September 25, 2025 • 34 mins
On today’s episode, we are joined by Barbara Butcher to discuss her career as a death investigator in New York City and her new show on Oxygen! Watch the premiere of The Death Investigator on 9/27.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Mother Knows Death, starring Nicole and Jemmy and Maria qk Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Everyone, Welcome The Mother Knows Death. On today's episode, we
have a very special guest, Barbara Butcher. Barbara is a
pioneer for women in the field of death investigation. She
was the second woman ever hired as a death investigator
for the New York City Medical Examiner's Office. Over the years,
she's worked on six hundred and eighty homicides and on
(00:42):
some of the most devastating mass disasters of our time,
including nine to eleven, the two thousand and four Thailand tsunami,
the London underground bombing, and the crash of Flight five
eighty seven. Today, we're going to talk to Barbara about
her career, and she's also going to tell us about
her new TV show, The Death Investigator with Barbara Butcher,
that premieres this Saturday, September twenty seventh, at nine pm
(01:05):
Eastern Time on the Oxygen Network. Hi, Barbara, Welcome The
Mother Knows Death.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Hi, Nicole, Hi, and Maria. It's so great to see
you all.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Congrats on the show. We are so excited that this
is coming out. In the intro, I had said that
you're a pioneer for women in this field of death investigation,
and it's just so cool to be represented like this.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I think I've told you before that it's a little rough,
or was certainly very rough when I started out in
nineteen ninety two. I remember my first homicide that I
did on my own. I was about three months into training.
I went to the to the scene and there was
a detective standing outside and he said, yeah, honey, happily
(01:52):
help you. I said, I'm the death investigator. I'm here
for the medical Examiner's office. I have to examine the
body in the seat. He said, I don't worry about it.
Crime scenes, got it. I said, no, no, this is
my job. I need to do this, and he said,
all right, all right, come on it. Second time. It
happened about two months later. Detective says, yes, sweetie, how
(02:13):
can I help you? I said, I'll tell you what.
I don't think you can help me. Maybe I can
help you. I'm going to go in there, I'm going
to examine that body. I'm going to tell you how
he died, when he died, and maybe even who did it.
And then when you're in court, testifying on this case,
and they say, how do you know these things? Detective?
You can say, Barbara Butcher told me, all right, love
(02:34):
that and he went, whoa. That cemented my reputation with NYPD.
They knew I was eccentric, dedicated, and really really curious
about death.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
That's so awesome. So how did you get into this field,
because obviously it's kind I mean I didn't even start
working in the lab until ninety nine either, so I
had to find things the old fashioned way before the
internet was the thing. So how did you even know
that there was a job, especially for women in this field?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
You know, I didn't really know. When I was a kid,
about ten years old, I had a dissecting kid, a
chemistry set in a microscope. I loved investigating, So the
kids in the neighborhood would bring me road chill and
I dissect a raccoon and say, oh, the rip caage
is crushed and the lum is hemorrhaging, and you see
on the outside squiddly black ones. This raccoon was run
(03:30):
over by a car. The kids would say, whoa. So
I had right from the beginning, I had this need
to know. Then, after working in surgery, for some years,
and as a hospital director, I was bored to cheers and
I went to a career counseling service. They gave me
all the tests and they said you should either be
(03:51):
a poultry veterinarian or a corner I said, why free.
They said, well, you know, you get to attached to
your patients and when they don't do well, it really
affects you. So if you worked with puppies and kittens,
you'd be upset all the time. Poultry, though, chickens, they
have beating little eyes. Nobody cares. I said, I don't know.
(04:13):
I think i'll take the dead peak now. So I
said coroner. Fine, and I forgot that they have families,
and you do get attached, you do get emotionally affected,
and you'll see a lot of that in the show.
But they said, why don't you call one person in
(04:33):
New York City who you think has the best job
in the world. So I called doctor Charles Hirsh, chief
Medical Examiner of New York. He said, sure, come on in,
let's talk. And we talked for a long time and
they offered me the job of death investigator. Wow, this
is extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
That's so amazing, because I feel like a lot of
younger people now always ask me how to get into
this field, and it's just so much different now. And
I mean even when I started doing autopsy, I felt
like any person that was interested in the career could
come view an autopsy. And now they won't even let
people that were working in the hospital with me as
(05:13):
a nurse or something view an autopsy. So it's just
harder for people to just make a phone call like
that and just get their foot in the door just
having interests.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Oh, it was a very different time, and you're absolutely right,
it was so different back then. Yeah, I used to
have interns always come and follow me around to cases,
and that's changed so much.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, it's unfortunate because I mean, like, it's cool because
you get to have a show like yours where people
could see because we saw an episode of your show
and it really does portray what it would be like
to work in your position, which is awesome for people
to be able to see.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
And I think today with true crime and everything, this
world is just so glamorized, and I think the show
does a really incredible job of showing there are families
behind these cases and what you see is really gruesome,
and you have to have a stomach for it and
be able to go there and kind of take yourself
out of it and investigate the proper way.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Absolutely, you know, it requires a great deal of emotional detachment.
When I come into a scene and it's horrifying when
a child is killed or a family is killed, and
the grief and the terror and the sadness start to
wash over me, I have to quit, slam down the
gate of detachment, and in doing that, I turn off
(06:40):
my emotions and I become laser focused on the forensics.
Who is this person? What does every little finding on
this body mean? What does the scene tell me? You know,
we not only see how people die, we see how
they live, and that's an extraordinary privilege, and it also
helps us understand who their killer was. So I do that,
(07:03):
I detach. Unfortunately, it's not always so easy to lift
that detachment. You know, you go home and your partner says, well,
if you've got to paint this kitchen, I can't stand
this color anymore. Why don't you and why don't you
make arrangements for us to go down to Florida and
see my father? Like, what the hell are you talking?
About you, any idea what I saw today, even the
(07:26):
idea what I did. But I can't say that because
it's not fair. I signed up for this. The people
in my life they didn't.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So yeah, do you want to say, like, people are
having real problems in their life right now, your kitchen
is not a real problem, you know, Like cause my
husband's a firefighter and he has to always it's the
same thing. He always has to hold back because the
kids will be whining about something so just so irrelevant,
and he's just like last night, at three o'clock in
(07:56):
the morning, there were three kids sleeping on the couch
in a house with twelve people living there. You don't
have any problems, you know. You know, it's just like
hard to detach from.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
What you see.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
And I was going to ask you that because you've
dealt you've seen some pretty i mean some of the
worst things that have ever happened in the history of
our country, especially nine to eleven in particular.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
So what what was your.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Involvement with that? Like, how did that day start off
for you? And what did you contribute to that investigation?
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Oh god, I was part of remains recovery. You know
that that morning that it happened. I was in Asbury Park,
New Jersey, and I had been out for some surgery,
and so I wasn't there, calling the sea wow, and
which is like extraordinary to me. But I tried to
(08:50):
get into the city and the tunnels were closed and
everything was closed down. It was so I was freaking out.
I finally got in and to show up at my
office and see military people everywhere with AK forty seven's
and these jets flying overhead. It was extraordinary. And so
(09:14):
my job was to organize a team and we'd go
out and recover human remains from the rule. And when
I'm saying human remains, I'm not talking about a whole
body or even an armor a leg. I'm talking about
minuscule pieces of a person. And then I worked on
(09:35):
the line. The line is like a long conveyor belt,
and the warm trucks would pull up at the office
and with remains of people found in the rubble by
firemen and policemen, by us, and we just take them
and clean them off and separate them. There was a
(09:55):
time when I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There
was a bag with a human heart, a set of
car cheese and a penis in this black body bag.
And I said, what is the association? Here? Is this
like the essence of this man? I don't understand. It
(10:16):
made no sense. And then another piece would come along,
a chest cavity with an arm inside it, and another
chess cavity with a jaw inside it, and I was
seeing things. I could not believe. The forces that were
at play there were extraordinary. And so day after day
this horror keeps coming to us, and then we start
(10:39):
working with the families. Talk about heartbreak. My god. You
know when someone says, we see, to the family, we
found or remain the remains of your husband and we're
going to issue a death certificate, and they say, well,
where was he found? Can you point to a map
and say here and here and here, And they say
(11:03):
can we see the body? There is no body where.
It's scraps of flesh.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
And people just they just don't realize how bad that
really looks. You would never ever want to view. I mean,
it's the same when there's someone that's decomp and people
insist on seeing them, and you're just like, you never
want to see your loved one look like that, ever, ever,
ever you can't imagine ever, you know, washing that image
out of your mind.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, well I can just you know it. Sometimes it
hits me like this, feeling like seeing someone I love
in pieces. I don't know how we all did it,
and I don't know how those families still carry on
to this date. There's a lot of bravery and courage
out there, people who bear the unbearable victims of families
(11:54):
of the homicides we've seen, and anyway, it's a lot,
it's a lot, I think in this show, in The
Death Investigator, we don't concentrate that much on the horror,
although there are some things that are a bit overwhelming.
We concentrate on the forensics, how did we investigate? How
(12:15):
did we figure out this puzzle? And we concentrate on
the people, the victims, their families, the detectives, and the
Death Investigator of me, what is it like to be
in there, what is it like to be doing and
what did you learn? How did you learn it, how
did you solve it? So there's an emotional component to it.
(12:37):
You know, some of these detectives we're talking about a
case we did together ten years ago, fifteen, twenty years ago,
they still choke up because they remember that victim, they
remember the family. It's hard.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
This episode is brought to you by the Gross Room. Guys.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
This week's high profile death dissection involves singer David. It's
been all over the news. So we go through everything
that they will be looking at if you find a
body in the trunk, and how you do in death
investigation from there. We also have a really interesting case
this week of a man who he said he had
(13:23):
a problem with his penis, let's say, and he went
to the doctor and tried to say it was from
some traumatic event, and it ends up that he was
just trying to make it bigger. So it's bigger for sure.
I don't know if it's better, But you guys could
be the judge of that. All that and more in
the Gross Room.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Yeah, head over to the Grossroom dot com now to
sign up.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Well, and plus we and we talk about this on
our show all the time. Like you guys, as investigators
at the Emmy's office and detectives, you seriously meet the
most horrible people in the world that exists that do
this to other people. So it's it's just hard for
you to be a normal human and process that sometimes
and it will still upset you because you can't believe
(14:07):
what people do to each other.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Right, last week, we even got a question that was, like,
with all the horrible things you see, do you feel
you're losing faith in humanity because you, guys just see
the worst of the worst.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
You know, you're talking about something very important here. And
it's like they usually call it first responder syndrome, even
though I'm a last responder. You know, I shore after
after everything's done. But what happens is you see evil.
You see death every single day. And like when I
started out in ninety two, we were getting two thy
(14:43):
four hundred homicides a year in New York City, So
I was seeing homicides all day long, at least two
or three. And then you start to believe that that's
the Norman, that's how things are, that people are always
being murdered, people are always committing suicide horrible accidents or
falling out of the sky, and you start to think
that that's the way life is, and it gives you
(15:06):
a very dark feeling. It've really it's awful, and you
have to check the statistics. You have to look at
things reasonably and analytically and say no, just because I'm
seeing it all day doesn't mean it's happening all day.
This is just my viewpoint. That's one thing. The other
(15:30):
thing is that there's a great deal of sensitivity you
start to develop inside that hearing certain things, talking about
certain things. When people are casual about a homicide, I go, yeah,
I mean she was a prostitute or what do you expect?
(15:50):
WHOA That really really hurts and there's an anger that
comes up from that. I know these people, I've seen them.
It's been an homes I see their lives, and I
see how they died and how they live.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
I think that attitude is increasing by the day, and
it's scary. It's scaring me how many people are saying
things like that about people who die. And you're just like,
this isn't a video game. This is real life, and
you have to have some kind of compassion towards that.
(16:25):
Even if you don't like people, I mean that's how
or you don't agree with what they like. A prostitutes
a perfect example. You don't agree with what they do, maybe,
but like that doesn't mean that that her life is
not it's a human livid. Yeah, it's a human it's yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You know, I've seen deaths or drug addicts overdosing and
they go, eh, you know, it's just another junkie. My brother,
my brother John was a heroin addict and he died
of an accidental overdose. And to think that someone said
I just another freaking junkie, it just it hurts my heart.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
I feel that way about drugs too, because I really
feel it's the addiction is a medical issue. I just
know it is, because you know, I was a teenager
once and tried stuff and never got addicted. Like it
just happens to some people. And once you're in it,
or even if you make a mistake and try it
even knowing that it's wrong. The same could be said
(17:25):
with drinking and cigarettes and everything like that, it's very
hard to get out of that and rewire your brain,
and your brain is almost permanently damaged to be like that.
And you just have to have a little bit more
compassion for those people because like we have Kensington in Philadelphia,
right it's like one of the worst areas in the
country for drugs. When when we drive through that neighborhood,
(17:48):
I look at those people and I'm like, nobody wants
to be here.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
It makes you want to cry.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
It makes me it's terrible because I see young people
and I'm like, that's someone's baby, you know, Oh my god,
it's so.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Ter Every person is a universe unto thomselves and around them,
our mother, father, sister, wife, husband, children. Every death, you know,
it does something to a group of people in the world.
So homicide is it's a puzzling phenomenon. Why people kill.
(18:22):
I don't think we'll ever figure it out, but I
do my best in each and every case to figure
why did this happen, and how did it happen, and
to get justice for the families. And I think you'll
see a lot of that in the show. Is that
compulsion to solve it, to fix it somehow?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, And that's one of the things that you could
always tell yourself when you're kind of being cold and
cutting your own emotions off, like someone like you cannot
you will not be helpful at all if you're crying
with the family. There has to be people that could
turn it off to get justice for these people asolutely.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And you know, one of the toughest things is that
at the scene of a homicide, when the family is there.
Now I have to question them. I have to talk
to them about what happened, what they know, and I
have to be incredibly of course sympathetic empathetic to know
what they're going through at the same time knowing one
of them couldn't be the perpetrator. That is a balancing
(19:24):
act that is so difficult and one of the toughest
aspects of the job.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
That was one thing I was curious about asking you
because I know you've been on thousands and thousands of scenes,
but a lot of people don't realize that someone in
your position just doesn't deal with homicide. You go to
accidents and suicides and natural deaths all probably more often
than homicides, honestly, So do you touch on any of
(19:52):
that in the show, any other manner of death besides homicide?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
You know, in this first season we've caused traded on
homicide because I think we want to get across the
nature of this job. I want to teach people, teach
the view about forensics, about how we actually saw the
case and what my job is. And I would like
to and I know we will, we get another season
(20:20):
talk about investigating what could be a homicide or a suicide.
I've got some really interesting cases on that. It's hard
to tell sometimes, particularly when a person comes down from
a height, well they or either they jump, they're pushed
from a roof, or they accidentally fall from a roof.
(20:41):
I've seen all of those and how to decide which
it is. That's a tough investigation.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, and there's there's a lot of interest in that too.
I mean everything. I always think that everything could be,
you know, related to celebrity deaths. And Liampaigne's a good
example of someone that just fell off the roof recently,
but it was just like, wasn't an accident? Did someone
in the room push them?
Speaker 1 (21:04):
You know?
Speaker 2 (21:05):
So it is cool how you guys go through everything
and try to figure that out. And I love that
you're just going to go through all of this with
the homicides too, because the average person just watches crime
shows and thinks it's just a lot different in real life,
right sure is.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
We don't have any computers with flashing lights and rock
music lasting in the background and enormous screens that show
everyone in the city and show you what they were eating.
I mean, it just doesn't exist. Our job is gritty,
it's science, and it's also instinct, it's experience, knowledge of
(21:48):
human nature. It's so many things. You know, Maria, before
you asked a question about meeting the evil people like
sat and had conversations with serial killers. I have you know,
back in the day, we didn't just take a cheek
swap for DNA. It had to draw blood. And I'd
have to pluck hair by the roots from a serial killer,
(22:10):
including the hair from the head and pubic hair. And
I sit with this guy and he looks to me
like a wolf. His eyes are flat, They're not connecting
with me. He's assessing me as if I were pray.
How can I be useful to this monster? This guy
(22:31):
was slashing people's throats with impunity and a violent, violent chiller.
And his chilling partner, also, his lover was just as
charming and sweet as you could possibly be. This guy,
he was like an animal to me, and I had
(22:51):
to sit and talk to her. I sat and spoke
with Aaron t the chiller of little Girls in Spanish Harler.
I think he was convicted on Alani homicides for ten
rapes he did over a ten year period. These were
adolescent girls. Now, you didn't hear about this. Why because
(23:15):
they were Hispanic or black and they were poor. So
in the newspaper did it say, you know, rapist murder
on the loose, little girls whatever? Nah, you saw one
white woman on Park Avenue who got killed. It was
all over the paper. But did you see these little girls?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
No?
Speaker 1 (23:35):
And that bothers the hell out of me. And when
I do these cases on this show, I'm telling you
about this person who they are. These are people we
all care about, and I think it needs to be said.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
I think the first episode, and I don't want to
give any spoilers away, but I think you guys did
such a great job of detailing the family and who,
like you're, who each victim was. As a lay person too,
I just thought all the scientific facts you dropped, Like
you guys have to take pictures before you step on
a scene and after so you know exactly where you
(24:11):
touched it and moved everything. I've always wondered that, and
I've never really just known the answer. So just learning
cool tidbits like that along the way is awesome, as
well as learning about these really compelling cases, and you know,
seeing how emotional people are getting behind it. It is
nice to see, and especially when we live in a
society where just everybody's so cold towards murder these days.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah, yeah, it's becoming like a it's like a statistic,
Oh six people killed, three people killed. It's people are
not statistics. It's it's you know, when you like when
I work the Asian Southeast Asian tsunami in two thousand
and four.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Too, I wanted to talk to you about that because
I'm so interested in that.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Two hundred and thirty five thousand people wiped out in
a few moments an enormous way, thirty feet high, rushing inland,
drowning people, killing people. And I go to Thailand to
help them with victim identification. And I went with my
boss and to the colleague and to what we saw
(25:16):
there was so overwhelming. And so I see individuals that
we had to identify, and I'd see the people doing
the work, and the Thai people are wonderful, they are
so brave. Instead of going and rebuilding their homes, they
were living in cordboard shacks and helping rebuild the resorts,
(25:38):
helping recover bodies, helping identify bodies. They were working and working.
They put their personal needs aside to help their countrymen,
and that to me was so beautiful. I love working
with them. And you know, I come back to the States.
I went twice to work on it, and come back
(25:59):
to the States, people like, wow, two hundred and thirty
five thousand people, that's incredible. Wow. No, no, no, Please
don't think of it that way. Think of it as
the man who worked in the hotel to support his
wife and four kids, and she cooked at a local restaurant.
The kids all went to school, they did well. Now
they're all wiped down. Please don't think of the numbers.
(26:21):
Think of the people. And I think we really get
that across on the show. Who are the victims? Oh definitely.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Well, it is interesting because the particular case that you
presented for the first episode, I never heard of it.
It wasn't just like one of the biggest cases that
you would think of, like OJ Simpson and Coburger, you know.
And you're listening to it though and thinking, jeez, this
is a huge story, right. And I did notice that
(26:49):
when I rotated at the Medical Examiner's office that I
would watch the news, and I, you know, I think
most people think this. I watched the news and would say, okay,
what am I walking into today? Yeah, and then I
would go in in the morning and there were so
much more bodies and I'm not talking about natural deaths,
like just more homicides and stuff. And you're like, well,
why did they say this person got shot? But there
(27:11):
was like five other people that got shot too, like
their life just wasn't worth mentioning on the news or
you know, just like stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
That's right, And those are the cases we're covering. Some
of my cases, the famous ones, they've been done to death.
We're going deeper now, we're showing you the cases. You
don't hear about five six people a family slaughter. I mean,
shouldn't you hear about that? No? Yeah, no, no you
(27:39):
don't because they live in the Bronx. Bronx is not exciting.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
But then you think about the Brian Coburger case where
you're just like, he actually killed less people and it
has the media attention worldwide. I mean it's a little
bit of a different circumstance, but still, I mean, yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
It's strange, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Yeah, yeah, it really is. It just shows you how
things could just be portrayed and give an impression on
the whole world of how things really are when they're
really not like that.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Sure, when Gene Hackman and his wife died, I did
so many interviews and so many talking heads on every
station to talk about how they died and what was
suspicious and what was not suspicious. But meanwhile, there were
people being left and right who are not movie stars. Yeah,
and we don't hear about them. But I guess that's
(28:31):
what makes a big story for the media.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, it sure does. So when you went to the
Indian Ocean tsunami, you were working at the EMMY at
the time.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yes, I was the who the United Nations branch for
medical and disaster work. They invited my boss and I
to go over there to not to take over the job, certainly,
but to provide assistance. We brought DNA scientists with us
and apologists, you know, and we we just helped to
(29:04):
guide and to consult with them. But they did a
truific job.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah, that's just that's just another cool thing to mention
in your particular profession. That because you've got to see
a lot of different things that didn't happen in Manhattan
or in New York City, which is which is really
cool that you can go on these missions on different
areas where there it's disasters and you can contribute as well.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, I felt I felt that that was really an
important thing to do, is not take over, but just
go in and share a little of my experience or advice.
You know, we had plenty of experience because we did
nine to eleven, so of course, you know, identifying twenty
twenty something thousands body parts, there was there was a
(29:54):
lot of lessons learned and we shared them. I also
went to Hong Kong and did a conference for their
government there where we just shared what we had learned
there at the nine to eleven, at the tsunami and.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Airplane crashes that I worked and train wrecks, and we
shared the knowledge with them, and it was a privilege
to learn from them and to share with them.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Well, you were at that plane crash like two months
after nine to eleven, right, Like, how did your office
handle that?
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Oh my god, that was extraordinary. You know, when nine
to eleven happened, everyday, death still happened, homicide still occurred.
So we ran the office on two tracks. One was
the day to day city track of cases. The other
track was strictly nine to eleven. Then comes flight five
eighty seven and everyone thought, oh my god, sabotage and
(30:50):
of the terrorist attack, and so we had to run
that on a separate track, separate numbering system, separate people working.
And then after that there were the antrax envelopes coming
to the TV station, so more terrorist stuff. Uh, you know,
it was very, very difficult, but also very you know,
(31:15):
there's like an adrenaline rush when you you get when
you when you have a mission, when you have something
important that you must help with, you must assist it.
The adrenaline rush is incredible because you get the satisfaction
of maybe getting some justice for a family, maybe helping
(31:36):
the victims chiller to be brought to justice. So yeah,
it's a lot.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Well, before we wrap up, I just want to ask you.
You know, you're retired now obviously from that from that
particular job. So does this doing this show kind of
make it feel like you're kind of in the action
again a little bit?
Speaker 1 (31:56):
It sure does, And you know I miss the action
I have. Yeah, but I've devoted my life now since
I'm not doing cases any more, you know, directly, I've
devoted it to creative pursuits, writing the book, doing this show,
and you know it, it's enormously satisfying. But every time
(32:17):
I get in there, God, I miss miss the work,
the camaraderie, working with the police and ypds, aces of
the country. As far as I'm concerns, I miss it.
I miss it a lot.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Yeah, and that's cool that you could bring some of
your old colleagues in with you as well and have
them because I know that all the retired guys are like,
you know, there's you just kind of get bored. There's nothing.
You know, my husband's always like wants to be inside
a burning building. It's just the way that it is.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Well, thanks so much for being here.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
It was awesome.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I'm talking to you, and good luck with your show,
and everybody will watch your show. I guarantee it. It's
going to be great and you will get a second season,
I promise.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Mar Thank you both so much. It's a pleasure to
see you always.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Okay, all right, we'll see you next time we have dinner.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Bye bye, bye bye.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Thank you for listening to Mother Knows Death. As a reminder,
my training is as a pathologist's assistant. I have a
master's level education and specialize in anatomy and pathology education.
I am not a doctor and I have not diagnosed
or treated anyone dead or alive without the assistance of
a licensed medical doctor. This show, my website, and social
(33:39):
media accounts are designed to educate and inform people based
on my experience working in pathology, so they can make
healthier decisions regarding their life and well being. Always remember
that science is changing every day and the opinions expressed
in this episode are based on my knowledge of those
subjects at the time of publication. If you are having
(34:01):
a medical problem, have a medical question, or having a
medical emergency, please contact your physician or visit an urgent
care center, emergency room, or hospital. Please rate, review, and
subscribe to Mother Knows Death on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or
anywhere you get podcasts. Thanks
Mother Knows Death, starring Nicole and Jemmy and Maria qk Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Everyone, Welcome The Mother Knows Death. On today's episode, we
have a very special guest, Barbara Butcher. Barbara is a
pioneer for women in the field of death investigation. She
was the second woman ever hired as a death investigator
for the New York City Medical Examiner's Office. Over the years,
she's worked on six hundred and eighty homicides and on
(00:42):
some of the most devastating mass disasters of our time,
including nine to eleven, the two thousand and four Thailand tsunami,
the London underground bombing, and the crash of Flight five
eighty seven. Today, we're going to talk to Barbara about
her career, and she's also going to tell us about
her new TV show, The Death Investigator with Barbara Butcher,
that premieres this Saturday, September twenty seventh, at nine pm
(01:05):
Eastern Time on the Oxygen Network. Hi, Barbara, Welcome The
Mother Knows Death.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Hi, Nicole, Hi, and Maria. It's so great to see
you all.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Congrats on the show. We are so excited that this
is coming out. In the intro, I had said that
you're a pioneer for women in this field of death investigation,
and it's just so cool to be represented like this.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I think I've told you before that it's a little rough,
or was certainly very rough when I started out in
nineteen ninety two. I remember my first homicide that I
did on my own. I was about three months into training.
I went to the to the scene and there was
a detective standing outside and he said, yeah, honey, happily
(01:52):
help you. I said, I'm the death investigator. I'm here
for the medical Examiner's office. I have to examine the
body in the seat. He said, I don't worry about it.
Crime scenes, got it. I said, no, no, this is
my job. I need to do this, and he said,
all right, all right, come on it. Second time. It
happened about two months later. Detective says, yes, sweetie, how
(02:13):
can I help you? I said, I'll tell you what.
I don't think you can help me. Maybe I can
help you. I'm going to go in there, I'm going
to examine that body. I'm going to tell you how
he died, when he died, and maybe even who did it.
And then when you're in court, testifying on this case,
and they say, how do you know these things? Detective?
You can say, Barbara Butcher told me, all right, love
(02:34):
that and he went, whoa. That cemented my reputation with NYPD.
They knew I was eccentric, dedicated, and really really curious
about death.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
That's so awesome. So how did you get into this field,
because obviously it's kind I mean I didn't even start
working in the lab until ninety nine either, so I
had to find things the old fashioned way before the
internet was the thing. So how did you even know
that there was a job, especially for women in this field?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
You know, I didn't really know. When I was a kid,
about ten years old, I had a dissecting kid, a
chemistry set in a microscope. I loved investigating, So the
kids in the neighborhood would bring me road chill and
I dissect a raccoon and say, oh, the rip caage
is crushed and the lum is hemorrhaging, and you see
on the outside squiddly black ones. This raccoon was run
(03:30):
over by a car. The kids would say, whoa. So
I had right from the beginning, I had this need
to know. Then, after working in surgery, for some years,
and as a hospital director, I was bored to cheers and
I went to a career counseling service. They gave me
all the tests and they said you should either be
(03:51):
a poultry veterinarian or a corner I said, why free.
They said, well, you know, you get to attached to
your patients and when they don't do well, it really
affects you. So if you worked with puppies and kittens,
you'd be upset all the time. Poultry, though, chickens, they
have beating little eyes. Nobody cares. I said, I don't know.
(04:13):
I think i'll take the dead peak now. So I
said coroner. Fine, and I forgot that they have families,
and you do get attached, you do get emotionally affected,
and you'll see a lot of that in the show.
But they said, why don't you call one person in
(04:33):
New York City who you think has the best job
in the world. So I called doctor Charles Hirsh, chief
Medical Examiner of New York. He said, sure, come on in,
let's talk. And we talked for a long time and
they offered me the job of death investigator. Wow, this
is extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
That's so amazing, because I feel like a lot of
younger people now always ask me how to get into
this field, and it's just so much different now. And
I mean even when I started doing autopsy, I felt
like any person that was interested in the career could
come view an autopsy. And now they won't even let
people that were working in the hospital with me as
(05:13):
a nurse or something view an autopsy. So it's just
harder for people to just make a phone call like
that and just get their foot in the door just
having interests.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Oh, it was a very different time, and you're absolutely right,
it was so different back then. Yeah, I used to
have interns always come and follow me around to cases,
and that's changed so much.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, it's unfortunate because I mean, like, it's cool because
you get to have a show like yours where people
could see because we saw an episode of your show
and it really does portray what it would be like
to work in your position, which is awesome for people
to be able to see.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
And I think today with true crime and everything, this
world is just so glamorized, and I think the show
does a really incredible job of showing there are families
behind these cases and what you see is really gruesome,
and you have to have a stomach for it and
be able to go there and kind of take yourself
out of it and investigate the proper way.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Absolutely, you know, it requires a great deal of emotional detachment.
When I come into a scene and it's horrifying when
a child is killed or a family is killed, and
the grief and the terror and the sadness start to
wash over me, I have to quit, slam down the
gate of detachment, and in doing that, I turn off
(06:40):
my emotions and I become laser focused on the forensics.
Who is this person? What does every little finding on
this body mean? What does the scene tell me? You know,
we not only see how people die, we see how
they live, and that's an extraordinary privilege, and it also
helps us understand who their killer was. So I do that,
(07:03):
I detach. Unfortunately, it's not always so easy to lift
that detachment. You know, you go home and your partner says, well,
if you've got to paint this kitchen, I can't stand
this color anymore. Why don't you and why don't you
make arrangements for us to go down to Florida and
see my father? Like, what the hell are you talking?
About you, any idea what I saw today, even the
(07:26):
idea what I did. But I can't say that because
it's not fair. I signed up for this. The people
in my life they didn't.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So yeah, do you want to say, like, people are
having real problems in their life right now, your kitchen
is not a real problem, you know, Like cause my
husband's a firefighter and he has to always it's the
same thing. He always has to hold back because the
kids will be whining about something so just so irrelevant,
and he's just like last night, at three o'clock in
(07:56):
the morning, there were three kids sleeping on the couch
in a house with twelve people living there. You don't
have any problems, you know. You know, it's just like
hard to detach from.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
What you see.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
And I was going to ask you that because you've
dealt you've seen some pretty i mean some of the
worst things that have ever happened in the history of
our country, especially nine to eleven in particular.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
So what what was your.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Involvement with that? Like, how did that day start off
for you? And what did you contribute to that investigation?
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Oh god, I was part of remains recovery. You know
that that morning that it happened. I was in Asbury Park,
New Jersey, and I had been out for some surgery,
and so I wasn't there, calling the sea wow, and
which is like extraordinary to me. But I tried to
(08:50):
get into the city and the tunnels were closed and
everything was closed down. It was so I was freaking out.
I finally got in and to show up at my
office and see military people everywhere with AK forty seven's
and these jets flying overhead. It was extraordinary. And so
(09:14):
my job was to organize a team and we'd go
out and recover human remains from the rule. And when
I'm saying human remains, I'm not talking about a whole
body or even an armor a leg. I'm talking about
minuscule pieces of a person. And then I worked on
(09:35):
the line. The line is like a long conveyor belt,
and the warm trucks would pull up at the office
and with remains of people found in the rubble by
firemen and policemen, by us, and we just take them
and clean them off and separate them. There was a
(09:55):
time when I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There
was a bag with a human heart, a set of
car cheese and a penis in this black body bag.
And I said, what is the association? Here? Is this
like the essence of this man? I don't understand. It
(10:16):
made no sense. And then another piece would come along,
a chest cavity with an arm inside it, and another
chess cavity with a jaw inside it, and I was
seeing things. I could not believe. The forces that were
at play there were extraordinary. And so day after day
this horror keeps coming to us, and then we start
(10:39):
working with the families. Talk about heartbreak. My god. You
know when someone says, we see, to the family, we
found or remain the remains of your husband and we're
going to issue a death certificate, and they say, well,
where was he found? Can you point to a map
and say here and here and here, And they say
(11:03):
can we see the body? There is no body where.
It's scraps of flesh.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
And people just they just don't realize how bad that
really looks. You would never ever want to view. I mean,
it's the same when there's someone that's decomp and people
insist on seeing them, and you're just like, you never
want to see your loved one look like that, ever, ever,
ever you can't imagine ever, you know, washing that image
out of your mind.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, well I can just you know it. Sometimes it
hits me like this, feeling like seeing someone I love
in pieces. I don't know how we all did it,
and I don't know how those families still carry on
to this date. There's a lot of bravery and courage
out there, people who bear the unbearable victims of families
(11:54):
of the homicides we've seen, and anyway, it's a lot,
it's a lot, I think in this show, in The
Death Investigator, we don't concentrate that much on the horror,
although there are some things that are a bit overwhelming.
We concentrate on the forensics, how did we investigate? How
(12:15):
did we figure out this puzzle? And we concentrate on
the people, the victims, their families, the detectives, and the
Death Investigator of me, what is it like to be
in there, what is it like to be doing and
what did you learn? How did you learn it, how
did you solve it? So there's an emotional component to it.
(12:37):
You know, some of these detectives we're talking about a
case we did together ten years ago, fifteen, twenty years ago,
they still choke up because they remember that victim, they
remember the family. It's hard.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
This episode is brought to you by the Gross Room. Guys.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
This week's high profile death dissection involves singer David. It's
been all over the news. So we go through everything
that they will be looking at if you find a
body in the trunk, and how you do in death
investigation from there. We also have a really interesting case
this week of a man who he said he had
(13:23):
a problem with his penis, let's say, and he went
to the doctor and tried to say it was from
some traumatic event, and it ends up that he was
just trying to make it bigger. So it's bigger for sure.
I don't know if it's better, But you guys could
be the judge of that. All that and more in
the Gross Room.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Yeah, head over to the Grossroom dot com now to
sign up.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Well, and plus we and we talk about this on
our show all the time. Like you guys, as investigators
at the Emmy's office and detectives, you seriously meet the
most horrible people in the world that exists that do
this to other people. So it's it's just hard for
you to be a normal human and process that sometimes
and it will still upset you because you can't believe
(14:07):
what people do to each other.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Right, last week, we even got a question that was, like,
with all the horrible things you see, do you feel
you're losing faith in humanity because you, guys just see
the worst of the worst.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
You know, you're talking about something very important here. And
it's like they usually call it first responder syndrome, even
though I'm a last responder. You know, I shore after
after everything's done. But what happens is you see evil.
You see death every single day. And like when I
started out in ninety two, we were getting two thy
(14:43):
four hundred homicides a year in New York City, So
I was seeing homicides all day long, at least two
or three. And then you start to believe that that's
the Norman, that's how things are, that people are always
being murdered, people are always committing suicide horrible accidents or
falling out of the sky, and you start to think
that that's the way life is, and it gives you
(15:06):
a very dark feeling. It've really it's awful, and you
have to check the statistics. You have to look at
things reasonably and analytically and say no, just because I'm
seeing it all day doesn't mean it's happening all day.
This is just my viewpoint. That's one thing. The other
(15:30):
thing is that there's a great deal of sensitivity you
start to develop inside that hearing certain things, talking about
certain things. When people are casual about a homicide, I go, yeah,
I mean she was a prostitute or what do you expect?
(15:50):
WHOA That really really hurts and there's an anger that
comes up from that. I know these people, I've seen them.
It's been an homes I see their lives, and I
see how they died and how they live.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
I think that attitude is increasing by the day, and
it's scary. It's scaring me how many people are saying
things like that about people who die. And you're just like,
this isn't a video game. This is real life, and
you have to have some kind of compassion towards that.
(16:25):
Even if you don't like people, I mean that's how
or you don't agree with what they like. A prostitutes
a perfect example. You don't agree with what they do, maybe,
but like that doesn't mean that that her life is
not it's a human livid. Yeah, it's a human it's yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You know, I've seen deaths or drug addicts overdosing and
they go, eh, you know, it's just another junkie. My brother,
my brother John was a heroin addict and he died
of an accidental overdose. And to think that someone said
I just another freaking junkie, it just it hurts my heart.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
I feel that way about drugs too, because I really
feel it's the addiction is a medical issue. I just
know it is, because you know, I was a teenager
once and tried stuff and never got addicted. Like it
just happens to some people. And once you're in it,
or even if you make a mistake and try it
even knowing that it's wrong. The same could be said
(17:25):
with drinking and cigarettes and everything like that, it's very
hard to get out of that and rewire your brain,
and your brain is almost permanently damaged to be like that.
And you just have to have a little bit more
compassion for those people because like we have Kensington in Philadelphia,
right it's like one of the worst areas in the
country for drugs. When when we drive through that neighborhood,
(17:48):
I look at those people and I'm like, nobody wants
to be here.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
It makes you want to cry.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
It makes me it's terrible because I see young people
and I'm like, that's someone's baby, you know, Oh my god,
it's so.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Ter Every person is a universe unto thomselves and around them,
our mother, father, sister, wife, husband, children. Every death, you know,
it does something to a group of people in the world.
So homicide is it's a puzzling phenomenon. Why people kill.
(18:22):
I don't think we'll ever figure it out, but I
do my best in each and every case to figure
why did this happen, and how did it happen, and
to get justice for the families. And I think you'll
see a lot of that in the show. Is that
compulsion to solve it, to fix it somehow?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, And that's one of the things that you could
always tell yourself when you're kind of being cold and
cutting your own emotions off, like someone like you cannot
you will not be helpful at all if you're crying
with the family. There has to be people that could
turn it off to get justice for these people asolutely.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And you know, one of the toughest things is that
at the scene of a homicide, when the family is there.
Now I have to question them. I have to talk
to them about what happened, what they know, and I
have to be incredibly of course sympathetic empathetic to know
what they're going through at the same time knowing one
of them couldn't be the perpetrator. That is a balancing
(19:24):
act that is so difficult and one of the toughest
aspects of the job.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
That was one thing I was curious about asking you
because I know you've been on thousands and thousands of scenes,
but a lot of people don't realize that someone in
your position just doesn't deal with homicide. You go to
accidents and suicides and natural deaths all probably more often
than homicides, honestly, So do you touch on any of
(19:52):
that in the show, any other manner of death besides homicide?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
You know, in this first season we've caused traded on
homicide because I think we want to get across the
nature of this job. I want to teach people, teach
the view about forensics, about how we actually saw the
case and what my job is. And I would like
to and I know we will, we get another season
(20:20):
talk about investigating what could be a homicide or a suicide.
I've got some really interesting cases on that. It's hard
to tell sometimes, particularly when a person comes down from
a height, well they or either they jump, they're pushed
from a roof, or they accidentally fall from a roof.
(20:41):
I've seen all of those and how to decide which
it is. That's a tough investigation.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, and there's there's a lot of interest in that too.
I mean everything. I always think that everything could be,
you know, related to celebrity deaths. And Liampaigne's a good
example of someone that just fell off the roof recently,
but it was just like, wasn't an accident? Did someone
in the room push them?
Speaker 1 (21:04):
You know?
Speaker 2 (21:05):
So it is cool how you guys go through everything
and try to figure that out. And I love that
you're just going to go through all of this with
the homicides too, because the average person just watches crime
shows and thinks it's just a lot different in real life,
right sure is.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
We don't have any computers with flashing lights and rock
music lasting in the background and enormous screens that show
everyone in the city and show you what they were eating.
I mean, it just doesn't exist. Our job is gritty,
it's science, and it's also instinct, it's experience, knowledge of
(21:48):
human nature. It's so many things. You know, Maria, before
you asked a question about meeting the evil people like
sat and had conversations with serial killers. I have you know,
back in the day, we didn't just take a cheek
swap for DNA. It had to draw blood. And I'd
have to pluck hair by the roots from a serial killer,
(22:10):
including the hair from the head and pubic hair. And
I sit with this guy and he looks to me
like a wolf. His eyes are flat, They're not connecting
with me. He's assessing me as if I were pray.
How can I be useful to this monster? This guy
(22:31):
was slashing people's throats with impunity and a violent, violent chiller.
And his chilling partner, also, his lover was just as
charming and sweet as you could possibly be. This guy,
he was like an animal to me, and I had
(22:51):
to sit and talk to her. I sat and spoke
with Aaron t the chiller of little Girls in Spanish Harler.
I think he was convicted on Alani homicides for ten
rapes he did over a ten year period. These were
adolescent girls. Now, you didn't hear about this. Why because
(23:15):
they were Hispanic or black and they were poor. So
in the newspaper did it say, you know, rapist murder
on the loose, little girls whatever? Nah, you saw one
white woman on Park Avenue who got killed. It was
all over the paper. But did you see these little girls?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
No?
Speaker 1 (23:35):
And that bothers the hell out of me. And when
I do these cases on this show, I'm telling you
about this person who they are. These are people we
all care about, and I think it needs to be said.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
I think the first episode, and I don't want to
give any spoilers away, but I think you guys did
such a great job of detailing the family and who,
like you're, who each victim was. As a lay person too,
I just thought all the scientific facts you dropped, Like
you guys have to take pictures before you step on
a scene and after so you know exactly where you
(24:11):
touched it and moved everything. I've always wondered that, and
I've never really just known the answer. So just learning
cool tidbits like that along the way is awesome, as
well as learning about these really compelling cases, and you know,
seeing how emotional people are getting behind it. It is
nice to see, and especially when we live in a
society where just everybody's so cold towards murder these days.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah, yeah, it's becoming like a it's like a statistic,
Oh six people killed, three people killed. It's people are
not statistics. It's it's you know, when you like when
I work the Asian Southeast Asian tsunami in two thousand
and four.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Too, I wanted to talk to you about that because
I'm so interested in that.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Two hundred and thirty five thousand people wiped out in
a few moments an enormous way, thirty feet high, rushing inland,
drowning people, killing people. And I go to Thailand to
help them with victim identification. And I went with my
boss and to the colleague and to what we saw
(25:16):
there was so overwhelming. And so I see individuals that
we had to identify, and I'd see the people doing
the work, and the Thai people are wonderful, they are
so brave. Instead of going and rebuilding their homes, they
were living in cordboard shacks and helping rebuild the resorts,
(25:38):
helping recover bodies, helping identify bodies. They were working and working.
They put their personal needs aside to help their countrymen,
and that to me was so beautiful. I love working
with them. And you know, I come back to the States.
I went twice to work on it, and come back
(25:59):
to the States, people like, wow, two hundred and thirty
five thousand people, that's incredible. Wow. No, no, no, Please
don't think of it that way. Think of it as
the man who worked in the hotel to support his
wife and four kids, and she cooked at a local restaurant.
The kids all went to school, they did well. Now
they're all wiped down. Please don't think of the numbers.
(26:21):
Think of the people. And I think we really get
that across on the show. Who are the victims? Oh definitely.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Well, it is interesting because the particular case that you
presented for the first episode, I never heard of it.
It wasn't just like one of the biggest cases that
you would think of, like OJ Simpson and Coburger, you know.
And you're listening to it though and thinking, jeez, this
is a huge story, right. And I did notice that
(26:49):
when I rotated at the Medical Examiner's office that I
would watch the news, and I, you know, I think
most people think this. I watched the news and would say, okay,
what am I walking into today? Yeah, and then I
would go in in the morning and there were so
much more bodies and I'm not talking about natural deaths,
like just more homicides and stuff. And you're like, well,
why did they say this person got shot? But there
(27:11):
was like five other people that got shot too, like
their life just wasn't worth mentioning on the news or
you know, just like stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
That's right, And those are the cases we're covering. Some
of my cases, the famous ones, they've been done to death.
We're going deeper now, we're showing you the cases. You
don't hear about five six people a family slaughter. I mean,
shouldn't you hear about that? No? Yeah, no, no you
(27:39):
don't because they live in the Bronx. Bronx is not exciting.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
But then you think about the Brian Coburger case where
you're just like, he actually killed less people and it
has the media attention worldwide. I mean it's a little
bit of a different circumstance, but still, I mean, yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
It's strange, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Yeah, yeah, it really is. It just shows you how
things could just be portrayed and give an impression on
the whole world of how things really are when they're
really not like that.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Sure, when Gene Hackman and his wife died, I did
so many interviews and so many talking heads on every
station to talk about how they died and what was
suspicious and what was not suspicious. But meanwhile, there were
people being left and right who are not movie stars. Yeah,
and we don't hear about them. But I guess that's
(28:31):
what makes a big story for the media.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, it sure does. So when you went to the
Indian Ocean tsunami, you were working at the EMMY at
the time.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yes, I was the who the United Nations branch for
medical and disaster work. They invited my boss and I
to go over there to not to take over the job, certainly,
but to provide assistance. We brought DNA scientists with us
and apologists, you know, and we we just helped to
(29:04):
guide and to consult with them. But they did a
truific job.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah, that's just that's just another cool thing to mention
in your particular profession. That because you've got to see
a lot of different things that didn't happen in Manhattan
or in New York City, which is which is really
cool that you can go on these missions on different
areas where there it's disasters and you can contribute as well.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, I felt I felt that that was really an
important thing to do, is not take over, but just
go in and share a little of my experience or advice.
You know, we had plenty of experience because we did
nine to eleven, so of course, you know, identifying twenty
twenty something thousands body parts, there was there was a
(29:54):
lot of lessons learned and we shared them. I also
went to Hong Kong and did a conference for their
government there where we just shared what we had learned
there at the nine to eleven, at the tsunami and.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Airplane crashes that I worked and train wrecks, and we
shared the knowledge with them, and it was a privilege
to learn from them and to share with them.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Well, you were at that plane crash like two months
after nine to eleven, right, Like, how did your office
handle that?
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Oh my god, that was extraordinary. You know, when nine
to eleven happened, everyday, death still happened, homicide still occurred.
So we ran the office on two tracks. One was
the day to day city track of cases. The other
track was strictly nine to eleven. Then comes flight five
eighty seven and everyone thought, oh my god, sabotage and
(30:50):
of the terrorist attack, and so we had to run
that on a separate track, separate numbering system, separate people working.
And then after that there were the antrax envelopes coming
to the TV station, so more terrorist stuff. Uh, you know,
it was very, very difficult, but also very you know,
(31:15):
there's like an adrenaline rush when you you get when
you when you have a mission, when you have something
important that you must help with, you must assist it.
The adrenaline rush is incredible because you get the satisfaction
of maybe getting some justice for a family, maybe helping
(31:36):
the victims chiller to be brought to justice. So yeah,
it's a lot.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Well, before we wrap up, I just want to ask you.
You know, you're retired now obviously from that from that
particular job. So does this doing this show kind of
make it feel like you're kind of in the action
again a little bit?
Speaker 1 (31:56):
It sure does, And you know I miss the action
I have. Yeah, but I've devoted my life now since
I'm not doing cases any more, you know, directly, I've
devoted it to creative pursuits, writing the book, doing this show,
and you know it, it's enormously satisfying. But every time
(32:17):
I get in there, God, I miss miss the work,
the camaraderie, working with the police and ypds, aces of
the country. As far as I'm concerns, I miss it.
I miss it a lot.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Yeah, and that's cool that you could bring some of
your old colleagues in with you as well and have
them because I know that all the retired guys are like,
you know, there's you just kind of get bored. There's nothing.
You know, my husband's always like wants to be inside
a burning building. It's just the way that it is.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Well, thanks so much for being here.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
It was awesome.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I'm talking to you, and good luck with your show,
and everybody will watch your show. I guarantee it. It's
going to be great and you will get a second season,
I promise.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Mar Thank you both so much. It's a pleasure to
see you always.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Okay, all right, we'll see you next time we have dinner.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Bye bye, bye bye.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Thank you for listening to Mother Knows Death. As a reminder,
my training is as a pathologist's assistant. I have a
master's level education and specialize in anatomy and pathology education.
I am not a doctor and I have not diagnosed
or treated anyone dead or alive without the assistance of
a licensed medical doctor. This show, my website, and social
(33:39):
media accounts are designed to educate and inform people based
on my experience working in pathology, so they can make
healthier decisions regarding their life and well being. Always remember
that science is changing every day and the opinions expressed
in this episode are based on my knowledge of those
subjects at the time of publication. If you are having
(34:01):
a medical problem, have a medical question, or having a
medical emergency, please contact your physician or visit an urgent
care center, emergency room, or hospital. Please rate, review, and
subscribe to Mother Knows Death on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or
anywhere you get podcasts. Thanks
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