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August 4, 2025 79 mins

This week, we’re joined by forensics expert and ‘Body Bags’ host Joseph Scott Morgan to dig into some of the darkest stories making headlines: the shocking discovery of a mass grave in Ireland, the sentencing of Sade Robinson’s killer, the latest on the Devil’s Den murder suspect, and more. Tune in for all the details. 

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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 are talking
true crime all the time. I'm Katie Studios producer Courtney Armstrong.
I'm here as always with crime analyst Body Move In.
Our beloved co host, Stephanie Lydecker is out this evening,
but we are lucky enough that we're joined by our
very favorite forensic expert, mister Joseph Scott Morgan himself.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
How are you good?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
We're going to be diving in. We have another forensic
scientific Sunday. Joseph's going to help us pack literally all
of tonight's stories. It is Sunday, Yes, no pressure, It's Sunday.
It's August third, and we do indeed have a stacked
night of headlines. We're going to be getting into the
infamous Jonestown Commune. It's opening to tourists, and we're also

(01:05):
going to get into the backstory of the cult and
also the ethics of this dark tourism. We will be
answering your questions about newly unsealed documents in the Idaho
student murders case. They are coming fast and furious, and
we'll be getting into the recent sentencing hearing. It was
for Shade Robinson's killer, and we're going to find out
why the judge said that what he did was out

(01:28):
of a horror novel, because it was. But first we're
going to go straight into a talkback.

Speaker 4 (01:35):
Hey, guys, A huge fan of everything Katie's Studio's body
Joseph Scott, Margan, Everyone. Okay, I wanted to say, I'm
surprised this case hasn't got any traction. I live in Sedona, Arizona,
which is a really nice city. But there's a guy
that murdered a priest or pastor and crucified him, and

(01:55):
watched the interview with him on Azy Central. Body probably knows.

Speaker 5 (01:59):
Why would I know? Wait a minute, is is he
calling me out? I was going to say, what were
you doing at night? No, that's he was crucified.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Joseph.

Speaker 5 (02:09):
Do you know you know about this story?

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah? Yeah, Actually we covered it on Body Bags a
few weeks back, and at the time, this is what's
so scary about this because of the proximity, this area
where he was found is kind of in a It's
not in Sidona, it's just north of Phoenix, all right,
and Phoenix has exploded. I think that we can all
agree with that if you've ever been to Phoenix lately. Uh.

(02:33):
And the proximity to this area and this wild man
is like running around and no one who knows and
just think about the chill that sends up in this
this pastor this poor man who was if I remember correctly,
it was like a widower, and all he cared about
was his church and tinkering on old farm equipment in
his yard. And they walked in to his home and

(02:56):
he had literally beenil literally nailed to the wall in
the manner of Christ being nailed to the wall, and
some kind of crude crown of thorns, oh my gosh,
and placed on this man's head. Just let that sink
in for a moment. It was absolutely terrifying case. And

(03:19):
that's why it caught our attentional body backs, because I
got to tell you, in all of my years in forensics,
I had never the only time I've ever encountered even
anything close to this is in the Philippines around Easter time,
when people actually they do it, which actually sends a
chill up my spine where they will walk that, you know,
and they're carrying a cross and they literally get crucified there.

(03:39):
But this is like a that's something they're doing of
their own volition. This is like a criminal offense. It
sounds like something out of seven, the movie Seven.

Speaker 5 (03:47):
Yes, it sounds like it. So they put a crown
of thorns on his head.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Yeah, that is so.

Speaker 5 (03:53):
That is I never heard of this. I can't believe
I'd never heard of this.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
I wish I had never heard of it, but because
it was so chilling, absolutely chilling.

Speaker 5 (04:02):
I just looked it up and the guy that did
it has been arrested. He confessed. His name is Adam Sheef.
He's fifty one. It looks like he has Hebrew on
his neck and it appears to be Yahweh, which is
the Hebrew name for God, right on his neck. He confessed.
The priest's name was William Shounman.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Is that yeah, it's like a German extraction name. Okay, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 5 (04:29):
And he would he died from significant injuries. That's all
it really says.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah. I got the impression at the time that it
was probably a probably blunt force combined with maybe asphyxiation.
This is a torture death. As sorry, this is what
we would classify as as torture death. And the key is,
and we still haven't found out, were these injuries anti
mortem which means before death. And just let that sink

(04:57):
in for a second. And you're being nailed to a
surface or alive while that's going on, and the crown
of thorns and all of these would present with anti
mortem hemorrhage in the wound. So you would just like
a bullet and if you're shot while you're alive, just
like in a nail, is actually a puncture wound. As
it enters, it creates a track. You'll have indwelling hemorrhage.
Ere if that indwelling hemorrhage exists, that means that this

(05:19):
is an anti mortem event. This happened while he was alive.
They still haven't released those details at this point.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
This is unbelievable and I'm just again thank you so
much for the talk back, as I'm so just looking
into it, and it seems like this man had anticipated
killing fourteen other religious leaders in ten states and that
he wanted to do sort of a circuit and he
did this on Easter Sunday.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
Yeah, Oh my gosh, yeah, yeah, and it all revives
and I don't know, maybe we can say it's symbolic.
I have no idea, but yeah, And that was one
of the chilling things.

Speaker 6 (05:53):
You know.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
I went, I took my grandbabies to Mass this year
on Easter Sunday. It's a great celebration for us. We
always do it. And I remember thinking about that at
that particular time, and it sent a particular chill up
my spahn. Wow.

Speaker 5 (06:06):
So he was It says he was going to start
in Phoenix and circle a nation, just like you said earlier, Courtney,
and end in Phoenix as well. He had fourteen pastures.
He said that he didn't he didn't have a problem
with Christians. He said he was raised a Christian, he
had a good childhood, he has no religious trauma. But
that pastures are leading people astray, it's very Oh my goodness,

(06:33):
that's that's terrifying. And yes, the first thing I thought
of it was a movie and you nailed that, Joseph.
It reminds me of something seven, you know, that's something
that happened in seven. Oh my god. At first I
was thinking Stigmata, the movie Stigmata, right.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
And that makes sense. Yeah, but for seven.

Speaker 5 (06:48):
Seven yeah, oh my goodness, is pork.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Totally Well listen, thank you for bringing that to our attention.
This is true crime tonight. We are on iHeartRadio. I'm
Courtney Armstrong here with Body Move In and of course
our beloved forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan is with us tonight.
We were kicking the night off with the story none
of us had heard about, or excuse me that Maddie

(07:14):
and I had not. But now I'd really like to
unpack what's going on in the latest in the manhunt
for the suspect in the Tennessee quadruple quadruple homicide body.
Can you let us know sort of what are authorities reporting.

Speaker 5 (07:29):
Well, the person that's the suspected of this killing, his
name is Austin Robert Drummond and he's from Jackson, Tennessee.
Or police recovered his vehicle as we all reported later
last week, they were looking for this white Audie that
Austin Robert Drummond was driving. Well, they found it in Jackson, Tennessee.
But he remains at large and is considered armed and dangerous.

(07:53):
Austin Robert Drummond is wanted in connection with the murders
of four family members in Tiptonville, Tennessee, and the abandonment
of a seven month old infant twenty five miles away.
Authorities began their investigation on July twenty ninth, so this
is very recent, after the infant was discovered in the
front yard and the victims were later found dead that
same night. So they found his car and it looked

(08:15):
like he had been living in it. So they're suspecting
that he's pretty close by, and they're wanting people in
the area of Jackson, Tennessee, to be on the lookout.
So make sure you go to like TBI, the Tennessee
Bureau of Investigation's Twitter account, and look at his picture
and really look at it and be on the lookof
with this guy. He is not a good person. His
background is incredibly violent, right.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
And Joseph, when this had first come to our attention,
you know, just days ago, as body said, this is
very very very recent. I know this is far down
the line, but it sticks in my head. The fact
that this seven month old infant was set found in
a car, would that in and of itself be attempted
homicide or some kind of I don't know what the
process was.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Sting to use. Yeah, in my estimation, is certainly reckless endangerment.
And it all depends on what Tennessee statute has it
set up, you know, how they define that. But yet,
so let me back up just a little bit, because
this child, and it was kind of unclear this person
that occupied the home where the baby was found. It's
a precious little angel. They're all precious little angels to me,

(09:19):
you know me. I love babies. And so baby is
in a car carrier, and so this child lady had
called it in and said there's a baby money part,
and so the authorities rolled out, Well that's the first
big indicator that had in this case. And let me
tell you how this ties back Forensically, the child is
either found at the end of the driveway or in
the yard immediately adjacent to the end of the driveway.

(09:43):
For all the moms and dads, grandparents out there that
have ever had to deal with a child car carrier,
where you take the infant out of the car, you
remove the entire thing, guess what that's got on it.
It's a smooth plastic surface, and there are multiple points
of contact. So one of the things I'm praying that
they did is that when and this was like, this

(10:03):
is a child abandonment, so you're worried about the child, right,
you're not thinking about evidence. I hope they retain that
child carrier, because we're not just looking for fingerprints, which
you would find if they're not wearing gloves, but there's
also going to be potential for DNA deposition all around
the surfaces. Because I don't know about you guys, when
my kids were little, I found myself it was like
a juggling act because you're trying to get the kid

(10:25):
out of the car you're carrying and maybe the kid's asleep.
You're trying not to wake them up, and you're manipulating
this thing all the way and you got your keys
in your hand, so you and it's not really well balanced,
so you're having to regrip the things. There'd be multiple
points of contact just on that alone, and whoever deposited
that kid, that precious angel at the end of that

(10:46):
driveway is tied to this specifically. We know that there's
no way you can avoid that or they're going to
have very detailed information about it. Well, to put a
kid off.

Speaker 5 (10:57):
In a yard, I know two people have been arrested
as a complices. On August first, twenty nine year old
Jackson native to Nika Brown was arrested in charge with
accessory after the fact to first degree homicide and tampering
with evidence. And on August second, authorities charged fellow twenty
nine year old Jackson native Givanti Thomas, with accessory after
the fact to first degree homicide. Now, the authorities have

(11:20):
alleged the two assisted him after he committed the killings,
but how they assisted him is not being made public.
So maybe, Joseph, to your point, maybe they are the
ones who dropped this baby off and they got the
fingerprints on. These two have an extensive criminal record as is,
so their fingerprints are on file, so they might have known. Okay,

(11:41):
Givante put the child in the driveway.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
I don't know, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd agree. And here's
the thing. This guy that is still loose, all right,
he is. Please do not approach this guy whatever you do,
if you recognize him on any level, this guy is dangerous.
He's been in the joint for in excess of thirteen
to forty. He's recently gotten out in the last few years.

(12:06):
And the reason he went in the first place, I think,
if I'm not mistake, I think it was for armed robbery.
And there are a lot of photos of him incarcerated,
and you can see his shelves from the commissary of
just stacks and stacks of food. It's very order. He's
been in the joint for a long time. He's institutionalized,
and he has a violent background, and that's what's so

(12:28):
terrifying about this, that he's still out there and that
he would involve himself apparently in a quadruple homicide and
abandon a baby. Yeah, and it's mind blowing. I hope
they catch this guy.

Speaker 5 (12:42):
I hope they catch Oh, they're going to I mean, yeah,
he's got to be on foot at this point, and
he couldn't be too far away from his car that
they just found it. They do think he's on foot,
but they are warning the public in that area specifically
to be careful. I really want everybody that here's my
voice to go look at his picture, make sure that
you're safe.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
I mean really, yeah, we'll be keeping really close tabs
on this and listen. Yeah, hopefully maybe even tonight. I
hope you have an update.

Speaker 5 (13:21):
We're back with forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan. Welcome back, Joseph.
We're so glad you're here. He's going to be helping
us make sense of the three hundred plus recently unsealed
documents in the Idaho student murders case. But first we
got to talk back. Let's hear that.

Speaker 6 (13:33):
Hey, ladies, I just listened to the Bodybag podcast about
the forensics found on the girl and how they were
talking about Kaylee having different rouns, and then they said
that Dylan heard Calle scream there's someone in the house,

(13:56):
and they said that that's why her wounds were different,
because she was trying to shut her up. So I
was just wondering if you have any thoughts about that,
and have any ideas as to why she wouldn't have
called the cops immediately. I know we can't ever put
ourselves in other people's shoes. It's very scary, but I

(14:17):
was just curious about that. I love you. I love
the show days.

Speaker 5 (14:21):
By So that was from our voicemail. That was from
our voicemail, and we love the voicemails too. You can
call us at any time eight of eight thirty one
crime and leave us like a long voicemail and we'll
get it. But I have a lot of this. Listen,
I can talk an entire segment about this. You guys,
the surviving roommate, Dylan is insistent it was Kayleie that

(14:43):
said someone's here. She went downstairs and said someone's here
and ran back up. If that is true, Kaylee was
not sleeping in that room. She was sleeping in her bed,
which was still at the house at the time of
these murders. And she walked into that room and interrupted
Brian Coberger while he was doing whatever he was doing

(15:03):
with Maddie, and interrupted him at his most intimate moment.
And I'm not saying this is a sexual assault. A
murder by knife is intimate. It interrupted him at his
most intimate moment, and that's why he took all his
rage out on Kaylee. In my scenario. In that scenario,
Kaylee is a hero. She hears her friend in distress

(15:23):
and walks into that room, and that's why that wall
is removed from that bedroom.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
So for anyone who's not super conversant in the case,
this is about Brian Colberger he's a former criminology PhD
student who has been found guilty of stabbing to death
Kelly Gonzavez, Madison Mogan, Xana Karnodle, and Ethan Shapin. So
that is the case that we're talking about. And Body

(15:50):
laid out her theory really well.

Speaker 5 (15:53):
I mean, it's just my I could be wrong, and
I'm totally willing to be wrong on that. I mean,
the police are saying that Kaylee was in the room
the whole time. In some of the documents we read,
it says that they were Kaylee and Maddy were side
by side. They were found side by side in the
bed and under a pink blanket. So it is important
to keep all that in mind. What do you think, Joseph,

(16:14):
what do you think about all this?

Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yeah, I mean you can create any number, and I
don't I don't mean that in a derogatory term because
none of us here, right, Okay, the police that were
working the case were not there all right at the
moment that that happened. So yeah, I mean you have
to and as an investigator, this is kind of an
investigations one on one you begin to think about, within reason,
certain scenarios that could have played out. And I'm sure

(16:37):
that many people have wondered about this because you know,
you've we've thought about Kaylee's room over and over again,
and about the dynamic of sound. Sound has been Sound
has been a constant theme in the Idaho four case.
You know, what did you hear? When did you hear it?
The sensory thing that goes on because you know, sound

(16:58):
many times in our own lives is that we alert
to you know, noises in the house or somebody speaking
to us, and so it's a very base kind of thing.
I think that it's an interesting scenario. But for some reason,
the police believe that this may have happened. And again,
given the document dump, I'd be very curious as to

(17:20):
if Dylan had made specific comments about the sleeping arrangements
in that now, these two women are creatures of free will.
They can make a decision about where they're going to
sleep that night. But had anything said, well, you know,
Matty says, well, Kaylee's going to bunk in with me tonight,
We're just going to be here. Is that something that

(17:40):
was considered, you know, all these other peripheral issues. One
thing we do know is that when they finally walked
into that bedroom. It was an absolute horror show. And
they were adjacent to one another, so much so that
this now infamous pink blanket is at least partially covering
their bodies.

Speaker 5 (18:00):
Right, So, sad, Courtney, can you bring us up to
speed on what's been going on? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Absolutely so. Brian Cooberger, he's been sentenced. This is about
a week or so ago, July twenty third. He's got
four consecutive life sentences, they're no parole, and he has
an additional ten years for burglary. And this was all
to avoid the death penalty and this horrific, horrific crime.
And since the sentencing sealed, documents that would have been

(18:30):
coming out during the core proceedings, which will not happen anymore,
have started and there are a ton to go through.

Speaker 5 (18:38):
That's right, and we are still going through the mall.
This is True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. I'mbody Moving here
with Courtney Armstrong and forensics expert and our friend Joseph
Scott Morgan. And right now we're right in the middle
of talking about the Idaho student murders, and we want
to hear from you. What do you think happened? That night,
give us a call eighty eight thirty one crime or
hit us up on the talkbacks on the iHeartRadio app.

(18:59):
So we do we have another.

Speaker 7 (19:00):
Talk about Hi. This is Steve, the witness that was
downstairs asleep and then she thought she heard sauce bok
and heard a firecracker. Couldn't that simply be just be
that she was disoriented from sleeping and heard a noise
and associated it with those things. But it could have
been anything like you all suggested, a screeching car or whatever.

(19:25):
It was nothing that was actually happened. She was just
disoriented from sleeping heavily, just a thought by Yeah.

Speaker 5 (19:33):
I think that's entirely, entirely reasonable that it could have
been just something that she thought about after the events
all unfolded that morning, and she was like, oh, wait
a minute, I remember kind of waking up and hearing
a firecracker and seeing sparks under my door. I mean,
it's just really specific. And she said it several different times,
and she, you know, she said it was a firework

(19:55):
in one a firecracker and another she said it was
like a sparkler in one, and she said his sparks
in another. So she was pretty adamant that she saw
it though. That's the only thing, right, Yeah, but.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Also you know when you are and keeping keeping in
mind the time, it's the middle of the night, it's
a big night, and you know, you wake up and
you're in that disoriented state of like, well, I was
at my mom's house back home, but then really I
was at a ballroom, Like you're so just disoriented and
making making up things.

Speaker 5 (20:25):
So I think anything's possible. But listen, thanks for the talkback. Yeah,
thank you. I mean it definitely could be. What do
you think, Joseph, would you do you what do you
think about? Could it have just been like a figment
of her imagination?

Speaker 3 (20:34):
Likes could be? Yeah, And what I'm thinking as well
is that many times you'll have witnesses after the fact,
and she's yeah, I guess you could consider her witness,
but she's not like at the same witness level as Dylan, Right,
But can you imagine having this all of this traumatic
information dumped into your brain and then you have this

(20:57):
realization of what this thing that you have dodged with
your life? And I'd be very curious about the statement
that she made. Was she influenced in any way. I
don't mean that negatively. I'm just saying our brain works
in certain ways too, And I've seen this happen on
scenes when I've interviewed people. Your brain works in certain

(21:19):
certain ways to protect yourself, okay, And or maybe it's
you know, it's further augmented by all of the static
that's going on. First off, I'm sure that when they
interviewed her, it was pretty damn quick, and so can
you imagine the trauma she was going through that at
that moment in time. So Lord only knows. But again,
this brings us back to this idea of sound. Doesn't

(21:40):
it sound? Just it's smart all the way through this case.

Speaker 5 (21:43):
You're absolutely right, and you know you mentioned your the
mind has the way of protecting yourself. And I think
Dylan describes seeing Brian Koberger leaving that night right, she
can she's confronted with his image, right, And she mentions
in in different interviews something that he's carrying, And in
one of the interviews she said it looked like a

(22:05):
vacuum type object, and I always kind of imagined it
like a crevistool, and it being the knife in her
mind protecting her in that moment right, so something like that.
Like so when you said your mind protects you, I'm
imagining viyllain.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
Well here's another interesting scenario that some people have thrown out.
You know, in forensics we use an evidence vacuum and
they're smaller than a regular vacuum, and they have interchangeable filters.
We draw stuff up. You got to be real careful
using them. I don't want to get into a big
lesson here. Bas is, it's like an M, yes, an
M vacuum, So you go if you go too deep,

(22:43):
like if you're vacuuming on a surface, like a carpeted surface,
you draw up stuff from way back. And some people said, well,
was he carrying an evidence vacuum? I've heard them say that. Well,
it's very distinctive and it looks completely it's like carrying
it would be like carrying a shoe box, a hose on.
It doesn't look like a knife. So I guess if

(23:04):
you had like an old fashion I guess I can
say the word dustbuster, you know, I know, yeah, but
you know, like a dustbuster, maybe that would look But
how are you going to vacuum up? And I hate
to say this, but how are you going to vacuum
up blood right now? Because if you know anything about forensics,
you know the dustbuster just ain't going to cut it,
and certainly he would have to have some kind of

(23:25):
awareness of that. It's what are you going to use
that for? Why would you be carrying that? So my
money has always been on a knife. And also how
does she get from here in the eyes like I'm
on TV, I'm indicating the eyes to the down to
his hand.

Speaker 5 (23:40):
Well, she said it bulged and she even stuck her
arms out and made like a bulge. So the idea
that he was carrying an m VAC isn't so crazy
to me. Yeah, she said it was a bulge, It
looked like an arrow, and she also described it as
being a vacuum type object.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Wow, so if you.

Speaker 5 (23:58):
Combine those three things together you kind of get an MVAT.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, but I don't know the logic, and I know
only we only have like less than a minute left. Yeah,
But the logic of I'm going to go in and
do what I plan to do murderer Coburger and have
my hand occupied by a vacuum and stopped down to
do it, I just I don't think it like makes
so much logical, it doesn't sense. I think what you

(24:23):
said about Dylan's brain sort of you fill in the pieces.

Speaker 5 (24:26):
We do it all the time in life.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, we do.

Speaker 5 (24:28):
I think that's exactly right. I think I think it
blow us the knife. I think it's possible. He had
his arm out in front of him and it looked
like a bulge all in black. It's hard to tell.
This is happening very quickly. She's inebriated. She's recounting her
story several different times, but she's in all of her
interviews she repeats this, this object that he's carrying. I

(24:50):
think it was a knife. I think she's just protecting herself.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
I have a very quick follow up, Joseph, when you said,
you know you've been on the scene and people are
being interviewed, is it taken into consideration if something happens
in the middle of the night versus all the way
in the morning. So listen, when we come back, Joseph
will be answering how to state of mind the cliffhanger

(25:13):
to it's a cliffhanger, How does state of mind fall
into these things? We are also going to be debating
the ethics of dark tourism and we will be hearing
from you, so keep it here. True Crime tonight, be.

Speaker 5 (25:26):
Right back.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Right at the break, we were talking about the Idaho
student murders and specifically sort of what some of the
victims who were left alive, and I call them victims
because they were in the house where this atrocity happened.
And Joseph, how much weight do investigators put sort of
into the time of day and frame of mind that

(25:58):
someone is in during initial questioning.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
Oh, it's it really does factor in and you have
to be super sensitive to it. And that's the mark
of a really good homicide detective. They're able to read.
You know, we have this impression of you know, you
watch stuff on TV and it's all about taking a
gun out of the hulster. The best homicide detectives that
I've ever known, the only time they ever took their

(26:21):
gun out of hulster was when they went to qualify.
Every year. It's all between the ears and you being
able to read the room and read because these people
are they're peripheral victims as well the stuff that they've seen,
and you have to be able to pick up on
those little cues. I was not as good at it
because I'm a medical legal death investigator. But my friends
who I have very dear friends work with for years

(26:42):
that were homicide detectives. They were some of the best
people person You know what made them so good They
only listen, they rarely talk, and to be able to
perceive that, and particularly when you've got a situation like
you had in Idaho where you have got this butchery
that has gone on and this young lady has borne

(27:04):
witness to it or has been in the presence of it,
and being able to tune into that and listen to
what she is saying, how she is saying it, her
body language. And this is not like somebody like your
question a suspect here, Mary. This is an interview. This
is not an interrogation. There's a gulf of difference between.

(27:24):
Sometimes interviews turn into interrogations, but we're talking about interviewing.
You're trying to collect that information. You don't collect information
by running your mouth. You collect information by opening your
ears and listening to people.

Speaker 5 (27:36):
Instead of waiting for your turn to talk. Right, you're listeners. Yes,
you're Joseph. I you know I debated asking you this,
but you know you you are a death investigator. You
know you this is your profession. You're not an amateur,
and so you know I'm just going to ask it.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (27:52):
In the document dump, we get the police notes from
talking with the medical examiner, and in that docum we
learn about the fatal injuries each victim succumbed to. And
my friend Kristen found something that you know, her and
I were talking about that. I think we both think
it's interesting. But I want to hear from you, Ethan.

(28:15):
This is how it says, this is how it's described,
and trigger warning. I'm talking about the human body and
injuries that were succumbed. Ethan. Chapin's fatal injury was from
a stab wound under his left clavicle which severed his
Subclovanian vein and subclovanian artery, and also his jugular vein
was severed, so it says under his left clavicle. Okay, yes,

(28:40):
Kaylee kansolves. His fatal injuries included a left lung laceration,
a liver laceration, two subdural bleeds, and a stab behind
her clavicle which cut her subclovanian vein and artery right,
so they both both victims had the same injury. One

(29:00):
says behind and one says under. Is that because the wound,
the entry wound tells the medical examiner if it's behind
or under or behind it.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
Under are two different designations. So if you think about under,
if and when we say claviical, we're talking about the collarbone.
So if you just find your collar bone, which is on,
obviously it's beneath your chin, it's above the breast line,
it's up high you find it. Many people break their collarbones.
It's tubular in shape. So behind means that it's always

(29:35):
implied to me. So if you think, if you think
about behind it, imagine somebody driving a knife downward because
they have to be in that attitude and going behind,
going behind the clavicle and beneath means you go under
the bone and it's not. There are a whole cluster

(29:55):
of critical vessels that are kind of clustered right there.
And you're talking about the subclave artery, subclave vein, which
is I think is probably a misstatement because you've got
the jugular vein. And so when you cluster those and
there's a famous case it's currently being adjudicated the Courtney
clinny case if you guys are familiar with that, where

(30:16):
she allegedly the of model, allegedly through the ninth stabbed
the young man in the chest, her boyfriend. And you
know she stabbed him in below the clavical with things
a one in a million shot. She's saying that's what happened,
that she didn't stab him anyway. It involves the same
structure back behind here, and this is a critical area.

(30:36):
As a matter of fact, if you clip this area,
I don't care if you have a team of cardiothoracic
surgeons standing by, You're not gonna save this personally because
you begin to bleed out so quickly, particularly if you
clip that subclave artery, you'll get arterial spray. It's a
bloody mess. Uh And it's really hard to stem that

(30:59):
blood flow, even if you have medical professionals there. So
it's it's almost guaranteed to be a lethal injury.

Speaker 5 (31:05):
So the reason I bring this up is because, and
I'm an idiot, but I looked up the collarbone and
where this vein was, and I cannot see how Brian
Coberger could have gone down onto her shoulder area while
she was laying down.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Well, yeah, I mean it's it's actually plausible. If you're
talking about there was one there was one comment, and
I think that this is essential and I don't want
to miss credit Steve Consul, but he had implied at
one point in time that she had been it was
at least thought that she may have been and seated

(31:43):
upright in bed lean back. So if you've got someone
that's attacking you and they're wielding a knife, they have
the knife in their hand and they're making this downward
it's not a thrust, it's a downward motion like this.
It's it's that highly plausible. I still think that it
would be plausible even if someone is laying flat on

(32:04):
their back in a supine position. It'd be a bit
more difficult, but it's still still within the realm.

Speaker 5 (32:10):
I just think the wall would be in the way,
like that where your head lays. That wall would be
in the way of you being able to raise a
knife and come down with enough force.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Well, it doesn't know, it doesn't require a lot of
force to make it through that area. I think, yeah,
it doesn't require like a tremendous amount of exerted force
in order and when you when you utilize a knife,
which he's the actual k bar. This is the actual
knife that it's the one that he ordered. I got

(32:41):
the same one off of Amazon, very robust. You take
this and you drive it straight down, it will facilitate this.
It would be easy to facilitate.

Speaker 5 (32:51):
This blade is what like seven or eight inches, It's
got maybe a four or five inch handle. It's wood
and it has black striping going down on it. It
is this is a weapon.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
Right, Yeah, it is a combat knife. Yeah. Right out
of the box. You can shave a hair with it.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
And so right between the blade and the handle, it
looks like there's sort of a grip that means you
can use it and your hand not slip down.

Speaker 5 (33:17):
Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yes, it's a guard. It's a hand guard, and actually
it's developed specifically importing specifically for that because as you
can see, it gives you a point of contact as
you're thrusting downward. You would not want to be absent
this because your hand could literally slide down the blade.
And that's reflective of when we think about poor Zana

(33:41):
that you when she grabbed this blade, which I think
is probably what happens I think to the injuries it
slices through her hand. Okay, so the person that's wielding
the knife, this block says, and one other point here
looking down the long axis of this thing. If this
thing is driven, you you've hurt. Yeah, you've heard the
term up to the hilt. This is the hilt, and

(34:03):
so you will actually get what are referred to as
hilt contusions. I've seen these embodies where the knife is
buried and it'll take the form of this of this
grip guard right here. Yeah, yeah, exactly, because it's going
on while the person's alive.

Speaker 5 (34:20):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
And I got shortly afterwards. But you'll see these mark
and you're kind of scratching your head over and the
Morgan you're thinking, what is this? But it's actually a
contusion that's brought about. It's actually brought about by this.

Speaker 5 (34:31):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Well listen, if you have as many questions as body
and I do for forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan about
the Idaho student murders or really any other case that
you have forensic outliers, give us a call. We're at
eighty eight to three to one crime and right now
we have a voicemail to go to.

Speaker 8 (34:50):
Hi, my name is Kate from Austin, Texas, and I'm like,
when's your July twenty eighth episode? And I was wondering
when you talked about handbags what that meant. I'm not
from earlier with that. And then you and Joseph Scott
Morgan were talking about Steve being such a hero, and
then you talked about a stake down, and I wasn't
familiar with what y'all meant about that, So if you

(35:13):
could elaborate on those, that'd be great. Thanks so much
your podcast. It's so interesting and I look forward to
listening to it. The other thing that I also always
think about is the poor law enforcement that went into
the house and just I think they don't get enough
praise and my heart goes out to them and how
just life changing and a ritick that must be. And

(35:35):
I hope that there are so many services in there
for their mental health and support for them.

Speaker 5 (35:40):
Thank you, wow, thank you for the talk back. But
you brought up three really good points, and we want
to hit on the handbags. So there are bags that
go over the hands to protect evidence like DNA or
you know, fingerprints, you know the things that the medical
examiner or the coroner. I'm not sure which one actually.
Joseph will spand on this as soon as I finish

(36:01):
explaining the other things. But they're little baggies that go
over the hand. And the second one was the stakedown.
I think I meant to stay stare down. Steve Gonsalves
during his victim impact statement, turns the podium and does
like a stare down. It's like a contest with the
Brian Coberger who he is, you know, telling and dressing down,

(36:24):
telling him he's a nobody and all he's done is
unite them, and you know he's a joke and he's
just a number now in maate one six three two
one four b K. He's lost his identity. It was
a stare down. And yeah, you know, we never really
talk about first responders and the trauma that they must endure, right,
I mean, this has got to be horrific. Later in

(36:45):
the show, we're gonna be covering Jonestown. Do you guys
remember Jonestown and the kool aid? You know she must
have drank there. This is where it comes from. We're
gonna be talking about that. But now, Joseph, we were
talking about the importance of handbags and what they are.
Can you tell everybody what they are and what they're
how why they're important?

Speaker 3 (37:02):
Yeah, yeah, sure can. As human beings, we were very
tactile creatures, and tactile means we touch things, and so
we either defend ourselves with our hands. We experience the
world through our hands, even as babies. So when you
have a crime scene, you think about how does somebody
defend themselves. Well, the first thing you're gonna do is
stick your hands out. Well, those points of contact that

(37:24):
transfers evidence the cards exchange principle, So you exchange evidence
between two people. When an individual passes away, you want
to be able to preserve that evidence. How do we
do it. Well, the best way we can do it
is we do bagging of the hands. And in the
past we use old brown paper bags and we put
them over the hands and then we tape with evidence

(37:45):
tape around the wrist. Those bags are not removed until
they get to the mord. Because all things happen with
the bodies that's going down the road. It jostles, things
fall out from under the fingernails, hair, if you've got hairstrands,
caught all kinds of things. So you want to catch
all of that, and so at the morgue we actually
trim these off very carefully, preserve that bag, and we're

(38:06):
going to submit that bag and its contents to the
crime lab and trace Evidence section will microscopically look at
everything that's contained therein that's where things like we talk
about nail scrapings and nail and trimmings and all that. Well,
we're trying to preserve that stuff under the nails until
we can get the body back, and the best way

(38:27):
to do that is to bag the hands. That's what
they did in Idaho. Generally, it's going to be the
corner or the EMMY investigator at the scene that facilitates that.

Speaker 5 (38:36):
So for Idaho, though I don't think an emmy was
at the house, I think it was the corner.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
So yeah, that's that right corner. Yeah, they have an electric.

Speaker 5 (38:44):
They have an elected corner, which means she's not medically
trained as well.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
In this case, their corner is not only an attorney,
she's also a nurse. But it's okay, you can be
medically trained, but that doesn't mean you're medical legally trained,
and so there's an entire different certification for that. And
in some states have training for their corners, and some
of them I've taught in those academies and some of
them are very very good. Others, man, you know, you

(39:09):
never know what the training is. It's kind of a
grab bag.

Speaker 5 (39:12):
So the corner in this case would have bagged the
hands on the scene so that during transport, like you said,
the jostling when the wiggled something new. So this would
have happened at the home and the medical examiner when
they because the victims had to be transferred to Spokane.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Washing Yeah, so they would have cross state lines where
there is a medical examiner of forensic pathologists in Spokane
right now. Just so that you understand, it could be
dependent upon the level of trust of local law enforcement.
There might be a crime scene evidence technician that's on scene.
I've actually seen them bag hands at scenes. The most

(39:49):
important thing is that you want as few people as
possible touching the body. Matter of fact, you only want
one person. It generally should be the corner. They should
be in charge of touching and examining the body of
the scene, which should not be really extensive. You think, wow,
you really need to know. You don't want to disrupt anything.
You want to keep the body in a pristine state

(40:12):
until you can get into a controlled environment where the emmy,
the bags in the hands can be removed, photographs can
be taken, and then eventually after you've examined all of
the clothing, the clothing is taken off and you do
X rays and all this before you ever ever start
the autops.

Speaker 5 (40:40):
Later in the show, we're going to be talking about
the infamous Jonestown massacre. I remember this. I was like
a little girl, I was six years old. Terrifying and
the debate surrounding dark tourism. But now we're going to
review some of today's top true crime headlines. Courtney, what
do we got?

Speaker 2 (40:56):
So there's a Milwaukee man whose name I don't even
need to pass my lips. He killed nineteen year old beautiful, bright,
blossoming college student, Shade Robinson.

Speaker 5 (41:08):
And he this was on her first date.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
And this man, this monster, he spread, he dismembered Shade,
spread her body parts around the area. So he was
sentenced just on Friday to life in prison with no
possibility of parol. We've had Sena Scarborough, Shada's mother, on
the show. She will be here again. She is an
unbelievable victims at luckily even she's, oh my gosh, a

(41:34):
pillar of strength with everything she's been going through. And
also in the sentencing there were victims impact statements, so
both Sena as well as Shadai's father as well as
Shade's younger sister had really great if great's the word,
victims impact statements, very moving. Yeah, So what the charges

(41:56):
are this man the demon as Sina Scarborough pretty accurately
describes this man the demon.

Speaker 5 (42:02):
Yes, she used to refer to him as the gun,
that's right.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
So the jury convicted him a first degree intentional homicide
of mutilating a corpse of arson, and then there was
another charge that was pulled off. Actually for people who
are super into legal eese, another charge had been hiding
a corpse, but that was taken off because you cannot

(42:26):
be charged at the same time of both hiding a
corpse and mutilation, which was something that the judge sort
of realized live during sentencing. Joseph, I know this is
a story that you covered extensively. Did you even potentially
cover it on your podcast Bodybugs?

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Yeah? I covered it on Body Bags and covered it
on our Mutual Friend show. Nacy grace several times actually,
and there appeared with this poor young lady's mother as well,
and you're right, she very palm my gods, so powerful
to hear what she has to say. Yeah, I did,
and very very disturbing. And the fact not just the homicide,

(43:04):
but the disrespect that was shown to all that remained
of her is the real insulting thing. I think. You know,
absent her life, you know that she'll never be there again,
but also the disrespect shown to her mortal remains is
something that most people can't even begin to fathom.

Speaker 5 (43:23):
Can you speak to.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
Is dismemberment as a forensic expert, what does that tell you?

Speaker 3 (43:31):
Well, it tells me, first off that if it's something
that has to be planned. Now, I've worked cases of
dismemberment where individuals have suddenly panicked and they've decided that
this has to be done immediately, and then I've had
and they don't have the appropriate tools at hand. I'll

(43:51):
put it to that way, and to have other cases
where individuals, you know, which is actually something that we're
thinking about now, would list long islands here killer And
this is something that comes back over and over again
where we think about there's prep that goes into this,
and you have to have the appropriate tools, and you
have to have some kind of baseline anatomical understanding in

(44:12):
order to facilitate this in an expedient manner, because if
you don't have the appropriate tools and you don't understand
the structure of the human body, it gets very, very difficult.
Because I've had individuals that have gone to the midshaft
of a thigh and attempted to do a dissection with

(44:34):
a saw. It's not what you have to do. So
you know, you have to use sharp instruments like scalpels
or really sharp knives to get through soft tissue. Then
you have to use some type of saw and generally
it's best at the joint. Most people don't understand that.
And here's the other thing I think, and this is
quite fascinating from a forensic standpoint. Most people get into

(44:55):
this and they think that they want to do it,
and they panic because they realize what they're on about
at this point in time. Oh my god, Oh my lord.
I didn't know it was going to be this way.
And it's one thing to remove a limb, but when
you get to the torso that's a difficult difficult thing
to do. What are you going to do with the
torso in this particular case, I know because I've covered

(45:17):
it that her torso was essentially recovered intact. There's not
a lot you can do with the torso. You can try,
but it's a doubly messy affair at that point in time.
And I'm not going to go into all of the
details here because it's just too disturbing on this program,
but I suffice it to say you have to have

(45:39):
the appropriate tools. It speaks a lot to the person's
mindset that has the ability not just to take a life,
but then to destroy all that remained of them at
that point in time. It's really another lead. If you
think that murder is bad, couple murder with this bit.
And you know, I've actually seen and my partner or

(46:01):
I did a special on dismemberment, and we've actually seen
an uptick in dismemberment cases. We seem to be covering
more and more of these in the news, and we
don't understand. I don't have empirical data to back that up,
but I know that there's more and more of these
cases that come up, and I don't understand what kind
of rubicon. You know, we as a society have crossed

(46:23):
at this point where we have so many to dismemberment
cases that are entering into the news.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Well, that's part of why we thought it was important
to bring it up. And we thought long and hard,
honestly about asking you to dive in even surface level.
But it is it speaks to something greater that's going on.
I mean, the judge I think said it, well, it's
a quote. It's beyond imaginable to not know whether your
child is dead or alive, and then to learn they're

(46:49):
dismembered and disgraced is beyond understanding.

Speaker 5 (46:53):
But a lot of this because what I was brought.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
To mind with shaw Da Robinson's case is not just Statistically,
black women on average are murdered six times more often
than white women, and in the state of Wisconsin it's
twenty times higher than white women. And I feel like
with that it is twenty times. Yes, it is in

(47:17):
the state of Wisconsin. Oh my goodness, it's unbelievable. It
has to do with racial disparity and many many other topics,
and we should make a whole evening of this.

Speaker 5 (47:29):
I think we should maybe when she comes back.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Yeah, absolutely, because, like you said, Joseph, where have people passed?
And this is something that we found when Stephanie and
I with everyone at Katie Studios were doing the documentary
Murdered and Missing in Montana.

Speaker 5 (47:44):
Actually, Joseph, you were on that.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
There was also with indigenous women, basically people of color.

Speaker 5 (47:52):
Just the disregard even to the body.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
You've already taken a life and then you're going to
go one hundred times further.

Speaker 5 (47:59):
And it's and I had, you know, in my own
experience with the case that I was involved with. He
was dismembered as well. Body parts were sent across the
country of Canada and he put Junlin's torso in a
suitcase for the garbage to pick up.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
And that was in the of course the documentary. Don't
of course don't have thought.

Speaker 5 (48:17):
Yeah, and yeah, you know it. You know, we speak
to the utter disregard for human life, and you know,
I think Shade's mom hit on that in her victim
impact statement as well. And you know it's just listen
without being so gratuitous and gross about these kinds of things.
I think they are important to talk about respect, the.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
Disrespect people know, people need to know that monsters welcome
on it right and they truly do, and we we
bear evidence, are witness to that evidence every single day
they're out there, and it's terrifying.

Speaker 5 (48:52):
I don't leave my house.

Speaker 9 (48:54):
I know.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Well listen hopefully if you're listening, you are cozy in
your house or car. If you want to join our conversation,
we would love to have you with Joseph Scott Morgan,
our forensic expert here on true crime tonight. We're at
eighty eight three one Crime. Or you can always leave
us a talk back on the iHeartRadio app. It's in
the upper right hand corner. It's a little microphone present

(49:15):
leave a message. He're on the show, and body, what
headlines have you been looking into?

Speaker 5 (49:20):
So I'm following the Devil's Den case. So a twenty
eight year old teacher, Andrew James McCann has been arrested
and he's been charged with capital murder for allegedly stabbing
a couple to death in front of their little daughters
during a random attack at Devil's Den State Park on
July twenty sixth of this year. Just recently, Clinton and

(49:42):
Kristen Brink were fatally stabbed while hiking with their two daughters,
aged seven and nine, who survived and ran for help.
Thank god. McGann, who had who had a troubled teaching
history but no criminal record to speak of, was arrested
four days later after DNA surveillance. And I would and
this evidence connected him to the crime. Joseph, you been

(50:03):
Have you been following this at all?

Speaker 3 (50:06):
Yeah? I have. And actually, my beautiful bride brought it
to my attention. My my wife's a retired teacher, and
she took one look at this guy and she thought,
you know, she brought it to my attention. She was like,
who is this guy teaching with? You know who? And he's,
you know, he's kind of a newly minted teacher. I
think he'd started out inhore pretty young.

Speaker 5 (50:26):
Yeah, he started in Texas, he went to Oklahoma, and
then he went to Arkansas.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
Yeah, yeah, and he My understanding is he had not
started yet his career in Arkansas. That's right. I guess
The big question is what flipped the switch with him? What?
I don't know, because this is horrific. Again, we're talking
about children here in front of children. Who does this? Absolutely?
And so that yeah, So that's that's the extent I've

(50:51):
been following this. I was actually quite relieved when they
found him. And I've been adjacent two Devil's Den in
the past. It's a beautiful area and you look, you
just you don't expect an event like this in that area.

(51:12):
It's absolutely mortifying.

Speaker 5 (51:14):
Yeah, you can't even go hiking anymore. Authorities say that
McGahn did confess to the killings and DNA matched evidence
recovered at the crime scene, so there must have been
something in his car or you know, something to indicate,
you know, to have some kind of DNA transfer of

(51:34):
you know. I don't have no idea. They haven't even
told us, but he is. He had his arraignment and
I'm sorry. He appeared in court on Friday, August first,
and he was assigned to public defender and his arraignment
is scheduled for August twenty fifth. Now, one thing we
do know about what happened that day is police say
the mom Kristen, ran her daughters to safety before returning

(51:58):
to help her husband. So, I mean, she gets her
husband's getting attacked, right the mom Just imagine this, you guys.
The mom is like, oh my god, my daughters, I've
got to help them. She gets them to safety, tells
them to hide, run, get in the car. I'm not sure,
and then think about how much she must have loved
her husband. She runs to help him and is killed

(52:22):
in the process. I mean, she's a hero.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
She's a hero, as are those little girls who ran
away for help and had the wherewithal.

Speaker 6 (52:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (52:32):
It just you know, I just and of course, and you.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
Know they have black bear in that area. You know,
It's what you can almost wrap your mind around saying, oh,
there's a black bear here. You know, something that that
can that's lethal, that can do great harm for you.

Speaker 5 (52:48):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
But yet who expects us from a fellow here?

Speaker 5 (52:50):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Later in the show we're going to be talking about
the debate surrounding dark tourism and the infamous Jonestown massacre.
But right now we actually have a talkback two.

Speaker 9 (53:02):
Things, well actually three. One is the guy that murdered
the husband and wife at the Arkansas park. They say
is it was actually hired to be a teacher. He
hadn't taught anybody yet, but he had just moved to
that area from Oklahoma and he was going to be
at school teacher. And the second is did you hear

(53:23):
about the Virginia governor of downs in gasoline? And the
third is did you hear about the baby found in
Tennessee next to a house with four dead relatives? That
body relatives, but the baby was found like a live
out in the street or near the street, and the

(53:44):
relatives are all dead, four of them.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Yeah, wow, well, thank you. Obviously two of the three
we touched on tonight, so we're kind of on the
same wavelength. But I have not heard of this official
dousting gasoline body Joseph, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
I've heard about it. Here's a state rep there in
Virginia and this is I don't think it's politically connected.
I think the alleged perpetrator is uh it was, had
some kind of business interests with this gentleman walks in
to an office area and chases him down with a

(54:23):
bucket of gasoline dowas is the sky in the gasoline,
and then sets him on fire and exits the scene.
And the guy was alert, took him to the hospital
and he's on a burn unit. Now, which this is
I cannot begin to speak to you how horrific these

(54:43):
types of injuries are. And anybody that has had a
loved one that they've ever visited on a burn unit.
I have. It's ghastly, absolutely ghastly. A long road ahead
of this guy, A long road ahead of this guy.
But yeah, it's it's absolutely horrific, absolutely horrific.

Speaker 5 (54:59):
It's one of my big fears, honestly, is a fire
been drowning in a fire, and just terrified of both
of them. I just cannot imagine the terror he must
have been experiencing. And now he's prone to infections, right,
infections are really bad for people in the burning.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
It yep, excruciating pain. Yeah, yeah, the trade m of
course is very very brutal.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
That's a very very disturbing case and we can only
wish this man well and in his recovery. We actually
are going to turn to one other disturbing case that
we want to get to and it's a trigger warning
for people. Forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan of course, is
with us on True Crime tonight tonight, and yeah, he's

(55:41):
been following this place, this case very closely. But body,
can you sort of set the table for anyone who
doesn't know it.

Speaker 5 (55:48):
Yeah, I mean this is a really hard starts to
the table for Thanks Courtney, thanks for that now. It's terrible.
So excavations have started at the former Bons of Course
Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Ireland. There's been nearly
eight hundred infant and child remains that were discovered buried
in a mass grave beneath the child's playground. So between

(56:12):
nineteen twenty five and nineteen sixty one, so about forty
almost forty years, seven hundred and ninety six babies and
young children died at Saint Mary's. And this is a
home for unmarried mothers and it's run by Catholic nuns.
Many buried secretly in a disused sewage tank, later uncovered
by this amateur historian, Catherine Corlis, after years of denial,

(56:35):
I mean denial after denial, after denial, recent excavations have
confirmed the presence of remains. So this historian uncovered all
these death certificates for nearly all of the children, but
she found no burial records and that sent up a
red flag for her right and so she discovered this
mass grave of all these children, in infants, eight hundred

(56:58):
children at this home. It's terrific.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
This has been sort of a passion piece for you.
What is going on. What body described is unimaginable.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
Yeah, it really is. And here's another interesting little notes
I noted with this case is that you know, back
I think it was in the early seventies, there were
these two gents that were walking to property and they
came across skeletal remains at that time. I think that
they recovered close to I don't want them to speak.
It seems like the number to me, if I remember correctly,

(57:29):
was around twenty and never went any further. Wow, And
what's fascinating. I was listening or I was reading about
one of the forensic actors they have over there. First off,
this excavation that has just started in the whole grand
scheme of things, it's just started. This thing's probably going
to go until about twenty twenty eight, that's how fast
this is. And you have what are referred to as

(57:50):
co mingled remains. These remains were found in, as you
guys pointed out, old sewage container. I think it would
be akin to like a septic tank, but it's much
larger and it has to have in order to facilitate this.
You would have had to have had like a hatch

(58:12):
on it that would be opened goodness and then forgive me.
But the remains would be dropped through the hatch. And
this is not just newborns. There are children that were
up to three years of age. And what he's finding is,
first off, when you think about babies, very young children
and up to you know, you can kind of extend

(58:33):
that out. We don't really our bones don't really completely develop.
So these are very very fragile remains. And he recounted
if you'll just think about this for a second of
recovering an infant's femur and the femur, which in an
adult it is the largest bone in the body, the
largest long bone, and the sphemur. To show you how

(58:56):
delicate these remains are. That they're dealing with length of
his index finger, that's how delicate these are. These are
and so he's they're having to fight through all of
this and it's something that they're really passionate about in Ireland.
And the really sad thing about this is, well, there's
many things that are said. Do you know what bonsacre

(59:18):
actually translates into? And I know this because I vacation
and I.

Speaker 5 (59:23):
Feel like the French word it is New Orleans or something.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
Yeah, Well, there's actually Bonsa Core Bay, which is within
uh Mobile Bay along the Gulf Coast. It actually means
save harbor. Oh my god, And that's what's really you know.
It kind of twists the knife into this thing for me.
And when I heard about this, it was just shocking.
I could I couldn't again, I couldn't do the calculus

(59:47):
here because these cases started back in the twenties and
they continue to on until like the early sixties. How
do you allow this to happen? And this wasn't the
only one of these homes in Ireland. There are others.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Oh my gosh, Joseph, and this is a story I
cannot believe it has not been brought to my attention
until now.

Speaker 5 (01:00:08):
Listen, this is true crime tonight.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
If you have any questions about this particular case that's
been going on in Ireland from the nineteen twenties to sixties,
give us a call eighted eight through one Crime or
if you have any burning friends of questions you want
to ask Joseph Scott Morgan is the one. So is
there any why to this? Joseph, why this was happening?

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:00:30):
Will they be able to tell how this happened? Like
how these children died.

Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
Will they be able to Yeah, I'm not really sure,
and I think that we have to back up and understand.
Many times these young women, some of them were teamed,
would become pregnant out of wedlock and they would be
sent away. And we've heard this in America, right, you know,
we go back in our grandparents' generation. They would say,
she got pregnant, she was sent away. Okay, Well, they

(01:00:56):
would send these these young women to this home. And
one is things that kind of stands out in the
narrative here is that they would see women going in
pregnant and see women coming out not holding a baby.
And that was kind of eyewitness statements, you know, that
people had made over the years. And here's another bit
of a chilling you know, nugget here. If they repeated

(01:01:18):
the same behavior got pregnant again, they would then be
sent to what referred to as the laundries. And these
young women would it's almost like an indentured servitude. They
would be sent to work in these laundries where they
were they would have to do manual labor and you know,
I don't know, do the labor the laundry for the

(01:01:40):
local churches or public service stuff that sort of think
that's how they would spend their life, you know afterwards.
Now I don't know how long they had to work
in these things, but that's that's kind of the makeup,
you know, of these young women that had made a
choice in their life and had had these babies, and
then they had nowhere to turn and the families are

(01:02:01):
going to turn them out because it was a very
you know, kind.

Speaker 5 (01:02:03):
Of disgrace down upon, right, like it was.

Speaker 3 (01:02:06):
Really frowned upon. I wonder how many babies were born that.

Speaker 5 (01:02:10):
Survived that were like adopted out.

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
That were adopted out or mad. I don't know if
the young women were allowed or permitted to leave with
a child and maybe go somewhere else and live. And
that again is very very troubling because they's very damaged.

Speaker 5 (01:02:26):
I have some notes here from some of the research
we did for the show, and it says, my notes
say that it housed unmarried pregnant women and their children.
Unmarried pregnant women would be sent to this home to
give birth and would be interned for a year to
do unpaid work, and they were separated from their newborn children,
who would be raised by the nuns. Until they were adopted.

(01:02:48):
So it doesn't seem like these women were allowed to
keep their children. I mean, at least from these notes.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Yeah, one other things else considering this too, that's kind
of disturbing. If you know, like if a child is
born and it's you know, it's really struggling, so they're
a premium or what we have the medical technology and
the wherewithal to provide, Well, they had some ability if
you if a mother has had a premature birth back

(01:03:14):
then given the proper care, the child would develop. I wonder,
I really wonder if a child was struggling upon birth,
if they just allowed the child to die.

Speaker 5 (01:03:26):
Oh so not necessarily maybe spending resources on this child too, and.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
They may not have had the Listen, this is not
even a sympathy thing. They might literally have not had
any of the resources. We're also talking about. This goes
back almost one hundred years, so it was a grossly
different place right.

Speaker 5 (01:03:48):
In our Hey, you're right, God, nineteen twenties was one
hundred years ago. I just thought about it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, certainly.

Speaker 5 (01:03:54):
When did that happen?

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
But at the same time that nineteen eighties is now
what fifty years ago, eighties was decady.

Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
Yes, I got to tell you, I'm not going to
give them too much grace though, because you're entering in
well within the parameters of modern medicine. When you're mad
in nineteen sixty one, there's no excuse for this, and
there's no one to hold to account. I just hope
that they can tell the stories. Hey, forensic genetic genealogy,
We're going to find out more about these cases.

Speaker 5 (01:04:19):
I guarantee that's right. Joseph. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
You enlightened us every time with your forensics, and these
cases that we need to hear about. Jonestown is coming up.
Questions for you are coming up. Keep it here True
Crime Tonight.

Speaker 5 (01:04:43):
Our resident forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan was telling us
last week about how this private tour company wants to
open up Jonestown to the public. Courtney, can you give
us some background on why this is so controversial.

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
It's controversial and a lot of it has really been
news to me. So there was this article in Rolling
Stone and it was just last month, and what it
does is it shines a light on the ethics of
dark tourism because a private company is beginning to offer
guided tours of the former site of the Jonestown massacre

(01:05:16):
and the Jonestown massacre. It was a settlement in Guyana.
I tried to practice it. I stumbled anyway, Guiana, It's
I Frey. In nineteen seventy eight, there were more than
nine hundred individuals who lost their lives in a mass suicide,
were murdered. So that site has been abandoned until now
and again now a tourist company wants to start bringing

(01:05:38):
people there. Joseph, you brought it to our attention and
tell us what we should know.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
Well, you know, for me, I have a kind of
a weird connection to this in since that one of
the forensic pathologists that mentored me as a very young
death investigator is a guy named William Eckert. I encourage
anybody to look him up. And he's kind of like
one of the giants the old days of forensic pathology,

(01:06:05):
and he was involved in the examination of all these remains.
And he told me the story once of flying in
over the top of the jungle in a helicopter with
the doors open. They were two miles out and he
could smell from that and at a significant altitude. So
that story always stuck with me and I saw this

(01:06:25):
article in Rolling Stone and that's where this comes from.
And I was thinking dark tourism, what are they talking
about doing it? And I had an idea of how
horrific this thing was. This guy administered We've always heard
the term don't drink the kool aid. Well, first off, body,
it wasn't kool aid, was it.

Speaker 5 (01:06:40):
That's right, it was flavor aid.

Speaker 3 (01:06:42):
Flavor aid. He wouldn't even spring for the kool aid.
He wouldn't and they laced it with cyanide. And it
wasn't just a matter of them poisoning people. People were
shot too. You know. We had a US representative that
went down there and a bunch of them were shot
to them because he came down to inspect what was happening.

Speaker 5 (01:06:59):
To check it out to make sure it's safe.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
Leo Ryan, Yeah, can you briefly set the table. Like
I said, I'm very ignorant. Jim Jones, what was he doing?
Who are the people?

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
And just grossly wanted he had the people's simple is
what it was called. And they felt he was very paranoid.
He loved amphetamines and other drugs as well. He kind
of featured himself as a socialist version of Christ didn't
actually believe in God, but he would espouse his sing
in a very preacher like way. Got people really jacked

(01:07:31):
up over this where being oppressed. So we're going to
leave San Francisco, which he had relocated there from Indiana,
went to South America in this remote country that most
people have never even heard of, and he creates this
compound where they're all going to live in this utopia environment.
And suddenly, you know, and there's all kinds of horrible

(01:07:54):
things going on, like he's requiring that it's hard to say,
but that the women the compound give themselves over, you know,
sexually to him and some of the men. A lot
of these things were going on, child abuse, these sorts
of things. And when word made it back to the
US and Leo Ryan showed up, who was a congressman,

(01:08:14):
went down to investigate, and he man, when he got
down there, he was like, man, what the hell was
going on? Well, they murdered him. They shot him down
on the rarestrip, Yeah, they sure did. Yeah, they shot him.
Many people ran off into the jungle. And you talk
about jungle, do you know who trains there at the
French Foreign Legion trains in this country for jungle warfare.

(01:08:38):
That's how rugged this place is. And it was a story.
It was a horror show. So when I saw this article,
I'm thinking, this company is starting. They it was even
intimated that they were going to try to facilitate some
kind of template of the compound and that you would
take tours of it and everything. And I don't know,

(01:09:01):
it just it struck a chord with me. And yeah,
I couldn't really under who's going to pay to go
to this country to do this? I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:09:10):
Okay, boll I see we have customer number one. Body
what you got, give us your thoughts. Listen. I didn't
realize I was into something called dark tourism, but I
kind of am into this scenario. I didn't know that's
what it was called. But I think that these kinds
of sites are important, you know, like these these are
historical sites and we need to be reminded of them

(01:09:32):
so these things don't happen again. Like I think of
Aushwitz and you know, like the Holocaust Museum and you know,
things like that. Like one of the things I really
want to go visit is Chernobyl. You guys, I think
I told you this. I'm obsessed with Chernobyl. I have
no idea why, but I am, and I really want
to go. That's also dark tourism.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
I'm in.

Speaker 5 (01:09:52):
I want to I want to see, I want to
learn the history, I want to know everything. And I
would absolutely go on one of these tours. Is it
I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
I mean there's people that want to do tours of
Fukushima and.

Speaker 5 (01:10:04):
I would go to Fukushima.

Speaker 3 (01:10:05):
Horrible event, but listen, I'm chief amongst centers, y'all. I mean.
I went to Europe this summer with my family. I
appeared at the UK Crime Con and we.

Speaker 5 (01:10:14):
Were I went to UK Crime Con. It's lovely.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
Hey, Yeah, it was a lot of fun and had
a great time. But you know, while we took a
trip over to Paris, and while I was there, I
went to the Catacombs. Man, that's right, there are thousands
and thousands of skeletal remains. It was mind blowing. I
never thought I would see anything like that, but I went,
and I think that I participated in dark tourism with that.

Speaker 5 (01:10:37):
You sure did. You're listening to True Crime tonight on iHeartRadio,
where we talk true crime all the time. I'm body
and I'm here with Courtney Armstrong and Fred's it's expert
Joseph Scott Margaret and we're right in the middle of
talking about Jonestown and dark tourism. What do you think
about dark tourism? Would you go? Would you go to
a site where people were killed or committed suicide? Give
us a call eight at eight thirty one crime or

(01:10:58):
send us a talk back on the Heart radio app. Courtney,
would you ever do something like this?

Speaker 2 (01:11:03):
Well, I don't know. As as we're talking, I'm kind
of I don't know. This line in my head is
maybe even moving and shifting. Because Joseph you mentioned the Catacombs.
I was lucky enough to go and there you go.
It's unbelievable. But I see that as history. I see
going to Jonestown. I don't know the ethical line. I'm
going to have to help see that as more.

Speaker 5 (01:11:25):
What's the difference between history and morbidity?

Speaker 3 (01:11:28):
I don't know. Hey, look, I got to tell you this.
I'm a New Orleanian. That's I consider New Orleans my hometown.
That's where all my family is. Oh, by the way,
quick shout out. My family is actually listening to iHeart
Tonight Live Family High Voodoo one three in New Orleans
right now to our show there. I got to tell

(01:11:48):
you, you know, when I take family members down there that
are not from New Orleans, peripheral family members, what do
you know what they want to do other than go
to the French No, they want to go to the
graveyard tour. Yes, they want to go to all of
the graveyards. Yeah, and I've been there, and the architecture
is beautiful. You know, you walk through, you can get
lost in there. It's really something to see. Is that

(01:12:10):
dark tourism? I don't I don't know. I mean, I
mean there are literally people that will go to the
graveyards in New Orleans and have picnics, okay, and it's
it's striking. People want to see Marie Levoe's grave, you knows,
and and that sort of thing. So yeah, it's it's
quite an interesting, interesting construct to say the least.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
But then, okay, so that also I've been there too,
So I don't know. Maybe you know I called you
out for being passenger number one body, I'll guess the
number two because I as well have done that in
New Orleans. And I also see it as tourism. But
our fabulous producer taha, he just threw out he's there
with his hands and signals this is Jeffrey Dahmer tour

(01:12:52):
ew Okay, So.

Speaker 5 (01:12:54):
Like, is that your line?

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
What do you think that's a victims family be able
to have a say or to benefit financially? Like, where's
this line?

Speaker 3 (01:13:07):
I don't know. I mean Lizzie Borden's home. You know
you can go to Massachusetts. How many people people? Yeah,
Ambdyville and uh, you know, people line up, you know
to go go visit these locations. I don't know. I mean,
for me, I justified the catacombs in my mind, I'm
taking pictures while I'm down here. I teach at Jacksonville
State where I teach a class about body recovery. It's

(01:13:29):
called clandestine burials, That's what it's called. Well, guess what
I'm going to do. Those photographs that I took, I'm
going to show those in my class, and I'm going
to talk about how these remains are stacked, how they
were ordered, the history behind them, all this sort of thing,
how they recover the remains, because the history is fascinating.
But was I just justifying that to say I'm doing
this for academic purposes or was I I was morbidly curious.

(01:13:52):
Well exactly. Look, I'll confess I was morbidly curious. I
want to see.

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
But then I also do think there is benefit. I
mean you mentioned, you know, sort of a museum for teaching,
and way back in the day I taught at usc
Go Trojan's I taught writing and the topic of our
writing class had to do with a history class on
the Holocaust at all the students, so everything that road
had to do with the Holocaust. We went in Los

(01:14:19):
Angeles to the Holocaust Museum. Well you can call it
gruesome because it is, because that is what happened.

Speaker 5 (01:14:27):
But that is what happened at Jonestown. Now what's the different, right, right?
I don't know, because it's called a museum versus I
don't know. He that's a fair plant. But man, maybe
that is the difference, is that it's treated as a
museum where the other one is treated as tourists, like
an adventure park or something like. Justin Bieber, I hope
I'm getting this right. I think he did.

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
I'm pretty sure when he visited Anne Frank's house, he
was like, I think she would have been a believer. Taha,
fact check this right now if you would, because then
I'm going to pull it back of a.

Speaker 5 (01:14:58):
But like you can yelp about and Frank's house, right,
So is that dark tourism or is that history? Or
is it both? Like I don't know, I don't know
the line. I want to see it all. Though I
want to see it all, I don't. I don't necessarily
want to go on the Jeffrey Dhmer tour, but I
have to. I'm gonna be honest with you. If it
was free, i'd probably go want it really yeah, oh yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
Yeah, Joseph, are you joining a body on the Jeffrey
Dahmer tour.

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
Well, I've been to Milwaukee and have spent time at
the medical Examiner's office there. Okay, it's part of a
national study. I actually ate at a restaurant that was
not too far away from his apartment complex, and the
medical examer, the chief medical examiner that did the autopsies
on these victims, said yeah, that's where Dahmer's apartment is,
and they tore down shortly after that. But then you

(01:15:42):
go through town and you know he worked at a
candy factory.

Speaker 6 (01:15:44):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
I love Milwaukee by the way. I love the food,
the German food in particular. And he worked at this
candy factory, and there were people that were interested in
Dahmer that would want to go to the candy factory
to see where he were.

Speaker 5 (01:15:58):
See, I'm not the only one. I am not the
only one.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
This actually was said in twenty thirteen. Justin Bieber said
of his visit to an Frank's house that it was
quote truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne
was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a believer.
So with that that actually did happen.

Speaker 5 (01:16:17):
With that, we're going to go to to talkback.

Speaker 3 (01:16:18):
Hi, ladies.

Speaker 10 (01:16:19):
This is Liz from Washington, originally from Michigan, wondering if
any of people who have been following the case of
the Walmart stabbing in Traverse City, Michigan, where one man
stabbed eleven victims and was taken down by some other
people in the store. And there's also a whole lot
of talk right now about mental health and how they
could get him help and it increased his bond just
to prevent him from being.

Speaker 7 (01:16:40):
Back out on the streets. Wondering if you guys have been.

Speaker 5 (01:16:42):
Following only a little bit. My cousins live in Traverse City.
I'm from Detroit initially, and my family, my whole family
actually lives in Michigan. Still, many of them live in
Traverse City. So I've only been kind of been following
it like perifheally, you know, to make sure they're okay.
But I don't really know them a lot about it.
I seen them video of I guess this ex marine

(01:17:03):
or navy guy. I'm not sure. Oh my god, I'm
going to get help for that. I don't mean to
insult anything, but somebody in the military who was in
the bornom to help take him down in the parking lot.
Have you guys seen this video. It's pretty incredible. No, yeah,
they took him down in the parking lot and it's
all somebody, of course, had their cell phone out after
he just stabbed eleven people in the walmart. It's pretty sad.

(01:17:24):
And you know, we definitely have a mental health problem
in this country. And you know, all the asylums have closed.
You know, they treated people pretty terribly in these asylums.
They were left there to rot, and you know, rightfully,
so they were shut down. But you know, maybe we
need to reinvent the system here a little bit and
get some help, much needed help for our citizens. I
don't know, what do you guys think? Well, it's what's

(01:17:45):
doing is not working.

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
So yeah, I think I'm most a bottom up restructure.
But Joseph, are you familiar with this case? I'm only
also tangentially.

Speaker 3 (01:17:55):
Yeah, yeah as well. I mean I've seen it in
the news and the horror of it, and listen, it
doesn't it's not surprising given other mass injury events. I'll
put it to you that way. Not all of them
are completely lethal, but people are damaged for life after this.
And I always come back to the victims and the

(01:18:17):
big question is and I hate why. I despise the
word why because you never really get an answer to
why in your life period. But what is it that
set this guy off? And why? There I go with why?
What was this purpose for being on the street if
he is this sick? And I've covered so many of

(01:18:38):
these cases with mass killings and injuries, I always have
to ask myself what was it about this guy that
he wasn't getting help? And could he have been in
an institution? It costs so much and like you said,
soyleumns have been shut down, but I think they could
recreate the template in some way where it's more humane

(01:18:59):
and people act do get healthy. It ain't happening right now, though.
I can tell you that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):
There is no so here's to listen, let the greater
minds prevail, and that we can have a system that
does help all of us who.

Speaker 5 (01:19:12):
Are in need, and everyone we know who is in need.

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
Well listen, Joseph. As always, it is our great pleasure
to have you on. Joseph Scott Morgan. You can hear
him on his.

Speaker 5 (01:19:21):
Hit hit podcast Bodybags.

Speaker 2 (01:19:23):
He's featured in Kat's Studios documentaries Galore, and it's been
a pleasure to Crime Tonight
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