other

(47:55):
kind of airway compromise. Okay, so that's called staging. Staging
of a scene, that's one of the things we look for.
So if you're talking about let's just say for instance,
and I'll try to break this down, so if you're
talking about a ligature strangulation, that is where you use
a cord, a rope, a piece of wire. I've seen

(48:15):
a lot of different things. I've seen pants, belts, you
name it, shirts, The lines that you have on the neck,
for instance, with a ligature strangulation, ten tend to go
parallel to the shoulders, so they kind of run straight back,

(48:37):
all right with hanging the lines or the furrows. We
refer to them as go up and they form an
apex behind the ear, and we call it tinting feature.
And we talked about this, I think some with Epstein,
you know, because his injuries on his neck ran backwards.

(48:58):
That's one of the reasons many of us in forensics
look at that case and say it just doesn't look right.
So I'm glad that they've that they've retired retained Crump,
and I hope that they they retain a good forensic

(49:18):
pathologist because listen, you get one shot at it okay,
and if they have questions, they need to put their
minds at ease, all right, and be able to see
if there's anything there that the state medical examiner in
Mississippi may have missed, you know. I mean in forensics,
we don't we don't mind if if a family wants

(49:41):
to get, you know, a second opinion about it, we
encourage it many times. And I think it's it's it's
wise on their part to do that that way. You know, Look,
you know, a decade from now they might have questions.
It's better to go ahead and have somebody that is
retained by you that's going to answer this questions for you.
So I think that that's it's an important move on
their part. I'm glad that they're doing it.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Yeah, I was very surprised. I'm fairly certain that it
was the very same day that Trey Reid was found hanging,
that it was announced no foul play indicated. And all
I could think about, having, you know, been lucky enough
to work with you for so long, Joseph, is we

(50:24):
don't know what kind of drugs may or may not
be in his system. I mean, someone there's many ways
that someone could be assaulted.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
That would not be you know, quick.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
To see the problem with homicidal hanging, and I know
a couple of them. Well, first off, you know, we've
got the horrible dark history of lynch mobs. But there's
a reason they call them lynch mobs. It's because it
takes a lot of people in order to facilitate. Unless
you have somebody that is in a drug state where
you can place a noose around their neck and act

(51:00):
suspend them, all right, that's very difficult to do. Generally.
It's going to take a couple of people that are
involved in something like that. Okay, So I think that
you have to cover all of your bases relative to that. Yeah,
I think that it's really important to get all the
talks because if somebody has done self harm, you have

(51:22):
to understand something about their psychiatric history. You have to
understand if there are only any kind of medication, what's
their psychological background, are they currently in treatment? And this
is stuff that we standardly do in the medical legal world,
where we will interview psychologists, social worker therapist, psychiatrists and
if we find medications that are related to depression, those

(51:47):
we're calling these people. We're going to have a conversation,
and that takes time. It takes time. First off, you
have to get past the physicians saying we don't want
to talk to you because of patient privacy, but you
have to remind them their patient is now deceased. So
and I don't have any indication of that at this point.
That's the if it were my investigation, that's throughout that

(52:10):
I would go go down. I would want to speak
to as many people as I could for you know,
you sign off on this and call it a suicide.

Speaker 5 (52:19):
Well, and apparently too, there was no obvious like injuries
to his body, like you didn't have any contusions or lacerations.
There was no like signs of a struggle, I'm assuming
is what they mean by these, right, Like there was
no broken bones, signs of assault before his death, like
he was beaten up or anything like that. So did

(52:39):
you think that led to the you know, the idea.

Speaker 7 (52:43):
That it was.

Speaker 4 (52:45):
I mean, just imagine if it were any of us
and someone threatening to do this to us, You're going
to fight back, right, You're going to do You're going
to put up a fight. Sure, So that's you're running
down this kind of checklist in your mind as an
investigator to go through through this. You know, if you're
preserving the body, you're looking for injuries, those sorts of things,
and you know you're kind of checking this off the

(53:08):
list as you go along. But we have you know,
there are paines every day, every day all around this
country and they don't ever make the news, but they
do because my suicides don't make the news unless they're
a celebrity. And so we deal with this a lot,
a lot in my world, and so it's something that

(53:30):
we're pretty good at investigating from a medical legal perspective.
I'm not talking about from a police perspective of course.
Totally two different animals here, so yeah, but yeah, they
did do this relatively quickly, So I'd like to know
more about psychiatric history.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Well, we will absolutely be keeping you abreast as more
information unfolds and comes out with this case.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
This is true crime Tonight. We're on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
I'm Courtney Armstrong here with Dataly Body Movin and forensic
crime expert Joseph Scott Morgan. Give us a call. We're
at eighty eight three to one Crime. I actually wanted
to speak with you guys about.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
The burning man.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
Oh yeah, yeah, crime that happened, which we spoke about
before we had more information, But since we last spoke
a few weeks ago, a murder weapon and cause of
death has now been publicly released. And this pertains to
the case of excuse my pronunciation, Vadim Kruglov, who was
a thirty seven year old Russian man. He was found

(54:36):
what we knew at the time, lying in a pool
of blood quote at the festival in August of twenty
twenty five. So in this recent update, authorities have announced
that he was gruesome. He was stabbed in the neck
with a green pitchen knife.

Speaker 5 (54:53):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
Yeah, And Joseph I recall talking about how at something
like a festival at burning Man with many people with
not the most sanitary you know, we're not in a kitchen,
We're out in the dirt. How much harder does that
make it to determine cause of death, to potentially confirm

(55:19):
the correct murder weapon?

Speaker 4 (55:21):
Exponentially? I can't believe I got to tell you. I
was You could knock me over with a feather when
I found out that this person left the weapon there. Yeah,
because they published they published an image of a knife similar. Okay,
that's been out there, and I think it's green. It's
one of these kitchen knives. You know. You can go

(55:42):
into these stores and you'll see these knives now that
are multi colored, which is something, you know, so bizarre
to me, because they look like they're plastic. They will
they will mean they're very sharp, you know. And so
this looks like a knife that you would have in
your knife block, you know. And that's a clue to me,

(56:03):
in your knife block on the on you know, your
kitchen cabinet where you're preparing food. It sounds like a
weapon of convenience that hey, I'm going to put this
in my pocket or my backpack or something like that
just to defend myself. It's not like they went out
to a hunting hunting goods store, you know, to a

(56:23):
sports sporting good store and purchased a survival knife or
something like that. It's not what they did. This is
a knife that you would use to chop up onions with.

Speaker 7 (56:34):
All right.

Speaker 4 (56:35):
Now, it's robust, and it's the blade with is is significant.
I'm sure you know, it probably had some kind of
edge on it and it wouldn't really take too much
if you're going to stab someone in the neck in
order to facilitate the death. The fact that they found
it there. But oh my lord, this environment that they're

(56:57):
in is a it's a nightmare scenario for you as
an investigator because you're talking about dirt surfaces, that's you know,
where you've got so much traffic. The one est I
hear the numbers have dropped from Burning Man, but you're
still talking about seventy thousand people was one estimate. Just

(57:19):
imagine all of the combinations that you have from a
DNA perspective, from a footprint perspective, from a fingerprint perspective.

Speaker 3 (57:26):
Sweat and drinks and everything.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
Absolutely, there's all kinds of stuff laying around debris. How
do you separate this and how do you secure it?
That's the big thing. And then any potential witnesses that
you might have. There's people from all over the world
that were at this thing, right, so they're in the wind.
They're in the wind now.

Speaker 5 (57:47):
The first thing I thought about it's very difficult when
I heard this green knife is you know, people at
Bernie Man are kind of notorious for live streaming and
making videos and whatnot. I'm sure investigators are combing through
video evidence to see who had a butcher block in
their little camper. You know, I'm sure they're looking at
all that. I mean, it was it's the first thing

(58:08):
that came to mi my because it's kind of unique, right,
It's not like a common utensil that you would have
at one of these festivals, so you know they have
if I don't know if you've ever been to any
of these festivals or not. I have never been a
burning man personally, but I've been to similar things. And
you know, usually there's like kind of like little cities, right,
there's little cities and people are, you know, selling things

(58:30):
and cooking and making hot dogs for people and things
like that, and chances are maybe this butcher block or
even just a green knife to cut up onions, as
you said, might be in one of these videos and
they might be able to kind of narrow things down
by that. I mean, I'm very interested in all that.

Speaker 4 (58:49):
Easy Manufacturer, this is something we do in investigations. So
an item like this is traceable. It's traceable from the
perspective of manufacture, what lot it came out of, when
it was manufactured, where it was sold, are who the
retailers that sell this thing distributed now you can you
can kind of come to a dead end with all

(59:10):
of that. But you know, I call it the investigated funnel.
So you're trying to narrow down as much of this
data that you're kind of dumping into your computer and
your head and kind of narrowing down the evidence. And
if you look at this and you think, wow, okay,
well I've got it limited down to a big box
store whoever that might be, and they sell this there.

(59:31):
As a matter of fact, this model was discontinued back
and I don't know five years ago. Well, again, you're
narrowing that down right now, where was it sold geographically? Okay?

Speaker 3 (59:42):
Who stores sold it?

Speaker 4 (59:44):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (59:44):
Right? And where are they located?

Speaker 3 (59:46):
It's very interesting, it sure is. Well.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
This incident does appear, thankfully, to be the very first
homicide and hopefully the last reported at burning Man, And
as of right now, there is no suspect who's been identified.
There have been hundreds of tips into law enforcements in
keep them coming and keep it here, because after the break,
we're going to talk about a mother daughter duo who

(01:00:12):
was sentenced for selling body parts on the black market.
Keep it here, a true crime tonight, talking true crime
all the time.

Speaker 5 (01:00:28):
Right now, we're going to be returning to a story
we covered last week with forensic analyst Joseph Scott Morgan
here to break it all down for listen. This is
about this funeral home in Colorado, Courtney, what's going on?

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
Body? I wish it was one funeral I know we
have got a trio in.

Speaker 5 (01:00:47):
Fact that's gone so fun Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
This was first brought to us just on Thursday when
our fantastic associate producer Ava shared it. She did, and
Colorado they've been plagued by this i'd spread a funeral
home abuse and it includes illegal sale of body parts,
mishandling of different kinds of remains, and delivery of fake

(01:01:12):
cremation remains. And this has gone across multiple facilities over
the past fifteen years.

Speaker 5 (01:01:18):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
Yeah, And what these cases have revealed is some pretty
major regulatory gaps in the state's funeral industry. We did
learn that Colorado has some pretty laxed laws, really yeah,
and it includes lacked licensing requirements, routine inspections, and you

(01:01:40):
know what is called generally robust oversight. Even before we
dig into the specific ones, Joseph, can you give sort
of a broad overview of how different states. You know,
what is the latitude with licensing or inspections requirements.

Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
Yeah, most, there's many states have they're very adherent. Yeah,
let's look at it this way. I often tell you
guys this, I'm an advocate for the dead. That's what
I do because we try to tell their stories. But
by extension, you're an app for the family. If you will,

(01:02:22):
think about the most vulnerable time in your life, that's
when you lose someone that's very dear to you and
that you love, and so you're literally handing over this
most precious person to them to take care of them. Okay,
and you have individuals that fail at this miserably, and

(01:02:42):
sometimes there's this kind of malevolent thing that's going on,
you know, So yeah, they have to be adhere to.
I'm reminded of a case that was from nineteen ninety nine,
and if anybody's interested in this, makes that you read
the story with lights on.

Speaker 7 (01:03:03):
And that.

Speaker 4 (01:03:05):
You're at home with other people. It's the Tri State
crematory case out of Lafayette or Lafayette, Georgia, and there
were over three hundred bodies down there on that property
at a crematory where guy was actually saying he was
cremating bodies, but he was stacking the bodies all around

(01:03:26):
the property and they were decaying. And then he was
giving bits of ash and gravel to families. Yeah, gravel, dirt, wood, chips,
and it will make it'll make your skin crawl, you
know when you begin to think about this, and it
makes you angry too, you know. So when you think

(01:03:47):
about these families that are at the lowest I mean
just the lowest of low in their life, these things,
they're just going through these heartbreaking circumstances, and you have
somebody that will take bodies and either for whatever reason,
you know, in the Tristate case, the guy's crematory wasn't
working any long, it wasn't paying a gas bill, and

(01:04:10):
you have these people that make you know, I think
the one case in in in Colorado that was very recent,
the twenty the twenty bodies that were actually found stowed
behind a faux wall that turned out to be you know, cardboard.
They those bodies again were supposed to have been cremated,

(01:04:33):
and the families didn't get cremains back. That's what we
refer to cremated bodies as cremains. And the case that
I covered, I guess it was last year the year
before on bodybags. Was this mother and daughter duo in
Colorado that they were they were taking bodies and this

(01:04:54):
they got up on. They got charged of federal charges.
All right, So they were found in federal court because
this is a fraud case, is what it comes down to.
They would not only not cremate the bodies, they were
taking sections of the bodies and selling them to people
for medical for medical use, like to broad like to

(01:05:18):
train people how to do stitching and all that seuting.

Speaker 5 (01:05:21):
Yeah yeah, okay, so how do they even how do
they even meet these people to like this is some
dark web stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:05:31):
It's very dark yeah stuff. Yeah, I mean, and you know,
I don't I don't necessarily buy into like, you know,
people stealing organs and all those.

Speaker 5 (01:05:40):
Sorts of stuff. Yeah, I know, Yeah, I get you.

Speaker 4 (01:05:42):
Yeah. So many of the stories wind up with a
dead end. But fortunately in cases like this, you you
physically have proof here that something has occurred. And look
to their credit. I guess say Colorado is realized that
they need more regulatory control. And listen to the guy
with the twenty bodies, he was discovered because Colorado had

(01:06:06):
begun to clam down. They send inspectors over there, so
they're starting to n Yeah, and you know what's really
sad about this case, is it not only was that
fellow with the twenty bodies, not only was he a
local funeral home director. Guys, he's a local corner stop it, Yeah,
which means he's an elected government official. And listen, he

(01:06:28):
hasn't been brought to trial yet, so you know, innocent
until proven guilty. But it really gives you pause that
someone that's in a position of authority, that has this
kind of authority in a county, what else are they
involved in? How many of the cases are there out
You have to ask that question if you're an investigator.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
And is this I want to make sure because now
I'm getting my Colorado cases confused.

Speaker 3 (01:06:53):
Any of course, a lot of them.

Speaker 4 (01:06:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
So what we're talking about right now is I believe
Davis more true out of Pablo Colorado.

Speaker 4 (01:07:02):
That's the one. Yeah. Okay, So we have the Sunset,
the Sunset one with the daughter and the mother who
were selling body parts and they were found guilty back
in twenty twenty three. There's another case I think that
you guys covered it's like one hundred and ninety bodies.
There's also a case out there where a body was
found in a hearse that had been abandoned. That lady

(01:07:24):
had been dead for a protracted period of time. They
go into abandoned house and they find boxes of cremains
in there. It's the stuff of horror movies. I mean,
it really is. I don't know that Rob Zombie can
do justice to this because it's something that you don't
really think about. So people would do this, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:07:44):
With this corner. Are they going to go back and
look at all the cases that this corner has ever touched.

Speaker 4 (01:07:49):
I hope they do. Yeah, Yeah, I hope they do.
This is a very listen man. It's I always talk
about this because I've trained corners all over the country.
I've taught them had Most are just so dedicated. They
really care about their community. They're doing a job that
nobody else does and the people in the community can't
even imagine what goes on. But when you get somebody

(01:08:12):
that's in there that has let's just say they're less
than moral and that you would take advantage of a
family that has lost everything, Because when you lose somebody
you love, you have lost everything. It takes you. Most
people never recover from it. And so it's a horrible

(01:08:35):
set of circumstances. And so yeah, the government, they've got
to reign this in. They have to rein it in
state by state and use their regulatory powers to do that.

Speaker 5 (01:08:46):
Man, I just can't. I mean, the corner this is
such a trusted position.

Speaker 4 (01:08:51):
Yes, yeah it is. And you know with with the
most vulnerable, and the vulnerable are not necessarily the dead.
The vulnerable or the families that are left behind. The
dead's journey's over with at this point in this life,
at least the family has to go on. And can
you imagine having to make sense out of this for

(01:09:11):
years and years to come? Grief is enough to bear?
Can you imagine having to bear this in addition to it?

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
Grief certainly is enough to bear.

Speaker 2 (01:09:20):
You are listening right now to True Crime tonight, and
we're talking about a corpse abuse epidemic is probably too
strong a word, but as we're talking about three of
them at one moment, it feels a little bit apt.
It's going on in Colorado. If you want to weigh
in with any of your thoughts. Give us a call
at eighty eight to three to one. Crime forensics expert

(01:09:42):
Joseph Scott Morgan is here joining Body Move and I
this evening we want to hear from you. So okay,
so I want to talk about this mother daughter du well,
So let us start there with is this Megan Hesse
and sure Potch yes the sunset?

Speaker 3 (01:10:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
So between twenty ten and about twenty eighteen, those two
women operated a funeral home and a body parts business,
and apparently they sold parts from over five hundred and
fifty corpses. And this of course was without family members consent.
Five hundred and fifty oh my god, more than that.

Speaker 4 (01:10:24):
Yeah, And the reason they could do this is that
it was they were claiming that they were going to
cremate the bodies. Okay, so just think of it this way.
If you're going to engage in this kind of illegal
activity and for lack of a better term, the dead

(01:10:44):
or what you're selling, well, you can give family back
quote unquote, and I'm doing air quotes right now. Yeah,
cremains that are not actually cremains because lots of times
the vessels that you receive receive these in or sealed
and even if you do open it up, people want
to see the cremains. If you just put you know,

(01:11:08):
like burned wood ash if you will in there, the
layman is not going to know the difference. Most of
the time, they're not going to sift through through cremains.
And there's certain things that we can do in forensics
where we can spot things like elements of bone chips
that are left behind that are not completely disintegrated and

(01:11:30):
so and it's easy to get away with. I mean,
just think about it. I mean, what criminal in the
world would not want to burn any evidence of their
of their you know, malfeasance, whatever that might be. So
they're retaining the actual remains and then they're dissecting out
those portions that they can assign value to and charge

(01:11:50):
people for it, and people will pay for it.

Speaker 5 (01:11:52):
So basically, let me let me understand this, and the
paint a picture. Okay, So I'm dead, right and I
want to be cremated, and I go to this funeral
home and let's say, I you know, they're going to
cremate me, but instead of cremating me, they take my foot.
Let's say, yes, right, and they send they sell my

(01:12:14):
foot to for stitching purposes to some medical place in
what some other country, and then they cremate the remainder
of my remains. My person would never know, right, Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:12:28):
My god, I know. And so this is that's right.

Speaker 5 (01:12:32):
I mean I never thought you gonna have.

Speaker 4 (01:12:33):
Yeah, you have. And it's a horrible thing to think about. Uh,
you know. And and there are cases of people, uh
for years that have done things like grave robbing that
still goes owned by the way. Uh, people are not
aware of it that we're shreaking into mausoleums and stuff.
And covered a case not too long ago in Bodybags
where we talked about a skull that had been recovered,

(01:12:59):
that was found and someone had actually robbed gray back
in the eighteen nineties. In this skull had been passed
through a family and uh, and they had the skull.

Speaker 5 (01:13:11):
Can you imagine your family heroin being the skull.

Speaker 4 (01:13:15):
Yeah, I know there are some people. You'd be surprised.
You'd be surprised what people collect out there. I've seen
a lot of it over the year. It still it
still shocks me, you know. Yeah, what people want and
people desire what they think they want, and you're just
bringing misery home with you. Man, I don't. I don't
understand it. I can't make sense of it. But besides that,

(01:13:41):
you know you're left. You've left these families in the
wake of everything with little or no consideration as to
how this is going to impact them. And I think
that many people just take the take the attitude they're
the dead. It doesn't matter it damn well does matter?

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Absolutely does of course it does. And here's another detail
that hadn't occurred to me until I'm just sort of
reading the research. So this pair Megan Hassen Shirley Koch,
mother and daughter. Back in March of twenty twenty one,
they were arrested in charge with mail fraud, which always
seems to get everyone from the mob on down. But

(01:14:22):
they were charged with mail fraud and illegal transportation of
hazardous materials for shipping infected remains that they had falsely
certified as disease free via mail and commercial flights. What's
Joseph tell me, is that not a horrible hygiene thing
or could get people sick out a flight?

Speaker 4 (01:14:43):
Yeah? Absolutely, And you don't know what they're doing. This
is not like some anatomical laboratory where these remains are
being harvested and there are people that do this, and
there are medical schools that require elements of human bodies,
and it's done. People donate their bodies to science all
the time. However, when you're doing things like this and

(01:15:05):
you're going to put it into the US mail, that's
a completely different set of circumstances. You don't know what's
passing through there at any point in time.

Speaker 3 (01:15:16):
Woof.

Speaker 2 (01:15:17):
Okay, well stick around. We have a lot more to
dig into. We're going to go on through some more
sanitary conversations and hopefully we're going to be hearing from you,
So give it here True Crime tonight.

Speaker 5 (01:15:39):
Right now, I understand we have a talk back. Let's
go right to it.

Speaker 8 (01:15:42):
Question about the Idaho murders. They what bathroom are they
talking about? That they heard him say, I'll help you.
Do they find blood in either of the bathrooms? I
must have missed that part.

Speaker 5 (01:16:00):
You didn't miss anything. You've got it straight straight on.
You got it straight on. Thank you for the talkback. Yeah.
In the PCA, we learned that Dylan Mortensen, who is
a surviving roommate of the Idaho case. And if you
don't know if the Idaho cases, it's Brian Coberger is
being convicted of the murder of four college students in Moscow, Idaho,

(01:16:23):
back in November of twenty twenty two, and it's been
a case that we've been really following very very closely.
In fact, we have the Idaho Masacre podcast as well
as the Idaho Student Murders out on Peacock you can
watch it now. But this PCA said that Dylan heard Brian, well,

(01:16:43):
Dylan heard the person that she was in the home
say don't worry, I'm here to help you. And it
came from the area of the bathroom. And this bathroom
is literally right outside Xana's door, like you know, down
the hallway to her door, there's a bathroom right before
you get to the entry to her room. So we
we think it just came from that area. So it

(01:17:06):
very likely happened in Zanna's room. It just you know,
sounds like her bathroom. Do you guys think so too,
or what do you guys think?

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
Yeah, I think that's right because to your point, body
no blood evidence was found or you know, was not
released any information about that. And it's interesting over the
years we've covered collectively so many cases and ear witnesses
are are so interesting to me because just like an eyewitness,

(01:17:35):
we humans are are just very unreliable, unreliable right through
no I mean just through human nature, through no fault
of our own or through no malice of course, but
you know, we we kind of put our own filters
on things that we hear, see, smell, and this seems
like it probably was that.

Speaker 5 (01:17:57):
Yeah, any knowe, this was like, you know, four in
the morning. They had been drinking all night. So you
have to weigh all those things too when you're talking
about what an eyewitness season here is, right, it's going
to be fuzzy. Do you guys ever do something too,
Like you're drinking with your friends and you do something
you wake up the next morning and over the course
of the day like the night before flashes like you're like,

(01:18:19):
oh my god, I can't believe I did that. Oh
my god, oh my god. You know, I feel like
that a lot of that probably is at play too,
like fuzzy memory.

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
And you know, we used to call what you're describing
the reason for brunch when we were in college is
we would all go on Sunday, sit at a table
and little bits and pieces would come together from then.

Speaker 3 (01:18:39):
Oh yeah, that's right, that you know, and then that right, so.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
I don't know, Joseph, I want to get back into
you guys got me both very intrigued as it pertains
to the David case, not just about the physical forensics
that we were speaking about, but with the forensics as
it relates to the Tesla Tesla. Yeah and yeah, so

(01:19:06):
I'd love to I'd love to listen.

Speaker 4 (01:19:08):
I'm not making when you hear me laugh, I'm not
making lie. I'm actually reflecting back to again to Coburger
because you know, I guess it was the day after
when I was doing my first hit on TV, you know,
and it didn't stop after that for weeks relative to Coburger,
And I remember then one of the big questions that

(01:19:33):
was being asked because everybody's looking for CCTV, And one
of the questions I kept hearing was was there a
Tesla nearby? Was there Tesla nearby? And it had to
be explained to me because I am so ignorant when
it comes to technology like this, I really really, I
am at my at my at the end of if
you're looking for help with a computer or anything, I

(01:19:54):
am not the guy, particularly particularly the world that we
live in now where it's not merely just a phone
or a computer. We're talking about cars and you know,
and it was explained to me that you know, these cars,
these teslas, have cameras, you know, in various locations, and

(01:20:14):
that they can be and you can collect data from them.
I was fascinated by that. And so when I heard
about this case involving involving this tesla out in the
Hollywood Hills, one of the things that came to mind
was I wonder. I wonder who initiated the engine and

(01:20:36):
the thing or the motor however you refer to it
a power plant if you will. And is there videography
of them being in there? Can the cops download this
data when it was stopped, when it was started, status
of the battery, all these sorts of things. And more importantly,
I think with Celeste and we need to say her name, child,

(01:21:01):
I think that does it record her? Does it record
her movements? Had she ever been inside of this vehicle?
And look, we're going to find out. We're going to
find out if her DNA is actually in that vehicle.
And I don't mean as it is related to her remains.
I'm talking about maybe trace DNA that's in the seats
or anything like that. Wouldn't it be interesting to have

(01:21:22):
confirmatory information from a camera or electronic data. You know,
that's surveilling. You know all of this, And I got
to confess ignorance. I don't know enough about the interior
of a Tesla. I've written in Tesla's I'm impressed. They're
really incredible. But I think that LAPD is going to

(01:21:42):
be doing a deep dive into this and Tesla is
And I do you remember what I said just a
few months ago, This might be the first time in
all the cases that I've been covering these past few
years where Tesla is actually coming into play in a
homicide case. And boy, what a homicide case to be
involved in. You're talking about a dismemberment case here.

Speaker 5 (01:22:03):
Well, before the show I today, I spent a significant
amount of time researching Tesla's because it's something I actually
wanted to talk about. So I'm kind of glad you
brought this up, Courtney, because it is very interesting. So
this car is a twenty twenty three models Okay, So
I went and looked and there are six cameras on
this Tesla. Wow, And so not only does it record,

(01:22:24):
and it's they're meant for the self driving, like you know,
that's how it kind of self drives. And it also yeah,
it kind of like surveys like the you know, free Yeah,
that's what they're meant for. And it also has a
cabin camera to like if somebody you know, keys your car,
let's say, you'd be able to kind of tell But

(01:22:45):
those I believe my understanding, this is a very complicated car.
You guys like this. This car is very high tech.
But my understanding is those are like packages you have
to pay for. Okay, So we don't know if it's
I think it's called Century for the Tesla, And we
don't know if David the singer who's the car this
is registry to whether he's guilty or not, was paying

(01:23:07):
for this package. Okay, we just don't know, right, We
just don't know. But it does have the ability to
tell them all kinds of things that It also has logging.

Speaker 2 (01:23:18):
Right, like I'm seeing the trunk and door when they
when either of them open or close. Yeah, those events
are timestamp.

Speaker 5 (01:23:26):
Right, so it keeps those you know, pretty indefinitely too.
So it should be.

Speaker 4 (01:23:34):
Isn't that crazy out of all the conveyances and vessels
around the world that a person could choose.

Speaker 5 (01:23:40):
I know, choose Tesla. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (01:23:44):
Just think about that. I mean, it's not like they
got a nineteen fifty four packer or something right now.
I mean, this is this is the most high tech
vehicle that's out there that's on the road. It's recording
everything that you do.

Speaker 3 (01:23:57):
It does, but it can be a really rich I saw.

Speaker 4 (01:24:00):
There's such a delay right now what we're hearing you.
I think you had mentioned body earlier that they're trying
to literally, literally and figuratively download all of this data.
It's not just the remains, it's all everything that's contained.

Speaker 5 (01:24:14):
This is I think this is going to come down to.
I mean, it quite possibly could come down to the
digital forensics on this Tesla. I really do so because
it can be a really rich source of forensics evidence.
But exactly what it can tell police about this body
found in the trunk, you know, celest she's the victim,
depends on the model, whether or not he had this

(01:24:35):
package or if there was, Like you know, if it
were me, I probably would have a permanent SSD card
in the car recording everything for my you know, insurance
purposes and things like that, but it can tell you
when the trunk and the door were opened and closed.
The timestamps, the GPS location history can tell you where

(01:24:56):
the car was at a particular times, parking loations which
helps place the vehicle. It can also has all these
cameras too, and that's the century mode you know that
that I was speaking of earlier. If sentry mode or
the dash can was active, and there is this SSD card,
which again probably something I would do, but I'm not,

(01:25:18):
you know, a criminal was present, the car's externals camera
might have recorded the area around the car in sometimes
even nearby activity around me a car. So like for instance,
if I had a Tesla Courtney and I was at
your house and we went to walk the dog and
we walked by my Tesla, it might record us walking

(01:25:38):
by because it sensed movement, and it's like a security log,
you know. It's kind of like a kind of like
a ring camera.

Speaker 4 (01:25:46):
It's going to burger, yes exactly, asking this questions early on.

Speaker 5 (01:25:52):
Right, And Tesla's have this thing called an ed R.
It's a it's a black box, so to speak, and
it helps reconstruct vehicle motion and sudden events, and it's
useful if there's like a crash. I don't know if
that would be very helpful here, but the vehicle logs
these tesselas hold are pretty remarkable, and they might be
able to tell the last time this trunk was opened

(01:26:15):
and closed. I don't know what it's going to be
able to tell us by who, but if you know,
if if it's registered to David and maybe he did
it remotely on his phone, they would be able to
tell you that, you know, any biometrical stuff that might
happen or just I.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
Mean, the cameras are so interesting. I don't know if
you guys have near you a lot of waymos. Do
you know what I'm referring like self driving cars? Yeah,
which I've actually driven in.

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):
I'm terribly driven in.

Speaker 2 (01:26:45):
I was scared and then I decided not to be
when an uber was running late or something. But yeah,
just the amount of surveillance, as you said, Joseph, and
I didn't know body that it could act almost as
a ring care came and perk up and get activity
from sleeping.

Speaker 3 (01:27:04):
Is that correct?

Speaker 5 (01:27:05):
From understanding? And listen, I don't have a testla. I
drive a little. I don't drive a fancy car, you
know what I mean, I really don't. But that's my
understanding and watching some of the YouTube videos about the
features of this car, this specific model in year, is
that it can kind of wake up and you know,

(01:27:26):
take a picture. It's never really asleep, right, it's never
really down. But this, you know, this particular car was
sitting there for three weeks that we know of. And
so what I don't know is how.

Speaker 4 (01:27:38):
Long can we'll check something here that Yeah, I don't
know the rest of us that live out in I
don't know what they call flyover country. I'm amazed bot
is that this house that he lived in allegedly was
being rented right for twenty k a month. Now, if

(01:27:59):
I'm managed neighborhood, if I'm living in a neighborhood where
the rental rates are twenty k a month, if there
is an abandoned car on the road, I don't expect
to come home and see somebody's broken down car or
dust of course, not arong side of the road. I
can't believe it's sat there for as long as it did.

Speaker 5 (01:28:19):
Well, And you know, the guy that owns the house,
he's got a very hard to pronounce a name, but
he said the lease was with David's manager, Josh Marshall.
The lease began in February of twenty twenty four, and
it's in the affluent Bird Street neighborhood off Sunset Boulevard.
And it's only about five hundred feet from where the

(01:28:40):
car was found. You know, it was found basically, and
then it got impounded, and then after it was impounded
is when they opened the trunk. But yeah, it was
only five hundred feet away from the house.

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
And I just I do want to say that it
would not be that odd for a manager to have
their menu on a lease and all that just to
better maintain pay privacy in any price, I.

Speaker 3 (01:29:03):
Would, right, absolutely.

Speaker 5 (01:29:05):
So you know, we have stalkers everywhere. We just talked
about these in stalking celebrities and whatnot. So it makes
a lot of sense to me too, Courtney, that the
house wouldn't be and you know, being leased by David
right like himself.

Speaker 2 (01:29:16):
Yeah, but Joseph, you make a very good point about
you know the car that's sitting there forever and you know,
a janky car. Well, this is a pretty brand new Tesla,
so that might have actually I'm not getting helped the
uh that it wasn't an eye sore, that it was,
you know, just there and people were driving past it
and not caring for a month.

Speaker 4 (01:29:39):
Yeah, and that kind of blows my mind. And that
and particularly I don't know if the car was parked
in front of somebody else's domicile and another address, because
you're talking five hundred feet away, you would think that
that would raise raise alarms too, Hey, why is this
car in front of my house?

Speaker 5 (01:29:55):
Right that?

Speaker 4 (01:29:57):
You know where houses are rented for twenty k a month.
You know, It's just it's an unusual set of circumstances,
to say the very least.

Speaker 5 (01:30:04):
Let me tell you I don't live in a very
fancy neighborhood either, But if there was an an if
there was a car parked in front of my house
for three weeks, I would absolutely know. I would app
because it's like where I put my trash cans, It's
where I do, you know whatever. I would be like, Okay,
is this car ever gonna move? What's going on? At
some point I probably would call too. I'm not an
Hoa Karen by any stretch of imagination, but.

Speaker 3 (01:30:25):
I probably would.

Speaker 5 (01:30:26):
I would probably notice well, Joseph, thank you so much
for joining us again. This is Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert.
You can catch more of Joseph on his amazing podcast
body Bags. Good Night. Thank you for joining us, We
love you, Thank you. This is your crime tonight