Fire Forensics, Texas Serial Killer Speculation, and the Infamous Ed Gein

Forensics expert and host of the hit podcast Body Bags, Joseph Scott Morgan, joins for another Scientific Sunday — discussing the forensics of everything from large-scale fires like the one in the Palisades in January 2025, to how medical experts can identify an insulin overdose in the case of Sarah Hartsfield, to the rumors of a serial killer after more than 20 bodies were found in Houston waterways this year. Plus, a listener calls in with a shocking story about what first got her into true crime. 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. We're talking true
crime all the time. I'm Stephanie Leidecker and I head
up KAT Studios, where we make true crime podcasts like
In Cells out now on iHeart and The Idaho Massacre
season three also out now on iHeart, and I get
to do that every night with my true crime mates

(00:41):
Courtney Armstrong and Body move In. Happy Sunday Ladies, Hello, Hello,
Happy Sunday Sunday.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Glad to be back. We are kicking off the week
or ending the weekend.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm never quite sure with if you're having like the
Sunday Blues or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Settle in.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
You are safe. You are with us because it's Scientific Sunday.
And of course, the great forensics expert and host of
the true crime podcast Body Bags, Joseph Scott Morgan is
here with us tonight, Jo.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Scott, Joe Scott Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
I feel like we need a little smoke machine or
some sort of like a forensic spotlight maybe sort of
like a like a.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Disco lamp or something.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
Let's pretend.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
No twirling required. Well, and guess what it is.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Sunday, October twelfth would have been my father's birthday, So
a happy.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Birthday to him. Happy And we have a very stack
night of headlines.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
So we talked about this last week, but there has
in fact been an arrest in the Palisades fire in California.
You guys may remember that from January seventh, and the
forensics are very complicated. He appeared in court, he has
pled not guilty, and Joseph is here to kind to
break down some of the very interesting things around Pyro

(02:05):
in general and the forensics to that. Also, you know
that wife who has now been found guilty for killing
her fifth husband. The forensics in that also very complicated,
and Joseph's going to break that down for us. In
just one note, we had a very beloved prosecutor on
our show for several seasons of the Idaho massacre Courtney.

(02:28):
Of course you'll remember him well, Stephen Greenberg. Yeah, he
passed away and his service was today and he's a
beloved member of the KT family. As a contributor and
our hearts go out to his family and.

Speaker 5 (02:41):
Just a brilliant funny man.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yeah that's crap, that's what he would say.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
But he was one of the true finest and we're
so lucky to have had him on our podcast, and
much more good things to come for his family. So
without further ado, let's kick into all Things Forensics.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Also, Tah is not here for the e but we do.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Have our associate producer Ava Kaplan jumping into the hot
seat and she is running the show tonight, of course
with Adam and Sam. And here we are everybody happy Sunday.
Pull up a proverbial chair to our kitchen table. We
are so happy to be talking forensics. So Courtney, why
don't you kick us off to All Things Palisades.

Speaker 5 (03:22):
Yeah? Absolutely.

Speaker 6 (03:24):
Jonathan rindernickt he's a twenty nine year old and he
has indeed been arrested. He has been charged with starting
the Lachman Fire, and that is the fire that ultimately
led to that destructive, apocalyptic and deadly Palisades fire that
was earlier this year, that was January seventh, when it
began to spread. It ultimately did become one of the

(03:45):
most devastating fires in Los Angeles County history. Twelve people
were killed, thousands of structures were destroyed, but the initially
sparked smaller fire again. The Lachman Fire is believed to
have smoldered underground for multiple days before reigniting, and it
reignited due to high winds.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
I two of them. That was possible.

Speaker 6 (04:07):
I didn't either learn I learned that last week as well.
So rinder Neckt was arrested at his home in Melbourne, Florida, Tuesday,
October seventh. That's when the charges came down destruction of
property by means of fire, and he allegedly lied to
police when he had a January twenty fourth interview about
his whereabouts on the day of the fire.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Oh yeah, we suspected him early on.

Speaker 5 (04:33):
Yep, they sure did.

Speaker 7 (04:34):
Interesting, that's so he lied. So what twenty fourth was
what twenty one? Three weeks after the fire started they
had a suspect in mind?

Speaker 6 (04:43):
Yeah, not even because it really burst into flames on
the seventh and then by the twenty fourth.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah right, so even less? Wow?

Speaker 6 (04:50):
Okay, And at his court appearance in Orlando on Wednesday,
October eighth, we found out that if convicted, he faces
a mandatory of five years and up to twenty years
in a federal prison, which I'm flummoxed, like I want
to have a legal expert on because I don't understand

(05:13):
since twelve people lost their lives how that could cap
at twenty But that's for a legal mind and not mine.
Right In any case, this is, you know, forensically complicated,
and Joseph, we wanted you to hop in with you know,
what are your first thoughts? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (05:31):
Sure, thanks for having me, guys again, favorite night of
the week.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
We love you.

Speaker 4 (05:37):
I'm finally, I'm finally at the cool kids table.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
You are the cool kid. Come on, you're the Charlie
to our angels.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
There you go, all right, angels, here we go. Okay,
this is what can I address that? First, the first
point that you made about the federal charges, so that
everyone understands homicide charges are generally state charges, all right,
So unless there's some kind of special agreement that the
state is entered into with the FEDS or the Fed

(06:08):
or vice versa, s guy could still be looking at
state homicide charges, all right, totally different animal, and he
could be looking at twelve counts. And that's something that
is going to have to end, I know what's going
on in the mind of the prosecutors right now, probably,
and I'm talking about a state level. To decide whether
or not they're going to charge this guy with multiple
counts of homicide, They're going to have to get the

(06:30):
through line here on causality and if they can specifically
tie back these deaths to that fire, and can that fire,
even though it was set many days for prior, can
that specifically be tied back to that event? And it
does get very complex from that perspective, I think that

(06:53):
the defense, there's a chance that the defense is going
to have a field day with this relative to linkage.
And if this is, of course, if it's in the
federal court, which it would be on the federal Arts
and charges, there's not going to be cameras. You're just
gonna be relying on pool reporters that are coming out
and giving the narration. Okay, and we've seen that over
and over again. However, if this were state prosecution, you

(07:15):
would see a parade of scientists on the stands here,
because this whole case is completely reliant upon fire science, which,
by the way, fire investigators ars investigators are some of
the unsung heroes in forensics. You don't hear a lot
about them, and people generally don't associate them with forensics.
And they are the most forensic key people in the world,

(07:37):
all right, because they have a grasp of the nature
of fire. They have an unbelievable understanding of chemistry, which
would put most lab chemistry shame, because they see it
happening in the real world with application. And so this
is going to be a case key if you like
science and you've ever been interested in fire science, this

(07:58):
is going to be the case to watch because look, man,
this impacted so many people and people that we dearly love,
right and so, and it has left a scar there.
And the important piece here, though, is linkage and being
able to explain the nature fire and how could it smallder.
You've heard the old poem, I guess it is I

(08:20):
may have recited before. I'm not going to go through
the whole thing, but you know, the idea for the
want of a nail, the shoe was lost for the
warm shoe, horse was lost. That's sort of things. So
the question is, I think it might be too philosophical,
but if he had never set this fire to begin
with with these people have perished, would all of this
property have been damaged? And so you've got to go

(08:41):
back to the causal factors here, and that's where science
is going to paint this picture. And you know, color
in the numbers that that's that's what you're looking at here.

Speaker 7 (08:49):
Wow, well that's going to be really fascinating to hear,
because like, not only am I interested in the science,
but you know, I'm interested in the science of people
who do commit arsons too.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
So there's it's too right, the.

Speaker 7 (09:01):
Science behind the fire itself and the evidence that to
suggest that he's the culprit. And number two, why something
like this that like what kind of person is interested
in arson?

Speaker 3 (09:12):
This is true?

Speaker 7 (09:12):
Criston I and on iHeartRadio on Body Moved, and I'm
here with Stephanie Leidecker and Courtney Armstrong and we are
so lucky enough to be joined by Joseph Scott Morgan,
forensics expert. We're right in the middle of talking about
the Pacific Palisades fire and the suspect that was just arrested,
and we have a talk back? Can we go ahead
and go to that talkback?

Speaker 8 (09:28):
Hi, I wanted to call in about the Palisades fire. Conversation.
I study fire, and I think what happened here is
the previous with pew weds. You had a lot you'll
build up, and then you had those Santa Ana wins
bring some pretty extreme weather conditions. And then when you
have fires that are in the wildland urban interface, where
human infrastructure meets natural lands, that's when you tend to
see some pretty wild and extreme fires that get out

(09:51):
of hand as homes and everything act as fuels as well.
And so that's definitely what happened here.

Speaker 7 (09:56):
Yeah, I never thought so where the wildlife meets infrastructure,
that's that's interesting.

Speaker 4 (10:02):
It's really yeah. And you know, and again not living
in the region, but just having friends that have experienced
it all over the West. I've had friends in Oregon, Washington, Idaho.
I mean that have you seen these raging fires coming
at them? Is stuff of nightmares many times when we
look at arson. One of the particularly with structure fires,

(10:23):
we're looking for and I'm talking about the science of
how they're investigated, We're looking for the points of origin. Okay,
so was an accelerant used. An accelerant is different than
a fuel. So if you think about the accelerant being
a starter for the fire. So do you know that
we can actually go into homes and if someone has
taken like a cup of gasoline or a gallon gasoline

(10:46):
and splashed it on a wall and they ignite, that
we can actually see the splash patterns on the wall
that are outlined by where the fire fire passed through.
And the tough thing about fire scenes is this, and
this is coming from a non arson guy, but a
forensic scientist that examines dead bodies of victims and fires.

(11:07):
When I walk into a scene, into a fire scene,
everything looks the same to me. It's it is one
of the most mind blowing experiences.

Speaker 7 (11:14):
And you've investigated scenes, right like you've you have real
world experience doings.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've had. I've had both accidental fires
and intentionally set fires where you know, the fire, the
fire essentially replaced a gun or you know, replaced a
bludgeon or a knife fire.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:35):
And so you've got multiple people that are out there
that set fires for a variety of different There can
be a sexual motivation with fire. Actually, I talked to
a firefighter many years ago that went arrived at the
scene of a fire, a fully involved hot house fire
with a family inside of the house and there was
a man nude in the street and he had set

(11:58):
set fire to the house and he was watching the
house burn. So you never know what anybody's motivation is.
You have financial gain, you can have you know, people
that intentionally want to take somebody's life, and fire setters
are different. They I would almost put them in a
category with poisoners almost because they're very stealthy. They most

(12:18):
of the time they want to set a fire and
get away from it, you know, like a poisoner. You know,
we think about the lady down in Australia with the
beef Wellington, you know where they're subjecting. You know, she's
and she wants to put distance between herself and that event.
Same thing here, you know, because you know, the thing
about this is many people don't think about is that
when you set a fire many times in order to

(12:40):
destroy evidence, you're actually creating more evidence because you get
the arson investigators in there and they can read things
that we can't even begin to imagine the path of fire,
point of origin. So it really gets granular after a while.
And that's what this palisats fire in particular, the Lockman
fire that wound up wrecking the Palisades is going to

(13:03):
be something. I'll put it to you this way. This
is so extensive and there's been so much damage here,
and we have all these precious lives that have been lost.
This is the kind of case that we'll be talked
about and studied in colleges everywhere.

Speaker 6 (13:18):
Wow, just to underline the devastation. In addition to and
on top of the twelve people who lost their life,
almost seven thousand.

Speaker 5 (13:29):
Structures were destroyed demolished.

Speaker 6 (13:32):
And this caused eighteen to twenty billion with a bee
eighteen to twenty billion dollars.

Speaker 5 (13:37):
In insured losses.

Speaker 6 (13:39):
I mean how that is going to change the infrastructure
and is changing the infrastructure of insurance and home building.
I mean the ripple effect, as we always talk about,
is incredibly wide.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
Wow, that's astronomical.

Speaker 7 (13:55):
And not only that, maybe people lost their homes, their pets,
their livelihood in some cases, like if they're work burned down,
like this is economically horrible and personally right, Like it's
just an absolute devastation. So yeah, there should be some
kind of state charges brought up with this guy for homicide.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
You know, there's got to be something when.

Speaker 7 (14:16):
We come back, We're going to continue to keep talking
about the Palasides. We're going to get into some of
the nitty gritty arson forensics and a possible serial killer
in Texas people are speculating. Keep it right here a
True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Welcome back to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We're talking
true crime all the time. I'm Stephanie Leidecker here as
always with my true crime mates, Courtney Armstrong, body move
in here. On Scientific Sunday with Joseph Scott Morgan. He
is back with us breaking down some of the forensics
in this case, specifically around the Pacific Palisades fire that

(15:01):
happened on January seventh. Nearly seven thousands homes were destroyed,
an entire town wiped out, and yeah, twelve incredible souls
have lost their lives in this fire, and it appears
that a person's been identified as a potential arsonist who
may have started this intentionally.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
It's a tough one.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Hearing you guys even talk during the first segment is
a little bit of an out of body experience for me,
since I personally was really affected by.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
The Palisades fire.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
As I look around everything in my life is different
because of it, and I had it better than so many.
So yeah, if it's one guy, it's pretty shocking and
I have to hope that they have real forensics to
back it when I go down the rabbit hole Joseph,
all I see is a photograph that he did on
AI chatchpt of a dystopian picture. This gets thrown around

(15:59):
a lot dystopian meeting like a future time. There seemed
to be people running from a fire and some dollar
signs involved. Also, yes, some misinformation in terms of where
he was. He was also googling or chat gpting after
the fires about whether or not a cigarette but could

(16:20):
light a fire. Perhaps that would either show investigators that
it was just not intentional to you know, cover his tracks,
or just weird timing. Also a couple of notable things
that I think is at least worth exploring if in
fact this is true, that he was one of the
nine to one to one callers for the fire that

(16:41):
he allegedly started, and even offered to help law enforcement
in firefighters fight said fire that he allegedly started.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
That's a tough one.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
You know, there's a psychological profile to be looked into,
for sure. In that front. Yeah, and you hear five
years it's a tough one. I've ever been so close
to something. So I'm actually gonna like zip it because
it does sort of put a like a golf ball
in my throat. Just even talking about it on our
show seems like wild, just so wild. I dip from

(17:14):
a distance, and I hope I'm wrong. Doesn't retalalyst seem
that there's enough there to accuse entirely this one person,
although to your earlier point, yeah, law enforcement appears to
have been on him pretty quickly. They rated his place
in Hollywood, he did seemingly have some ties to the
Palisades and was living in Florida when he was arrested.

(17:36):
So I guess it's a really we shall see. But man,
you know, it's nine months ago. How you possibly have
enough information to make sure that this in fact was a.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
One man job?

Speaker 2 (17:50):
And is it possible that if it was that one man,
was he doing one thing and it escalated into something
so much greater where the tension I have to assume
was not to commit something that affected so many so deeply.

Speaker 4 (18:07):
Yeah, I can't imagine that, you know, if you're an arsonist,
all right, which is what he's being accused of. That
merely flipping out the butt of your not crushed out
Marlborough on side of the road is going to you know,
it's going to ignite something like this. And again this
goes to intent, doesn't it. And that's you know, that's
the lawyer's you know, arena, and they're going to have

(18:30):
to go hard and the paint relative to that try
to prove his intent. You don't have to prove motive,
as everybody people always need to remember that, you know,
when we say why, the why is not important. It's
the who, who, what, when, where and how? And that's
you know, that's what's going to put somebody behind bars.

(18:50):
I think you know what's going to be interesting about
this case is the car. The car to me is
going to hold a lot of data. It's not just
his phone, but he's working for Uber, right, you know
what methodologies are they using to track their drivers? Is
there some type of proprietary program that they use that

(19:12):
will be kind of woven into the tapestry of this,
you know. And plus here's something really intriguing. You've got
apparently a couple of witnesses and correct me if I'm wrong.
They're like agitated. I mean they stated that he was agitate.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
It was agitated, correct, Yeah, they were the passengers in
his car, in his vehicle, just you know, right before
the Lachman fire was started on New Year's Eve, which
I guess New Year's Day was around midnight, he allegedly
walked up and you know, lit a match while listening
to some French like French like disco tunes basically where

(19:50):
the video of that said French tune has fire involved.
And he has French heritage. His father is from friends
and his parents were overseas. They're like Baptist missionaries, so
you know, some of them doesn't.

Speaker 3 (20:08):
Totally add up. Allegedly, he had an.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Issue with his ex girlfriend and they had just broken
up and he was broken hearted. And again all of
this is like a small thing compared to the destruction
that he's now been accused of.

Speaker 4 (20:23):
Well, I think that back again, back to his vehicle.
Was there anything in his vehicle that could have tied
him back? And I know this is going to seem
rather obvious. Did he actually smoke? And because I can
tell you, let's just say that he did smoke, and
you have you know, and we're talking about cigarette butt here,
which has happened before. There have been wildfire started by

(20:44):
cigarette buds. You know, they've been thumped out of windows
and that sort of thing over the years. There would
be no remnant of that left all right, even with
a filter. You know, it's going to be gone by
this point in tom. But did he have anything else
in the vehicle that would physical evidence that would have
been there that would have given them an indication, So
they would have examined him stem to stern that vehicle

(21:07):
and also his home. You know, he's you know, he's
got a place there and any kind of his writings
that he you know, has he been fantasizing about this?
This is you know, I guess somebody is. Somebody might
say you could develop malicious intent in the twinkling of
an eye, But has this something he's been fantasized because

(21:27):
this is very specific. And here's another thing you should
know better. You live there and you see the terror
that these fires create. You know that it's a tinder
box at any moment in time. So I think that
that's going to be a big part of it as well.

Speaker 9 (21:45):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (21:45):
One of the tough things is is that you know,
I talk I've talked about previously on Sunday Nights with
you guys about primary, secondary, tertiary scenes. This is a
weird kind of mix here because if you think about
where the fire was in initiated, I think it was
like at the like a trailhead, you know, in one
of the camps. So if you if you think about

(22:09):
the primary scene, I think traditionally we would think that
that would be the spot. Okay, how do you delineate
between something that may have initiated five days earlier, its
smoldered and then roared its head again. You know, I
would think that in a primary area like that, after

(22:30):
five days the fires died down, would there have been
any new growth there where? Maybe initially some of the
some of the the flora had been you know, killed
killed off. Was there something that sprouted up in the
meantime where you could go back and maybe identify I
don't I don't really know. Uh, they'll be taking soil samples.

(22:54):
I'd be interested to know if there were any kind
of flammables in the soil at all. Would have gone
out to do this And by the way, a big
shout out to the ATF investigators here. Oh yeah, This
is a big deal and they are the best at
what they do. People don't think about the ATF and arson,
but this is really their Bailey Wick when it comes
to fire, fire and explosions, they are the top of

(23:16):
the heap. And this is these are federal charges. This
is a full core press on this. I guarantee you
they had boots on the ground. They're working and man,
you talk about a massive scene. This thing is massive.
Uh there's you don't have enough people to be able
to work the whole thing, so they're gonna be concentrating
on that one specific spot and then to see if

(23:36):
there's a secondary area where it blazed up. I'm thinking,
are there any holes in the ground that may have
you know, where you could catch this breeze. They talked
about the sant Anna Wins just a few months ago,
where it was just kind of smoldering over a period
of time. You catch this these coals that are beneath
the ground, and suddenly this thing blows out again. It

(23:57):
catches the fire takes I mean, the wind takes a way.
You've gotten to bree blowing through the air. And the
talk back was really fascinating because you're talking about hitting
man made structures. Listen, Yeah, you've got brittal grass and
brush and all that stuff out there. But man, you
get into a house, a framed out house with wood,

(24:17):
our shingles, that sort of thing, and it's it's going
to light up like nobody's business out there. So that's
very interesting. We'll see, we'll see where it leads relative
to this.

Speaker 5 (24:29):
That's right.

Speaker 6 (24:30):
I have a question for you, Joseph, and if anyone
else does want to ask our forensic expert Joseph Scott
Morgan a question, give us a call. Eighty eight three
to one crime. This is true Crime Tonight. Tonight is
Scientific Sunday, and Joseph is here to answer all your
forensic questions. We're currently talking about the Palisades fire and

(24:54):
that there is a suspect in custody. So I had
a question for the room. I guess allegedly rendernecked. The
guy who is in custody is accused of using quote
an open flame, which yeah, must have must have specific meaning, right,

(25:14):
I mean, would a cigarette be an open flame?

Speaker 7 (25:17):
They found a lighter in his glove box that's like
one of those barbecue style lighters, and apparently he also
took a picture or a video of this lighter on
December thirty first, which is kind of weird that you
would take a video of a lighter right before, you know,
possibly setting this fire and listening to this rap song

(25:41):
by the way, obsessively this video where fires are ring set.
He apparently listened to it like twelve or thirteen times
before he set the well before.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
He allegedly, allegedly allegedly set this fire.

Speaker 7 (25:54):
And they found this barbecue style lighter in his in
his glove compartment, and again it matched the photo from
his phone on December thirty first. So I think they
think Courtney. I think maybe Joseph can tell us if
there's a way to prove it, but I think they
think it was an open flame from the lighter.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
By the way, though, I'm just gonna jump in here. Yeah,
So this guy starts a fire in the Lochman Trails.
If you don't know Los Angeles, it's not near the
Palisades specifically, it had to travel a great distance. Now
we're talking six days later, the Palisades where I lived
explodes and is exonerated. There's a piece of me that

(26:33):
also and go for me, I kind of called bs
on it a little bit. We're gonna blame all of
this destruction on this one random guy based on his photographs.
By the way, nobody wants it to be answered more
than me, I'm sure, but in the spirit of like
clear minds, like justice, I don't know. It seems like

(26:53):
a little bit of a leap, and I would imagine
the science to back this must be extraordinary, because it's
a pretty good distance for you know, said fire to
go underground, to ignite an entire town and decimated six
days later without warning because of a weather event of

(27:14):
Santa Annas that none of us were prepared for. I'm
gonna call it curious. It just seems curious, and I
hope they have enough to prove it. And if this
guy is the guy, then yeah, he's a real sicko
beyond measure and should do a lot of time.

Speaker 7 (27:30):
But if this gives you any any relief, Stephanie. They
prosecutors are alleging that he threatened to burn a house
down in Florida during a dispute back in you know,
in September twenty twenty five before he was arrested, and
that a gun was found hidden inside a stuffed animal
in his garage like he apparently allegedly was threatening more fires.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Well, he obviously lit the Lachman fire. That seems pretty
that's I see, that's a real thing. You're right, let's
assume that I'm not even like second guessing the realities
of that get even that circumstanceal evidence to me kind
of tracks right.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
Sure, it's just the leap to the Palisades part now.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
And again I said, I wouldn't like weigh in, but
I can promise you just from an infrastructure perspective, what
my experience was as a local in that area, it
was really deficient and a lot of things to make
that fire not as big.

Speaker 3 (28:29):
And yeah, I guess.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
It's a great time to point somewhere or to make
sure someone's held accountable, because maybe some of the other
checkpoints that our officials or anybody maybe could be relieved
from would probably be helpful.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
I don't Yeah, I.

Speaker 6 (28:48):
Have to imagine a lot will be coming out. Apparently
the information was kept under wraps for months. La Mayor
Karen Bass said that delayed the fire report at the
DOJ's request to really makes sense.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Karen Bass, because she was such a great hero during
this whole process.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
So the DOJ asked her to hold back the report.

Speaker 7 (29:11):
Possibly maybe because federal chargers were plumbing I'm as touch potentially.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Yeah, or because we were all looking at Karen Bass
for some answers. Frankly, that's right, myself included. And listen,
there's an anyone unpack. So this wife, who obviously has
now we talked about this on Friday. On Thursday, has
been convicted for killing her fifth husband with insulin. Much
to unpack there also, as well as this potential serial

(29:39):
killer in the Houston area.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
All of these bodies.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
What does this mean? Joseph is here to unpack? So body,
where would you like to go next? Well, actually, I'm
going to pass it to Courtney, who's going to tell
us about the insulin murder.

Speaker 6 (29:53):
Listen, I've been reading so much about Sarah Hartsfield and
this insulin case, so I kind of I'm so eager
to have josephs I'm so eager to have Joseph's take. So,
as Stephanie mentioned, Sarah Hartsfield has been convicted. She's sentenced
to life in prison, and that is for killing her
fifth husband, the victim, Joseph Hartsfield. She did it with

(30:16):
a fatal insulin overdose tied to delaying medical help, which
was part of it. Sarah Hartsfield was a former US
Army surgeant, and we went over it in detail on Thursday.
She had an incredibly complex and honestly really disturbing history
between This is not judging how many times you fall

(30:37):
in love and get married. This is her fifth, but
throughout there was sort of an escalating pattern, it seemed,
from threatening the first husband leading up to she there
was a prior fatal shooting of a fiance, allegations of
plotting violence throughout all of these previous spouses and here
we lie nowt It was a.

Speaker 5 (30:58):
Really complex trial.

Speaker 6 (31:01):
But Joseph, we wanted to ask you specifically about insulin.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
Insulin as method of homicide.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's curious you say this the
I think, thinking back, the first known case of insulin
homicide actually occurred in Great Britain back and I think
the first document was probably in the late fifties, if
I'm not mistaken. And it's somewhat of a head scratcher

(31:33):
for US at autopsy in order to determine causality, and
you can suspect these types of things many times it's
almost a diagnosis of what's referred to of exclusion, where
you've ruled everything else out. And you'll hear this in
medicine many times, where doctors have to go through various

(31:55):
machinations to try to understand what exactly is impacting a patient.
Imagine doing that with a patient that is no longer
alive and trying to suss that out. So this is
not something that's necessarily new under the sun, but it
is terrifying, particularly when you consider how many people nowadays.

(32:17):
In particular, it seems like there's been a huge spike
over the last two decades of people that live with diabetes.
But there are two types of diabetes. The victim in
this case was actually a type one diabetic, and type
one diabetes means that his body and this only makes

(32:37):
up about five to ten percent of the population. Okay,
Type one does everything else. Every other every other diagnosis
is going to be Type two. That's insulin resistant diabetes.
This is where your body does not produce insulin. I've
got a lot of dear friends, several that have type one,

(32:58):
and it's something that means people it's juvenile on set.
Many people live with it. You have to monitor. And
this is the real ghastly thing about this death. She
would have known very well how dependent he is upon
his insulin and what it takes just to survive, not

(33:20):
day to day, but hour to hour to hour. And
we live in a world now where you can be
monitored minute to minute and you can have monitors on
your phone that will go off, And in this case,
I think that that actually plays into this because she's
supposed to be the one that literally watch cares over him.

(33:42):
She understands what his daily life is like and his
dependency upon insulin, and that's what really kind of drives
us and makes it particularly distasteful. She actually held his
life in her hand when this insulin monitor or the
alert is going off. I can't remember, refresh my memory.

(34:02):
How many times did it go off over that period
of time. It is like one hundred times.

Speaker 3 (34:06):
I was going to say, I think it was close
to one hundred.

Speaker 4 (34:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (34:09):
And even Joseph, the victim, Joseph Hartfield, his under chronologists,
said that he was her first patient to die of hypoglycemia,
which is low blood sugar, particularly given his constant monitoring
and the technology.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
Joseph that you're mentioning.

Speaker 6 (34:28):
And also that Joseph as a type one diabetic who
again lived his whole life that he is under chronologist
said that he was particularly cautious about low blood sugar
and set his glucose monitors alert unusually high.

Speaker 4 (34:43):
Yeah, so when it begins to dip like that, these
alerts are going off, it's something that has to be
attended to pretty quickly. What happens many times with the
onset when you get into this danger zone is that
people become very lightheaded. Many times they're dictoratic, they start sweating,

(35:06):
this sort of thing, par palpitations. But what's really devastating
about this is after a period of time, they will
eventually slip off into cooma. Okay. Now, for a death investigator,
this makes this very difficult because you know that you've
got an individual that is suffering from a very serious

(35:27):
malady that has to be watched minute to minute. And
when you have somebody that is I don't know, for
lack of a better term, is as fastidious as he
was about you know, taking care of himself, it really
becomes a head scratcher at that point. Tom, he's not
an old gentleman, okay, but he's been living with this,
probably for a protracted portion of his life, the idea

(35:52):
that he would just suddenly slip off like this and die.
And I think that one of the really difficult things
about this, when you begin to kind of feature this
in your mind, is she's watching this happen. She's watching
this happen as he slips off, you know, toward death.

(36:14):
That's that's terrifying in and of itself.

Speaker 7 (36:17):
This is true crime tonight on iHeartRadio. We're talking true
crime all the time. If you want to give us
a call and give us call it eighty eight to
thirty one Crime, or download the iHeartRadio app and leave
us to talk back and boom, you're on the show.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
So the kick.

Speaker 7 (36:31):
There's key points from this part of the prosecution, and
they claimed Sarah was alert active on Facebook and recording
his decline while failing to call for help, And you
were right, Stephanie. Over one hundred glucose monitor alerts were
ignored by Sarah who was receiving them on her phone,

(36:52):
and the medical expert that testified said that she was
really surprised that he was on this Duxcom monitor because
those are so proficient and really good at sending those
alerts to the caregivers. So I think that's kind of
how they were just like, okay, this is she had

(37:13):
to know.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
She had allegedly Sarah the accused or now found guilty.
It was also allegedly on Facebook during all of this,
so she was active, she was near you know, technology.
So I think that's another nod to the fact that
this was a purposeful ignoring and not simply an oversight.

(37:36):
You know, toxicology is one of those things that comes up.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
So much Joseph and Afa.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
But Joseph has ever stuck with me on a phone
call where I can really hit him up for some
questions on a side thing, because toxicology is complicated, and
I feel like I find myself saying so often and
many of the cases we work on, why does a
toxicology take so long? Why is it so specific? How
is there not just a general toxicology that happens in

(38:03):
all forensics when dealing with the body, because you never know,
you know, now we're hearing a fentanyl, an ketamine, now insolin.
The woman's like drugging her husband with mushrooms from the wild.
How about the other woman who was putting like arsenic
in the protein shakes every ding. We're still waiting what
about the girl in Montalk whose toxicology reports still hasn't

(38:26):
come back yet that we were all, you know, up
in arms about. I still am, I might add, but
you know, it takes so long.

Speaker 4 (38:34):
Does take a long time, and I feel we've had
a few cases involving.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
The eye drops. Don't get me started.

Speaker 4 (38:42):
One of those terrifying things. Interestingly enough, within the post
mortem state, it's very difficult, you know, because some of
the things that you're looking for are sea peptides and
you're looking for insulin, and after death that becomes very
difficult to do. And so many times again that's why
I'm saying it's a diagnosis. I think even in the

(39:05):
post mortem state of exclusion, what do you include? Then?
Will you include the behaviors? What kind of behavior patterns
was this guy known for specifically, and also running parallel
to that his wife, what behavior patterns was she practicing
at that particular time. And when you get this deviation

(39:28):
from this, and then the police are going to latch
onto this, particularly when they begin to dig into her
past and see some of these things, You see, your
past does matter in a case like this, how you
behave before the fact that you're on your fifth marriage
and also you've got a shooting in your past related
to you know, the lack of matrimonial bliss perhaps, I
don't know. So those are going to be factors that

(39:50):
are going to feed into this. What are they going
to be able to prove? And this is a real
uphill struggle for any for any clinician in the in
the forensic world to make a diagnosis of and to
be able to also to explain this very complex, complex disease,
uh to a jury where they begin to understand it.

(40:13):
And you know, you're actually saying again, I hate I
don't want to continue to reuse this. But the insulin
actually replaces a gun, you know. And here's the thing
about it is, it's it's stealthy. It's stealthy. You know.
I made mention of poisoners earlier, and this is actually

(40:33):
a case I think probably of poisoning if you will,
or an absence or a lack thereof. Okay, so that
becomes problematic as well.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
You know, quick question, Joseph. And by the way, if
you're just joining us, you're listening to true crime tonight.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
On iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
I'm staff here with Courtney and Body, and we're talking
about Sarah Hartsfield's recently found guilty for murdering her fifth
husband with insulin. Is there something for our audience as
a takeaway? If God forbid? And I mean that from
the bottom of my heart, they find themselves in a
situation where someone that they love has to be examined

(41:12):
post mortem, again, God forbid, and we know that a
toxicology report will follow. Is there any time or something
specific that we should just know to ask for in
cases like that?

Speaker 4 (41:27):
Well, yeah, it's an excellent question stuff actually, because when
you do when we do an autopsy, there's what's referred
to as a standard panel for toxicology, and these are
all the major drug groups, both those that are illisted
drugs and those that you standardly find in your medicine cabinet.
We even screened for aspirin. Okay, you'll find aspirin, say

(41:50):
to menifin all these other things that are including the
TALKS report, when it gets out into the exotic area,
that's something that they would have to test for specifically.
And the way you arrive at that is you have
to find some kind of evidence at the scene that
might indicate that this might be some kind of agent
that we're looking for in their system, and then they

(42:13):
would have to create a specific test for that. You know,
I stated my thoughts about tetrahydralising that ain't on the
It's just not something that you're going to be looking
for now. It might become after, you know, we've gotten
this proliferation, forgiving of all these cases that are out

(42:35):
there where you're looking, you know, causal effects, what brings
us home, and is there anything else circumstantially that you
can tie back to it that's going to give you
an eddication you know, or physically you know, when you
see some kind of manifestation of the body. I'll give
you a good example. If we have a fire death,
for instance, if the skin is pink, or it doesn't

(42:55):
even have to be a fire death, it can be
a death inside of a home, for instance, that the
skin is pink, nail or paint, the eyes, the eyes
are actually well, we're going to do a test called
a carbox of heemic globe and level to see if
they actually have carbon monoxide on board. And that's something
that would present physically standardly, you're not going to do

(43:15):
a car box of hemic globe and level. It has
to be circumstances that dictate this. That's why it makes
an insulent investigation. Death like this is all the more.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Complex, amazing and by the way, like this is what
doesn't lie. I mean people think about it. Bystanders to
an event or a crime scene may not have seen
it correctly because there's so much emotion behind it, you know,
you go first responders to a crime scene or assessing
so much right, it's so human. But the science of

(43:46):
it all, which Joseph you've dedicated your life.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
To, it just doesn't lie.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
And that's why we're so excited that you're going to
stick with us for the next hour. We're holding Joseph
Scott Morgan hostage, only in a good way. We're getting
to Houston. Is there a potential serial killer at large
in Houston? Twenty two bodies? How can that be explained?
Keep it here True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Welcome back to True Crime tonight on iHeartRadio. We're talking
true crime all the time. I'm Stephanie Leidecker here with
Courtney Armstrong, Body Moven and listen. We have a stacked
house tonight because it's Scientific Sunday. Joseph Scott Morgan cue
the smoke machine and the applause is back with us

(44:39):
breaking down a bunch of forensics. Taha is out for
the evening, but we have Ava Kaplin jumping in live
with us. She's normally with us during the day, but
you guys don't normally get access to her live, so
if you want to join us eight eight eight three
one crime, Sam and Adam are standing by as always.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
Happy Sunday everyone, We.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Really do hope you had a great weekend and we
are off to hopefully a holiday for many tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
So hopefully you're out late right now just living it up.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
But in the meantime we are breaking down sort of
some toxicology talk. We were discussing this Sarah Hartsfield conviction.
She's now been found guilty for killing her fifth husband
via insulin, and it kind of kicked off a convo
of just about toxicology in general, because even in between
the brek, Courtney and I were asking Joseph for a

(45:34):
little clarity about manner of death. And it also fishtails
into the pop star David's story and Celeste revesses the
fifteen year old who was found in his trunk.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
Her toxicology report.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
In terms of manner of death, So, Joseph, the manner
of death and the cause of death, it seems like
there's a very big distinction.

Speaker 4 (45:58):
Correct, Oh, yeah, they're they're completely different. Manner. It's real simple.
The manner of death, you've only you've only got five
five choices homicide, suicide, accidental, undetermined, and natural. And you
think about causes just about any methodology that's out there
of death, Uh, whether it's gunshot, wound or a safe

(46:21):
falling on somebody's head from the top of the building.
You do a Looney Tunes reference there. You know, all
of those can be causes of death, and they can
fit beneath any any number of the categories of manner.
And so you know, when you think about it, we
in our world, we vary from the DA or the police.

(46:44):
All right, police might call something a homicide, but in
the medical legal world, we might not have enough scientific
data to say, okay, specifically this is a homicide, because
how do we define homicide. Homicide is literally defined as
death at the hand of another all right, it's not judgmental,
it's the scientific fact, can you prove that this death

(47:07):
came about at the hand of another scientifically, And so
when you have sometimes you will have it's not technically
a disagreement, but you know, the medical examiner or the
corner is not necessarily going to go along with the prosecutor.
Prosecutor might have more substance there that they can charge
somebody and take them to trial and hopefully on the

(47:28):
part of the prosecutor, they can you know, convict them.
But we don't really play a role in that. And
there are actually cases where medical examiners and corners have
ruled something a homicide and the prosecutor was unwilling to
go forward with it even though the emmy corner are
calling it a homicide. So that's another you know, that's
another place where we we butt heads. All you got

(47:49):
to do is reference back to Ellen Greenberg, you know,
because we've got a case there where the manner of
death has been changed not once, not twice, but three times.
And so you can have disagreements. You can have people
will you know, coalesce together and they'll say, yeah, you know,
we we you know, we we do agree with you

(48:12):
on this, but it's not going to be you know,
we're not in the medical legal world. We're not in
the business of charging people or arresting people. We just
investigate deaths and we present its scientific data.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
With a very indifferent way about it. And that's for
law enforcement to then take to the next level, assess
your assessment, and then make decisions about criminal activity thereafter.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
We're going to jump in.

Speaker 6 (48:35):
Yeah, just one more follow up, and I'm just going
to go back to the hypothetical example of a.

Speaker 5 (48:40):
Safe falling on top of someone.

Speaker 10 (48:42):
Right, okay, right, But how would would that even enter
into the corner medical examiner's world or would it.

Speaker 6 (48:53):
Just be the cause of death is being smushed. I
don't know what the what that would.

Speaker 4 (48:59):
Be, but blood force trauma, blood force, that would be
blunt trauma. Yeah, if you use the term, if you
want to go with a safe idea blunt force trauma. Uh.
And now when we look at that, if we say, okay,
this guy waited until a person walked out of the
door of a building, timed it, push the safe off
the ledge, and it crashed into somebody. Whereas if you

(49:23):
had a team of workers that were up there and
a scaffolding gave way and say fell that's going to
fall into a category of an accidental event. Okay, So,
and that's kind of simplistic, but that's that's the basics
of it. And you can have some of these things
that are actually left. Now this is really confusing. You
have some of these events where you can say that

(49:46):
it's undetermined, they don't have enough proof either way.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
So you know, can you, Joseph, can you go back
post mortem after there has already been an examination by
the medical examiner, and then years later. Sometimes I feel
like we've worked on cases even together, where either a
body is exhumed or a body is re examined with
a different lens. Perhaps for some reason, I'm thinking of

(50:13):
Chad day Bell's wife, Tammy day Bell. Chad Daybell was
married infamously to killer cult mom Laurie day Bell. They're
accused and convicted of killing her two children and burying
them in a shallow grave in her backyard. But he
was also accused later of killing his wife at her

(50:33):
time and Tammy and for her kids, this must have
been so brutal, and then they exhumed her, you know,
years later, and we're able to find sufficient evidence.

Speaker 3 (50:45):
Is that accurate?

Speaker 4 (50:47):
Yes? Yes, that is correct, and actually she was exhumed
in Utah a boy the Utah State Medical Examiner, because
Odaha has corner. She was taken to Utah to be
buried and they had to get an order of exhimation
down there. And thank god it was Utah because they
have a fine state Medical Examiner's office, and they really
took their time with this case because so much time

(51:09):
had passed at that point time. You know, Initially, when
Tammy's death occurred, they thought they thought that this was
some kind of natural event, natural event, and it was
not investigated as thoroughly as it should have been. She
was a young, healthy woman. Young healthy women just don't
spontaneously die without a scientific explanation, and so it was

(51:31):
insufficient at least in my opinion at that point in time.
But when truth be told and they found more information
later on, they were able to develop that and they
did in fact change her manner of death at that
point in time. And there are multiple examples of this,
you know, throughout the country. It's not just limited there.
But and yes, in answer to your question, here's an

(51:52):
interesting one as well. We think about the Buford Pusser
case that has been in the news recently, you know
where his wife's body was exhumed. Now she was a homicide.
Now they're saying it wasn't a homicide at the hands
of some unknown assailant from I don't know. I think
they said it was a Dixie mafia, the Dixie Mafia.
It may very well have been at the hands of

(52:13):
Beefer Pusser. You know, they exhumed her body and they
discovered that she had a healing, fractured nose that probably
resulted from domestic violence. And so you know, the story
can change over a period of time. It's very dynamic.

Speaker 6 (52:27):
Oh, this is so compelling, and that is a case
I'm pretty unfamiliar with, So I'd love to with that
on the document and to get into it. Listen, this
is true Crime Tonight, and we are joined with joined
by Joseph Scott Morgan, who is making the forensically complicated
easy to digest.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
So thank you.

Speaker 6 (52:46):
We've been speaking about cause versus manner of death and
now I feel like we've been to school and know
our stuff.

Speaker 5 (52:53):
Body, you were going to tell us what in the
world's going on in Houston.

Speaker 7 (52:59):
Yeah, So another body has been recovered from the White
Oak Bayou and this marks the twenty second death in
the Houston area waterways in this year, in twenty twenty five,
And you know, this is intensifying public fears and online speculation,
which it should be noted city officials are strongly rejecting

(53:22):
as unsupported by evidence. What the community is fearful of
is that this is a serial killer. And there's all
these bodies being found in the bayou and people want answers.
And throughout twenty twenty five, Houston authorities again they've pulled
over twenty bodies from the city's bayous, with multiple victims
discovered in rapid succession and some remaining unidentified, and many

(53:46):
still you guys were just talking about cause and manner
of death.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
Some are still pending.

Speaker 7 (53:51):
After months and months and months of sitting in the
medical Examiner's office, speculation has grown about a potential serial
killer or some kind of like organized foul play. City
leaders and law enforcement insist there's zero evidence to point
in that direction or that any of these bodies, the

(54:12):
deaths of these people were criminal in nature in any way. So, yeah,
this is kind of making people a little nuts, And listen,
I kind of would be too, But a lot of
people are saying also that you know, people are in
the bayous for whatever reason and they're having some sort
of cardiac event and they're dying from accidental drowning. Normally,

(54:34):
when serial killers kill, they don't throw somebody in the
water and let them drown, right Like, that's just not
an effective way to kill somebody. And a lot of
these people are found with water in the lungs, you know,
they had some sort of cardiac event and passed away.
A lot of another thing that people are doing is
you know, homeless populations, right they are, you know, using

(54:58):
the bayou to put by of people that they associate with.
Instead of calling or reporting the death of this homeless person.
Some of the people that they're pulling from the bayou
are identified, you know, so there's nobody to claim them, right.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
So it's a homeless person's body and a buyo and
that's a human being.

Speaker 7 (55:19):
I know.

Speaker 4 (55:19):
That is so sound that Yeah, let me interject here
relative to this, if you and I've had this happen
over the years, particularly had it happen a lot in Atlanta.
If you have, for instance, if you have an area
where people are concentrated in and they might be unhoused

(55:41):
and they're involved in illicit drug drug use. If someone
ods or you know, just passes away, doesn't necessarily have
to be an o D the last thing they want
or the cops around, right. So many times I've worked
cases where people would wrap bodies, put them in a car,
and then move them away from like a shooting gallery

(56:02):
where people might be using heroin or that sort of thing,
or if they're near a homeless encampment, I could see
them pushing a body off into the water because then
you've got distance between yourself and the body. The cops
are not going to come and question you about that,
and even if they do, they'll say, body, I don't
know anything about it, dy, you know. And here's another thing. People,

(56:25):
you know you hear the term by you and you
knew I was going to get into this because I'm
from Louisiana. But many people don't understand what a bayou is.
It's it's not a it is not a lake, all right.
It's actually got a current to it. It's a very
slow moving current. But generally they're associated with with water

(56:48):
with rivers or streams, and they run off so they
will track. So you could have a body that enters,
Lord have mercy. You could have a body that enters
five miles away the value and it's just going to
slowly make its way through the bayu. Now, conversely, values
are perfect place disposed of a body because in the

(57:08):
Deep South, which Houston is as deep as you can
possibly get. Guess what in dwells vyus well all manner
of marine life, and plus the ultimate apex predator in
our nation, which is the American alligator. And so it's
a perfect place to dump, to dump a remain if

(57:30):
you want to put distance and also disposal. So they've
got a lot to work through here. And and we've
seen this played out in Austin. I got to remind
everybody the ladybird, ladybird, Yes, you know, they keep you know.
And they're trying to tie that to a serial killer
as well. So we're seeing this, you know, kind of

(57:52):
promulgated in the in the media. The case is the
NISC cases as they call them, up up in the
Northeast where we've got all the bodies up there. They're
trying to say that there's a serial killer up there too,
So i'd have to see more evidence. And with serial
kills we look for patterns, right right, you know, how
do they die? How do they die? How are the
bodies treated after death? Are they weighted down or are

(58:13):
they just free floating out in the water. I don't know,
And that's what they're dealing with right now. They're trying
to find connectivity.

Speaker 7 (58:20):
And so far so in September they pulled eleven Within
just the first eleven days, there were six bodies found.
So this time period in September really ramped up the
conversation online and within the locals. I mean, eleven days
and six bodies are pulled from the bayou. You know
this BYU, but it's important to note too, this by

(58:41):
you also runs under the bridges and under free you
know freeways, and these are you know, unhoused adjacent areas
of the city. And you know, the city officials are
citing accidental drownings, mental health struggles, drug use use, and homelessness,
not organized crime or foul play.

Speaker 3 (59:04):
To me, happy for the water too.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
To have this many decomposing bodies just in a body
of water that people visit recreationally, it's shocking.

Speaker 4 (59:14):
Well, if these are the ones I found, how many
are there out there that have.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
Not exactly like. That is unbelievable. And how do you
know that the person was not living when they tossed
him in?

Speaker 3 (59:24):
There?

Speaker 2 (59:24):
Are we just disposing of unhoused people because it's clogging
up the streets? I have to assume that's not the case.
But again, who's investigating this? This is a lot of bodies,
it is. It's a lot, It's a lot.

Speaker 11 (59:38):
Well.

Speaker 6 (59:38):
We will absolutely keep you up to speed as more
information becomes available, because this needs some watching. But stick
with us because coming up, Joseph Scott Morgan, forensic expert,
is going to fill us in on some of the
details of at game that and much more. Keep it
here at True Crimes Tonight, we are talking and true

(01:00:00):
crime all the time. This is True Crime Tonight. We
are on iHeartRadio. We are talking true crime all the time.
I'm Courtney Armstrong. I'm here with Stephanie Leidecker and Body

(01:00:21):
Movin and of course Joseph Scott Morgan. Don't forget if
you miss any part of the show, you can always
catch the podcast. We want to hear from you. Give
us a call eight at eight to three to one
crime or get with us on socials. We got true
Crime Tonight's show on TikTok and Instagram, True Crime Tonight
on Facebook, and let's go to a talk back.

Speaker 11 (01:00:41):
Hey, y'all, and jeth So Fly just released in news
documentary their death in Apartment six oh three What happened
to Ellen Reebers? And I'm not going to go into
any details about it, but this is a case that
I would love for y'all to dig into. There are
some that are approaching on the fourteenth where the city

(01:01:04):
of Philadelphia is supposed to be giving their flattings from
the re examinaation of her death. Anyways, the documentary was
amazing and also like her at the same time, So anyways,
I'd love to just hear about this from y'all and
dive into it. Yes, anyways, love y'all.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
By the way, I think she is onto something because
by the way, we have Joseph here and he is
an expert in the Allen Greenberg case, and we were
considering discussing the ed Gen Monsters series, but I'm going
to vote and say it's too gross. Honestly, I can't
even get through it, and I am the least squeamish

(01:01:49):
person alive, and for some reason, I think it's too
traumatic to actually have anybody watch. And you can agree
to disagree and call us eight at eighty three to
one crime.

Speaker 7 (01:02:00):
But yeah, no, I agree, and it's and I'm only
on episode I think five or six, and I mean,
I think my friends are getting kind of irritated with me,
going that never happened. This isn't this isn't what happened.
It is so dramatized and made up.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Yeah, and that's really dangerous by the way, as is
ed Gean needed any embellishments. He was one of the scariest, messiest,
prolific serial killers ever and I mean the likes of
which hopefully we never see again. But yeah, there were
all of these like interesting like creative nods maybe to

(01:02:37):
other things, but it seemed like a straight up made
up tail.

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
And on top of it, it's real gross.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
It is pretty real, although they act as adorable, so
that's not a daint does that forgive everything so cute?

Speaker 7 (01:02:51):
As we should probably talk about some of the forensics
with ed Gean since we have Joseph, right, because you
know the accuracy of my monsters. Listen, this is a drama, right,
it's it's it's for entertainment, right, the Monster series by
Ryan Murphy. We all like them, we watch them, but
we know they're drama. They're dramatized, right, so keep that

(01:03:12):
in mind when you're watching it. But ed Green was
truly a monster, Like, he truly was a monster, and
the things that he did, I think personally didn't really
need to be dramatized. Telling the true story of the
things that he did probably would have been, you know,
interesting enough because he was such a monster. So let's
go over that kind of stuff right now while we
have Joseph. So last season, the Monster at Green story,

(01:03:36):
it premiered on October third to pretty recently, and it,
you know, goes through the life and psychological decline and
of course violent crimes of ed Gean. He was the
murderer and grave robber whose deeds inspired films like Psycho,
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence of the Lambs, Buffalo Bill.

(01:03:57):
You know, like these are real significant American horror movies
that were inspired by Edgan. And by the way, I
do think the Monsters series, this Ed Green one in particular,
did a great job at telling that, at weaving in
those stories which I really want to talk to dorawn
O fear about our pop culture expert, because he's all

(01:04:18):
about that. But AnyWho, his mom, Augusta, she was like
this really strict religious woman who preached about the evils
of women and sexuality. That's all very true. Gane idolized
her and became psychologically dependent, and when she died, he
kind of snapped right. And we know he killed two

(01:04:38):
people that he confessed to and he was also a
grave robber. Now, when he was caught, I'm going to
use those words, you know, when he was caught, the team,
the law enforcement and the medical examiner and all the
people that had to process the scene. Joseph, can you
imagine the scene that they had walked into, because he

(01:04:59):
really was digging up, digging women upright, and using body parts.
There was really a heart in a pot on the stove.
Poor Bernice really was hanging from the rafters. Poor Bernice's
head was really you know, in the room. There were
real things. There really was a chair with human skin.

(01:05:22):
There really was a nipple belt. There really were these
awful and brutal things. Now, Joseph, you walk into a
scene like this, what do you do?

Speaker 4 (01:05:32):
Walk back out the door and say, I'm resigning.

Speaker 3 (01:05:36):
I don't blame you, no, no, you.

Speaker 4 (01:05:41):
Know I've often you know, because I've followed the Edging
case over the years, just you know, peripherally reading about
it and those sorts of things, and actually in uh,
you know, the first place I ever read about it
was actually in high school. I took a class in
high school called thanontology, had a pretty cool class which

(01:06:04):
is a study of the dead. And this is the
first time I ever learned about ed Geen. And over
the years, I've tried to put myself into the place
of these detectives and investigators in this isolated, isolated area.

Speaker 3 (01:06:23):
I'm sorry. And back then, right before all the Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:06:27):
That's the thing about it. You know, you think about things,
you talk about the ultimate noir. This is all in
black and white, you know, you think about this, and
we're talking about going into a farmhouse in an isolated
area of farm property. This dude lit his house with
oil lamps, kerosene lamps rather, and that's the illumination that

(01:06:50):
he had in fireplace. So you go into this environment
and it's not like today where you know, my phone
a lot illuminate a room just with a little light
on it. These guys didn't have that all right, and
they had to bring out generators and all those sorts
of things. But just to walk around and particularly when

(01:07:14):
you get to this poor woman's body that has been
trusted that the term is actually trust up. This is
a methodology that's used by people that are in the
slaughtering business are also deer hunters, big game hunters, where
they're actually dressing a body. And when you see this

(01:07:35):
image of her, the black and white image, by the way,
you get that feel if you've ever been around deer
hunting at all, which I have been my entire life,
you can see that someone had that specific knowledge. But
to walk into this and you know, my catchphrase has
always been and by the way, I'm thinking about copywriting,

(01:07:56):
it is actually observing the abnormal and context of the normal.
You walk into somebody's home and you see this, and
you see all these other elements that are in there.
How do you make sense of this? Particularly in their
minds back then, because this is the ultimate and evil.
It'd be the ultimate and evil nowadays, even in this
crazy world we live in now where we see all

(01:08:16):
of this stuff, but back then, how much even more
so they couldn't explain this That's one of the reasons
the stam House got burned down years later, because they
got tired of people going out there. They saw this
place just like the center, the epicenter of evil. But yeah,
it's such everything together. I'm sorry.

Speaker 7 (01:08:35):
And this is a curiosity for people. So people are
just showing up. Yeah, so just this farmhouse, this evil farmhouse,
like this is a local curiosity people are driving to.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
They had to get rid of it.

Speaker 5 (01:08:46):
Yeah, yeah, they did.

Speaker 4 (01:08:47):
Not, And correct me if I'm wrong. I think that
you know, his headstone was stolen.

Speaker 3 (01:08:53):
Yeah it was, and they didn't replace it.

Speaker 4 (01:08:55):
Yeah, left. I wouldn't either, And but you know, just
think about it. He's buried in the lot adjacent to
where Augusta was buried his mother, and I'm assuming that
some of the bodies that he actually dug up were
in the same graveyard. You know, we're talking forty now.

(01:09:19):
He's what would be classified as a necrophile. He is
through and through a necrophile. He loved to play with
the dead, and these people do exist and they sexualize
the dead. He had been studying in the wake of
his mother's death. He'd been studying taxidermy anyway, which would
enable his ability to do things like, you know, preserve

(01:09:43):
preserve elements of bodies, also tanning, tanning of hides, that
sort of thing. And that's how he can create these
leather creations that are as horrible as that is, that
were resilient enough so that he could use them as clothing.
But here's the problem. Here's the problem that they would

(01:10:03):
have run into back then. And again I'm putting a
modern mind to this. How do you match everything up?

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
Right?

Speaker 4 (01:10:12):
That's the rub.

Speaker 7 (01:10:14):
Yeah, there's no DNA, right, there's no DNA testing. So
what did they do? How do they do this?

Speaker 4 (01:10:20):
Yeah? Well, you know we're not too far removed from
that time to tell the truth. You know, I've worked
I've worked cases where I've had multiple deaths in things
like plane crashes, okay, and when you have particulated remains. Uh.
And we see this in any mass fatality event. You know,
God rest their souls. But the victims nine to eleven,

(01:10:40):
you know, you had this, this happened. Explosions, you have
this happen. We just have this tragedy that's just happened
in Tennessee. God bless those people.

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
By the way.

Speaker 4 (01:10:49):
Horrible case. Uh, where you have all of these elements
of human remains that are about and you're trying to
you know, you're trying to literally marry them up. We
have the ability nowadays of doing DNA testing, but back
then they would not, and you're trying to piece something together.

(01:11:09):
It's literally the most grotesque jigsaw puzzle you can imagine,
because you know, you're looking for elements relative to the
size the size of the element, where was it disarticulated
from Do you have anything that still remains that you
can marry it up to that you can kind of

(01:11:30):
claim ownership of it for this particular remain, there are
cases all over the world where you've had mass fatality
events where they live and as horrible as this is,
and I got to tell folks that this is.

Speaker 11 (01:11:42):
Part of the real world.

Speaker 4 (01:11:44):
You literally have parts that are left over. If you
can just imagine that, that's something that happens, and that's
something they would be faced with here. Because the problem
is with Gain, you don't know what he did with
the rest of the remains. There were elements of female
reproductive evidence i'm sorry, organs that were that he had taken,

(01:12:10):
even some that were as horrible as this is, non
adult there were even children's clothes that were there. To me,
that's one of the most disturbing things, because you know,
people have teetered on this idea. Was he a serial
killer or not? Okay, we know that he killed two people,
but who's unaccounted for? And can you go back in

(01:12:32):
Tom and Tom? Who was unaccounted for? Also? Where were
all of these remains buried? This is a curious thing too.
If you had a collection of remains that you did
not know who they were, and you did bury them
in one location, could we use this technology today to
go back with like investigative genetic genealogy and take any

(01:12:55):
of those remains and take samples DNA wise, I don't
know how well they were preserved. Well did he preserve
him enough? And is there still any kind of Bible
DNA left behind? I think that that would be a
fascinating explanation, you know, to try to understand those elements
as well. Yeah, the horror I think for in it.
You know, again, I'm speaking to people that have long

(01:13:16):
since passed away, but I cannot even begin to fathom
the horror that they experienced when they walked in this place.

Speaker 7 (01:13:24):
Unimaginable, absolutely unimaginable, and it's important to know.

Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
Yeah, he was only tied to two murders.

Speaker 7 (01:13:32):
There is there were like the for instance, in the
in the show, he kills the babysitter Evelyn because she
took his job, but that never happened. This girl really
did go missing. She was she was a babysitter in
a totally different area of Wisconsin, but she was never
tied to Edgeen. They did question him, but he he

(01:13:57):
said no, there there were a lot of things, but yeah,
he officially only killed two people. He's not even officially
accredited with killing his brother, even though it suspected that
he did.

Speaker 4 (01:14:09):
The circumstances are really curious, though, Right, how did your
brother spontaneously catch on fire relative to you know, a
brush fire.

Speaker 7 (01:14:16):
Right?

Speaker 4 (01:14:16):
And plus he had a pretty nasty head wound if
I remember correct, Yeah, might be remembering, but.

Speaker 7 (01:14:21):
Yeah, they said he had bruising or or something that
that nature. Would have to go back and read and
look at it. But yeah, there was no official tie,
but they suspected. They suspected he did. And he also
said he never had sex with the corpses. He said
the smell deterred him, but just.

Speaker 4 (01:14:42):
Because he's not having sexual relations with a corpse does
not mean he didn't sexualize course, correct.

Speaker 3 (01:14:49):
I was just saying from the show. Sorry, dis correct myself.
From the show.

Speaker 7 (01:14:54):
They you know, they imply that he was, you know,
doing that, and there's no evidence that he did. Now,
I do think he was sexualizing them one hundred million percent,
just based on what he was collecting, right, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:15:08):
And I think that the fact that they found, well,
these victims are all female, with the exception of his brother,
and that can't necessarily be tied to him. But the
fact that he would have the skulls, you know, on
his bedpost, I think speaks speaks to his sexualization as well.
These elements that are throughout the house, So you know,

(01:15:30):
what kind of utility did he have for them? It
were curious and absolutely chilling.

Speaker 6 (01:15:35):
This is heavy stuff ed gean and necrophilia. But stick
around because after the break we are going to be
hearing from you. We are drawn by forensic expert Joseph
Scott Morgan, So give us a call if you have questions,
edit a through to one crime keep it here True
Crime Tonight.

Speaker 2 (01:16:02):
Welcome back to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We've been
talking true crime all the time. I'm Steph here with
Courtney and Body. The whole gang is here minus Taha.
We have Ava Kaplan in the house. She's sitting in
for Taha of course, Adam and Sam and because it's
scientific Sunday, Joseph Scott Morgan, host of the hit podcast

(01:16:22):
body Bags, joins us again for all Things Forensics Listen.
We've been doing our listen. It's a slow burn, so
we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. But we
are all wearing our weighted vests. I just took mine
off because.

Speaker 3 (01:16:37):
We gotta do it. Instance it can't be for the
whole two hours. That's crazy. I did that on Thursday
and I couldn't walk on Friday. So thanks for all
the calls.

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
We've been getting a lot of talkbacks and dms about
some like commercial break exercises that we're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
We all have our body got her vest I did.

Speaker 7 (01:16:56):
I got lost and I'm surprised at how heavy it is.
I was like, oh my gosh, Yes, I didn't realize
how much ten pounds was. Well, I recently lost ten pounds,
so I'm like, oh my gosh, it's heavy.

Speaker 3 (01:17:07):
That's heavy.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
Yeah, And it's like we have to start in a
very very small weight, like my weights are only a
pound each.

Speaker 7 (01:17:14):
So just like by the way, way I didn't know this,
but I wore it for forty minutes on the show too.

Speaker 3 (01:17:19):
Which is way too long and it's way too long
word for fifteen, I wore forty you know, I know.
So we have to do it for like one act.

Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
So we're going to kind of work out our internal
ridiculous exercise regime. But it seems like we've gotten a
lot of feedback, so if you want to join in,
you can use water bottles that you don't have to
buy weights.

Speaker 3 (01:17:41):
You can just use two full water bottles or one
water bottle.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
It's really we're taking this at the very slow burn,
but everything counts. So anyway, thanks for the messages, and
if you've missed any of the first hour of the show,
or frankly any of the show, just catch us after
as podcast and please join in if you want to
join us for a call eight eight eight three one crime.

Speaker 3 (01:18:06):
But let's go to a talk back now.

Speaker 12 (01:18:11):
Hi, I was wondering if you guys have seen the
new Hulu documentary A Death in Apartment six of three
I've watched it recently and I'm just like, really curious
what your thoughts are. Do you think like she was
murdered or do you think it was a suicide. I'm
just like, I'd really love to hear your take on it.

Speaker 7 (01:18:27):
So I haven't seen the documentary. Yeah, now I think
we should be watching it for true crime.

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
And chill, let's do that. Let's do not do ed Gean.
You can all watch it, Gan, I'm sure it's brilliant.
We like Ryan Murphy, of course, a little a little
gory though if you get queasy easy. But let's Ellen Senberg.
Seem like that we could be actionable.

Speaker 7 (01:18:47):
And I think we're all kind of familiar with Ellen
Greenberg's case. Of course, Joseph is incredibly familiar. He's the expert.
I believe without even watching this documentary, just knowing what
I do know about the case, I don't believe Ellen
Greenberg herself at all.

Speaker 3 (01:19:02):
I just know for a.

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):
Fact because I listened to Joseph Scott Morgan all the
time talking about Ellen Greenberg.

Speaker 3 (01:19:08):
It was not a suicide. It was murder. Absolutely. I'm
not saying it's a fact. Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly.

Speaker 6 (01:19:15):
However, stabbing your own self in the back x amount
of time and all of the other stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:19:20):
So, but I'm intrigued to watch the watch the doc So.

Speaker 7 (01:19:25):
Let's so we're gonna we're gonna take two weeks to
watch it. Well, we'll discuss it on True Crime and Chill.
Not this Wednesday, but the following.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
It gives people some tallendar We got to get our
calendars out right now and pencil this in. Yeah, pencil,
my goodness. Okay, so wait, I have a highlighter. So okay,
I know what my marching orders are. Everyone join in listen,
and it can't just be us talking about it. We
want to hear from you and your thoughts about it.
That's the whole point. We're all in this conversation together.

(01:19:52):
Joseph is like sitting on his hands. He's trying not
to jump in because he's literally the expert. He's doing
more research on this case. It must be so painful
to listen to us jabberon right now about it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:03):
Joseph, what do you think? Should this be the next
True Crime and Chill?

Speaker 4 (01:20:07):
Yes, yeah, definitely. And for the memory of Ellen, that's
what it comes down to, you exact. I've been covering
a case for several years now, and it's and I
know her parents spent a lot of time with them,
and it's heartbreaking on so many levels. And it's not

(01:20:29):
simply about Ellen's death. It's also about the journey that
her parents have been on in an advanced age in
their life. If you can imagine this sys their only child,
you know, when when she was found deceased in that
apartment all those years ago. Now looking back in time,
I can't believe how much time has passed now. And yeah,

(01:20:50):
this is certainly something that is worthy of having a
discussion about. I'll just put it to this way. The
injuries that Ellen sustained, in my opinion, are almost biomechanically

(01:21:10):
impossible to self generate. If you'll just imagine trying to
reach over your shoulder and drive a knife into your
upper back and into your neck and into the back
of your head and having those kinds of insults on

(01:21:33):
the surface of your posterior. Oh and then to boot
you've got just as many on the front as well.
For any of you guys out there that are very
experienced a paper cut, and you know how painful that is.
Just imagine if you will taking a knife and driving
it through your skin over and over and over again.

(01:21:55):
It's almost an empirical impossibility for this to have gone
down like some people suggest that it did. And all
I all I can do is look at the physical
evidence and draw my own conclusions. And my conclusions are
that this is something other than self inflicted. And no,

(01:22:15):
she did not fall on an eye, which is yeah,
it's yeah, it's it's it's absolute poppy cock.

Speaker 7 (01:22:23):
It's absurd, it's insulting, like it's insulting to Ellen's memory
and our intelligence.

Speaker 4 (01:22:31):
Yeah, it is into Josh and Sandy, her parents. Yeah,
it certainly is as well. And you know, I have
to I cannot imagine for me personally as a daddy
and grandpa. I can't imagine. I can. I think I can,
but you never know until you're in those shoes. How
people throw around the word bravery a lot, and when

(01:22:55):
you see what they have gone through and endured. I'm
talking about having to sell their home, uh, you know,
to finance everything they financed just to keep her case alive.
At this point is it's just gut wretching and horrible,
absolutely horrible, and the fight that they've had to fight yeah,

(01:23:17):
I suggest that you guys do this, watch the Hulu.
Watch the Hulu.

Speaker 3 (01:23:22):
Yeah, that's what we're going to do.

Speaker 7 (01:23:22):
The Apartment Death and Apartment four oh three, I think
it's called We're going to watch that.

Speaker 3 (01:23:27):
It's on Hulu.

Speaker 7 (01:23:28):
I have to resubscribe to my who. I don't have
it anymore, so I need.

Speaker 3 (01:23:31):
To re up it.

Speaker 7 (01:23:32):
And I'm going to do that and I'm going to
watch it. Six o three. Thank you, yeah, six o three,
thank you?

Speaker 3 (01:23:37):
So much money.

Speaker 9 (01:23:38):
I pay so much money for the Hulu with all
the commercials. I know that's why I cancel it. I
was like, what is happening? I have so many subscriptions.
I have so many I need to ansle them. We
need to get like another side job for our subscriptions.

Speaker 2 (01:23:54):
I know it's incredible, it's incredible. But yes, okay, so
I for some reason you.

Speaker 3 (01:24:00):
Don't have Hulu. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:24:01):
Maybe there's a workaround we should all talk about, but
it is. I know these are expensive.

Speaker 6 (01:24:05):
Find a friend, make a deal, oh a free trial,
and you got to remember to cancel it.

Speaker 5 (01:24:12):
My mother's great at that.

Speaker 3 (01:24:13):
I bet Betty is.

Speaker 2 (01:24:15):
She knows what's up and she knows how to get
that right, right, You had a set o' clock for
the seven day trial.

Speaker 3 (01:24:20):
Yep, clever clever.

Speaker 7 (01:24:22):
So my understanding is that we are going to take
a caller as soon as we do this message. You're
listening to True Crime tonight. We talk true crime all
the time. We are right in the middle of talking
to Joseph Scott Morgan and we are going to take
a call.

Speaker 3 (01:24:38):
Hi, welcome to the show. Hi Hill, You're so happy
you h Brittany? How are you, Brittany?

Speaker 13 (01:24:46):
I'm great. How are you? Thank you for calling?

Speaker 3 (01:24:49):
Of course, of course tell us everything.

Speaker 13 (01:24:52):
Okay, So you guys have asked what what got you
into true crime? And I had a bit of an
unusual story and I thought you guys would like to
hear it.

Speaker 3 (01:25:02):
Always.

Speaker 13 (01:25:03):
Yes, so my mom actually dated a serial killer. Of
course she did not know. I have to pass this
by saying she did not know this at the time.
She found out about twenty years later. Yeah, that's what
I said. I'm like, are you sure, like you know,
no red flags? You didn't find anything? No, No, she

(01:25:25):
says she found it out just by her reaction. I
think it was pretty genuine.

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):
So what's okay? So who what's the story.

Speaker 13 (01:25:34):
So his name is William Seife. So I'm from Canada,
Montreal specifically. We love Montreal, my mom.

Speaker 3 (01:25:42):
I love Montreal. It's so beautiful.

Speaker 13 (01:25:43):
Oh, yes, you've been. Oh of course, I guess right,
because of the whole Did you go to the Yeah,
did you go to the trial?

Speaker 3 (01:25:51):
No? I did not.

Speaker 13 (01:25:53):
Oh, okay, okay, no, but I assume you would have been.
That's true. So, yeah, my mom was dating this guy
when she was about about seventeen or eighteen at the
time he was twenty four. This is in nineteen seventy nine,
nineteen eighty. They were both on vacation and Gaspe. They
both lived in Montreal. They just happened to me while

(01:26:14):
on vacation at the same spot. So they hung out
there and kind of continued a relationship for about nine months.
When they got back home. Brittany, she said.

Speaker 3 (01:26:23):
Waiting on you said she started dating him in nineteen
seventy nine.

Speaker 13 (01:26:27):
Nineteen seventy nine, nineteen eighty. Yeah, and she was seventeen
or eighteen at the time.

Speaker 3 (01:26:32):
He was active in nineteen seventy nine. Yeah, I really goodness,
Okay about there, she just had a brush with Oh
my god, Oh my goodness, thank goodness, which is.

Speaker 13 (01:26:45):
So crazy to me, Like, I don't think he was
her you know, her type. I guess, okay, okay, he
went for like I think he had mommy issues. But
we'll get to.

Speaker 3 (01:26:57):
That, don't they all, don't they all?

Speaker 13 (01:26:59):
Yeah, Yeah, it's always something, It's always yeah. So she said,
you know, he was always really nice. There was zero
red flags, zero suspicions. You know, he was always very nice.
He was very patient. They never argued, he never raised
his voice. He had two cats who we love, which
is really kind of you know, oh my god. Yeah,

(01:27:22):
not the usual profile. So actually the reason they broke
up all fast forward to that, Like they had a
great relationship, but they broke up because he typically drove
a motorcycle or a a company's van because he installed
sprinkler systems at the time. And one night he picks
her up from work in this car she had never

(01:27:43):
seen before, and she's like, oh, whose car is this
and he said, oh, I borrowed it from a friend.
I didn't want to take my bike because it's raining out.
And she's like, well, okay, you know, sounds legit, so
she didn't really question it. Fast forward to the next day,
he's driving her back to work and there's a bunch

(01:28:03):
of police that stopped them. You know, guns, they're surrounded.
It turns out he stole the car. Yeah, so you know,
and to her, this is like the thing that broke
them up.

Speaker 3 (01:28:16):
Right.

Speaker 13 (01:28:17):
Imagine she really knew what was going on all the time.
So like, lucky for her, I guess they for her. Yeah,
it was she was terrified they brought like she was.
She really had no idea. She really didn't expect it

(01:28:37):
from him, right, So they bring her, They bring them
to the jail to do questioning. He immediately said, like,
she has nothing to do with this, this is something
I did, Like, please let her go. They asked her
a few more questions, but something weird that they did
ask was do you know if he had if he's
taken any pictures of you? And she's like, well, like well, yeah,

(01:29:03):
She's like, well when we were on vacation and gaspye
we took pictures. He's like, oh okay, because he had
a lot of pictures in his possession, so apparently there
were They didn't really go into detail, but they basically
said that there were a lot of pictures a woman,
including her, and she just wanted to make sure that
he was aware that he had these photos because I

(01:29:25):
guess they were kind of I don't know. I don't
know if he was just taking people phos of the
same day at the beach. I don't know how that happened.
But that was the one weird thing. So basically that
was the last communication they had. He asked her to
please contact his aunt, oh my god, to take care

(01:29:47):
of his cats that he loved, and that was it.
She never heard from it again. And then fast forward
twenty years, well nineteen years to be exact. She's watching
the evening news and all of a sudden she sees
his face plastered on CTV and she screams, oh my god,
that's Billy.

Speaker 3 (01:30:06):
As she recognized him when he got arrested. Yes.

Speaker 13 (01:30:10):
Yeah, And then this was the end nineteen ninety nine,
so I was six and I have like a memory
of this, and she was like freaking out. She's like,
I can't believe it. That's Billy's She later told us,
you know, of all like her ex boyfriends, this is
the person she would have suspected the least because he
was so not the type. And so there had been

(01:30:31):
a string of like sexual assaults and burglaries and murders
in Montreal and the surrounding areas, and they had been
looking for somebody and turns out it was him. They
finally caught him. And yeah, so ever since then, I've been.

Speaker 2 (01:30:46):
That you have the best, scariest, most eerie answer to
this ever heard this question, why are you into true crime?

Speaker 3 (01:30:56):
Saying goodness that you called by the way ladies.

Speaker 2 (01:30:59):
And we only have a quick moment, So Brittany, I
don't mean to cut you off, but I feel like
we need to continue this conversation with you because they
should go into a Red Flags dating episode, right like
we should just like talk about what people have been
experiencing out in the real world in the wild, like
your sweet mom. Hey listen, Brittany, thank you for sharing

(01:31:21):
your story and we're going to be back tomorrow.

Speaker 5 (01:31:23):
Big day because Luigi's.

Speaker 3 (01:31:25):
Team wants them to.

Speaker 2 (01:31:27):
Drop the federal charges true crime tonight. Stay safe out there,
good night, everybody.

Speaker 5 (01:31:32):
BA