Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Body Bags: An Answer for Gabby

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

After weeks of speculation, the cause of death for Gabby Petito has been released. When Petito's autopsy was performed, the coroner said quickly that Gabby was murdered. This week, we found out that the young woman was strangled to death by “human force." Dr. Brent Blue said that Petito was throttled. In today's Body Bags, death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan explain what throttling means, and what clues did the coroner find to lead to that ruling. Subscribe to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan :Apple PodcastsSpotifyiHeart Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. So we finally have an answer. Gabby Petito's cause of death. We've been waiting. And finally, that day has arrived. The coroner out in Wyoming has let us peek inside what they found, at least in the early moments of the investigation. Still more to be determined, but today we want to explore those findings

and do a deep dive into what brought about the death of Gabby Petito. I'm Joe Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. Joining me today is Jackie Howard, executive producer of Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Jackie, what do we know about the case at this point? Joe, as you mentioned, we do know that Gabby Petito was strangled to death. The coroner came out and made his announcement yesterday. And then we found out more information last night. The coroner released a little more information during an interview,

and he said that it was manual strangulation with throttling. And I'll have to tell you, I thought to myself, I can't wait till Joe Scott Morgan can explain to me what throttling is. What does that mean, Joe? This puts this at a completely different level, Jackie. You know, we early on when we first got the information that it was a strangulation death, that opens up the door to, well, there's a variety of different types of strangulation. You've got ligature strangulation, you've got something that's called mechanical strangulation, and those two can be confused sometimes. And then you have this area that's called throttling. And throttling actually means,

Jackie, that an individual takes their bare hands, and generally it's both hands, places them around the neck, and then begins to squeeze. That's where the manual comes in. That means that there's no other object involved, no other tool. You think about a ligature strangulation where you could use a belt or a scarf or a piece of rope or even a wire, but not in this case. We're talking about the coroner saw and the forensic pathologist saw at the autopsy. They saw evidence that someone had literally taken their hands and wrapped them around Gabby Petito's neck and squeezed and literally squeezed the life out of her little body.

You know, I think that most people believe that with decomposition, she had been down for, I don't know, the coroner said yesterday in his presser, you know, three to four weeks, and he wouldn't put a finer point on that. I think that most people think with decomposition that we're not going to be able to find any evidence at autopsy of any kind of trauma. And that's just not true. Because if you think about this, everybody at home, I want you to look at the surface area of the palms of your hands just for a second. Look at them and consider them. Think about squeezing an orange or an apple in your

hands and how much force you can exert. Now you take both hands and you place them over that orange or that apple and you squeeze. And that compression that's taking place there, it's going to, in cases of apples, if you do that, for instance, it's going to leave a bruise, isn't it? It's going to soften that surface. You can kind of take that and apply that to the human body. As pressure is directly applied with both hands, little areas of hemorrhage begin. And we're not just talking innocuous little areas like petechiae, pinprick. We're talking about dime size, quarter size.

And then they begin to expand. And as that pressure continues, more vessels burst. And if you think about the underlying soft tissue, the muscle tissue, everything that indwells that neck, that hemorrhage expands and begins to envelop that area. And you can, in some cases, you can actually see external markings of fingers on people's throats. And that extends even below the surface. You can actually make out these specific areas of hemorrhage. The damage would have been extensive, Jackie, extensive. me, if I can be logical for just a second, that tells me that Gabby's body was not skeletonized so that there was enough tissue left for the coroner to be able to see what you're talking about. Jackie, that is a fantastic point. And let's step back just for a second.

Think about what happened that day that the autopsy was done. That afternoon, the coroner came out and made a statement about the manner of death. Remember, we were talking about the manner of death, and I've talked about how there are five. They came out specifically that day without any further testing and said, we've got a manner. We've got a manner in this case and we're calling it homicide. And just so our listeners understand, in its purest sense, when you define that word homicide, it literally translates into death at the hands of another. It's very clinical. It's very straightforward.

So when they did her post-mortem examination, they saw something in that autopsy room. They saw something at the table as they surrounded her body. As they began to thoroughly examine her body, they saw extensive trauma. It would be so glaring because, you know, we have to factor in this idea of decomposition. So even though she'd been down three to four weeks, when they began to examine what remained of Gabby, it was so striking. It was so absolutely striking that they could definitively walk out of that room and say that the manner of death was homicide. Now, you say, well, you know what? It's kind of counterintuitive to what we do in medical legal death investigation,

because many times we'll have a cause of death, you know, like gunshot wound, for instance, and we don't have a manner because they don't know if it was accidental discharge. They don't know if it was a homicidal event. They don't know if it was accidental discharge. They don't know if it was a homicidal event. They don't know if it was suicide or maybe even undetermined. It happened in reverse in this case. And that's what, from a medical legal forensic standpoint, what makes this so unique. They were actually able to say that the manner was in fact homicide. And now they've reached the point through all of their analysis and consultations when they came up with this determination that this was a manual strangulation and not just a manual strangulation, but a throttling. That's very specific. ruled out things like a ligature strangulation involving a rope. Because if we see cases where

individuals are strangled with a rope, it leaves a deep furrow externally on the neck. It leaves a very specific underlying hemorrhage that's linear. That's not what they saw. They saw massive hemorrhage in this area, underlying where they knew, or at least they're putting forward the idea, underlying the area where the hands would have actually made contact. So they had specific identifying information and evidence at that autopsy to name this specifically as a manual strangulation via throttling. I'm back here with Jackie Howard, and Jackie and I are discussing this idea of manual strangulation and what the coroner and the forensic pathologist actually found at autopsy. Joe, you were talking about the coroner coming out and making his determination that it was homicide on the day of the autopsy. The coroner came out quickly. So he saw what you've been explaining to us very quickly. Yeah, you know, he did.

And just, I don't know, I've used the analogy. It's almost metaphorically like he sprinted to the microphone, you know, to make that. And as you well know, people in my line of work and law enforcement, we try to avoid microphones at all costs. In this particular context, he sent out a specific ruling in this case and was very quick about it. And I think there's a lot that goes into this, but keep in mind, this is an ongoing criminal investigation. You've got a person of interest that's at large, essentially. And they wanted to frame this early on and say that this is, in fact, a homicide. We need to be aware this situation is urgent. There's no doubt. There's no equivocation here. This is a homicidal event. and we need to begin to put the pieces together, first off, so that we can understand what happened to Gabby, but also so that we can enforce the urgency as it applies to tracking down Brian Laundrie and asking him for some very specific questions about what they're finding at the autopsy and forensically. You were explaining to us about the throttling,

but describe for me, Joe, what it could have been. Obviously, we don't know exactly. We weren't in the autopsy room, but what could it have been that he saw? Would he have seen actual finger marks if there was tissue? Was it bruising? What would he have seen to say this is throttling? Yeah, you know, you can see in some cases relative to contusions, which is just a fancy $10 word for bruise, you can actually see patterns that resemble, you know, finger marks or handprints. Can you say definitively that, you know, like we like to say, 100% scientific certainty on the stand that this is, in fact,

a fingerprint or a hand mark and it's tied directly. No, you can't say that. But you can say that it looks very, very similar. You can say it's consistent with, which is a term that's used a lot in forensic science as it applies to the courts. Now, some of the other things that they would have noticed at the autopsy, we can't just focus mainly on the underlying hemorrhage, which, you know, we don't know because he hasn't said anything. It could be compromised to a certain degree by decomposition. But here's something that probably is not when we begin to think about this. The cartilaginous bodies of what's commonly known. The what?

The what, Joe? The cartilaginous bodies, which is what makes up our windpipe, essentially. That underlying area in our trachea that gives it firmness. Everybody can feel this at home. Do you know that with throttling, not only do you create hemorrhage around that area, there's a crushing event that takes place. And even though cartilage is soft, it's softer certainly than bone, cartilage will fracture and it'll have its own little areas of hemorrhage. And that's one of the things that they would look for. We've heard about people having their

quote unquote windpipe crushed. That could be one of the things they're looking for. And also that tiny little bone that everybody likes to talk about, Jackie, and that, of course, is the hyoid. It sits way, way up in the neck, Jackie. I mean, way up. anatomical oddity in the rest of the human body because the hyoid bone is actually the only bone that is not articulated or connected to another bone in the human body. Its sole purpose, its sole purpose is to anchor the tongue. It holds the tongue in place. And if folks at home will just think about a horseshoe, that's kind of how it's shaped. And you can see hemorrhage in that area.

You can see fractures in that area. And because it's so hard to get to, you rarely see it associated with anything other than manual strangulation. That means direct pressure applied, and it's eventually fractured or cracked. And that would be something that would not compromise. It wouldn't compromise that manifestation. It's the tissue around it. We're talking about bone. So it's not going to be compromised by decomposition or the breakdown of soft tissue. That's not the case. It will remain present. It will remain visible. It will remain in a position where it can be examined, not just in place or like we fancy word we say in forensic

pathology, in situ, which means in place, but it can be removed and it can be examined by holding it in the hand. It can be examined microscopically, Jackie, and it can also, and this is key, can also be retained. So if you find a fractured hyoid, the practice generally is to take it out, you put it in preservative, and you save it. And you know what they do with that? I've actually seen this happen in court. They'll take an intact hyoid and they will physically bring that into the courtroom and present it as evidence. And boy, you talk about something powerful because that's the essence of the individual. That's part of their body. And if that's brought into a courtroom and they have a fractured hyoid, that's something that they can demonstrate and something the jury can

really latch on to. Joe, let's talk a little bit about the actual act of strangulation. Most people do not know, and of course I don't know either, thankfully, how much actual pressure it takes to strangle someone, how long it takes to strangle someone. Walk us through this. I mean, what would have been happening at that time that Gabby was dying? Oh, my gosh. It's a complete and total horror show is what it comes down to. And with manual strangulation and specifically throttling, let's kind of paint a picture here. In kind of classic context, when you're talking about the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim, the victim certainly can be standing. Okay.

But if we think about the interior of that van, it's impossible to stand in that van for any protracted period of time. Generally, what happens is that a perpetrator will get on top of an individual. Now, they can do this from the rear or from the front. But classically, you think about the front. And here's the really chilling dynamic about this. And keep in mind, this is a very personal event. This is intimate. This is as intimate as it can get in homicide.

When an individual is being throttled, in many cases, they are staring. They are staring the perpetrator, their killer, in the eye. And just let that sink in just for a second, because when you think about the relationship between the two in a physical sense, where the individual is eye to eye with this person, their life, the victim's life is slowly being diminished. All of the air supply is being cut off. The blood supply is being cut off because not only are you potentially crushing the windpipe, which really doesn't take that many pounds of pressure,

particularly in someone as diminutive and small and tiny as Gabby, you're also clamping down on these major vessels that run through the neck. And all of us have heard about these vessels. We've got the jugular vein, which is the return from the brain of blood. And we've also got the carotid, which is taking oxygenated blood to the brain. Remember, the brain, the head is the most vascular area in the body. What that means is that that area of the body requires more oxygenated blood than probably any other area of the human body because the brain just eats energy. It requires a tremendous amount of oxygen. So it's not just about breaking the cartilage in the neck. It's not about fracturing the hyoid in and of itself. It's not about specifically leaving hemorrhage behind in the

soft tissues. It also has to do with a deprivation of oxygen. That's the real killer here. You know, I mean, you can have deprivation of oxygen everybody knows that you know every kid on the planet has tried to hold their breath until they pass out right so explain to me that difference i mean if she passed out and and someone whoever was strangling her let go would she automatically start breathing? Or do you have to hold someone? You know, I mean, how long is this process? Some people have opined or put out the opinion that it can take up to five minutes in order to manually strangle somebody. But I got to tell you, Jackie, with a manual strangulation, you've got, we would assume, a male perpetrator, potentially powerful, big hands, hovering over a very

diminutive young lady who is, let's face it, is slight in build, kind of a fragile, very tiny neck, it really doesn't take that long. It's not like a big bodybuilder that might have a gigantic neck where you have to make your way through a lot of soft tissue. If you look at those images of Gabby, and she's so beautiful, you take a look at her and she's smiling. I want people from now on to pay attention to her neck, to take a look at it and see how delicate it is. And there's not much to it. It's supporting her head, you know, and it just kind of rises up off of her shoulders. And it's very, very slight and built. So it would not have taken a tremendous amount of pressure applied externally in order to diminish her blood supply, which is carrying oxygen, and also her ability to uptake oxygen. That means inhalate where we take in a breath and then exhalate where we're forcing

breath out. All of these processes are interconnected, Jackie. It's part of our metabolism. It's how we work. So when you introduce a throttling event into this, you completely disrupt everything that's going on with her ability to thrive and live. You're shutting down her lungs. You're shutting down her blood flow. And also you're shutting down her brain's ability to function in a normal manner. All those little synapses that are firing all of the time, they're sending messages throughout the body, whether it's stuff that is conscious, you know, maybe looking in a particular direction, moving our hands, or when it comes down to what's called our primal brain, our autonomic nervous system, which is actually telling without us knowing, it's telling our heart to beat and our lungs to take up oxygen, that's being compromised. So all of that is essentially leaving her body during this period of time. And it really paints a chilling picture.

I don't think that she had a chance in this particular case. You know, we're talking about the deprivation of oxygen. We're talking about manual strangulation in the case of Gabby Petito. But there's more to consider here, isn't there, Jackie? There is, Joe, and I'm so glad that you brought that up. You mentioned early on that in photos that you saw of Gabby when she was sand surfing, bruising on her back. Then we have the incident in Moab where Gabby and Brian were stopped by the police. And she mentioned that he grabbed her face and the officer asked her about a scratch on her face and some bruising on her shoulder. Gabby said she didn't really know. She didn't

mention any type of physical abuse by Brian, but you noticed that. So what would the autopsy or the coroner have been able to see? Yeah, let's back up one second, Jackie. I got to tell you that. Remember what that 9-11 caller said? That individual said, there's a man out here in the street, and I'm paraphrasing. There's a man out here in the street that is I'm paraphrasing, there's a man out here in the street that is slapping, that is slapping a young woman, okay? And this is in

broad daylight. Think about what that means. That means that an individual has the gall to, in public, in the light of day, in plain view, to beat up a little girl. That's what it comes down to. And so, as an investigator, what I'm going to begin to think about is, is there some kind of evidence of ongoing abuse? And you're very right. When I saw those screenshots of them sand surfing out there in Colorado, one of the things that I noticed, and I can't take full credit for this those screenshots of them sand surfing out there in Colorado, you know,

one of the things that I noticed, and I can't take full credit for this because somebody had pointed it out to me, but I began to take a look at that. And you can see on the exposed surface of her right shoulder, that there appears to be some kind of a faint demarcation right there. That is about, I don't know, to me, it looked like it was about the size of a quarter and there are multiple of these, multiple. So as an investigator,

I have to ask this question. Is that evidence that she has been contacted or struck by something, or is there evidence that maybe her equilibrium wasn't that great and she had fallen over and landed on her shoulder. So at the autopsy, you know, what we would do with that information, if in fact they had this information at the time relative to her being knocked around, would they put that in context and examine the totality of her body? The problem is this. The coroner has stated that she was down three to four weeks. Now, there's all kinds of things that go into this. But just suffice it to say that the body begins to break down. It's a natural process. And the tissue, the soft tissue, the skin, the underlying connective tissue, and certainly the muscle

begin to deteriorate. And at a, just like a microscopic level and at a cellular level, it begins to break down. The body is actually kind of in a weird way, it's kind of ingesting itself. And so as that happens, there are all these little things that we refer to as decompositional artifact. And what that means is that the body begins to manifest dark areas. It begins to kind of eradicate anything else that was there. The trick is, the trick is for these forensic scientists, were they able to differentiate between decompositional artifact, changes after death, and any kind of pre-existing trauma she may have sustained prior to the death event? You know, was there evidence of things that were there and had begun to heal? Let's think

about this just for a second. All of us have had some kind of bruise in our life. If you've got kids, you know, they'll come bounding through the door and you'll ask them as a parent, you know, where did you get that bruise? And that sort of thing. They'll give you some kind of reason for it. Every bruise that we have or contusion, it goes through stages, doesn't it? You know, just think about it. Initially, it's really bright red and then it becomes kind of a blue to purple color. Sometimes it'll go black and then blue and the purple. And then it goes through that really disgusting phase where it'll be

yellow and green, and finally it's gone. Well, that takes place over time. And it's resolving, it's healing. So the question would be from a scientific perspective, had decomposition compromised that tissue where you couldn't appreciate it fully, where you couldn't understand or be able to appreciate if there was healing going on of old injuries. And to boot, you have to also factor in what's referred to as a perimortem event. Perimortem means in the throes of. So the perimortem event in this case would be the trauma that was being inflicted upon Gabby's delicate little neck during her death event. As the life was being squeezed out of her, you've got new hemorrhage that's being created. So it's a difficult task for the forensic scientist because you've got this just huge mesh of information they're trying to disseminate and separate.

So you've got all the stuff that happened prior to her death. You've got the stuff that happened during the midst of that perimortem event I mentioned. And then you got all the stuff that happens after death. And you can see what a web this is that they kind of have to pick apart. It's no wonder that it took us, you know, several weeks downrange after they came up with the manner of death to give us a cause of death. Does the blood pooling, the blood that remains in the body when you die in a position, the blood goes to the lowest position in the body. Is that going to affect being able to tell about the bruises? You know, you're referring to something we call postmortem lividity or liver mortis. And

essentially, if you'll think about, if you'll just take at home, you'll take a cup of water and take it, stand over your sink. Don't do it in the middle of your living room, but take a cup of water, stand over the sink and tip it over. What happens to the water? Well, it goes to the lowest point of gravity. Blood is no different, okay? Any fluid that you have in your body after death, remember your blood is no longer circulating. So it is going to seek the lowest point of gravity. And I don't know this for a fact, but let's just assume that, that Gabby's body was lying in a supine position, which means her back was contacting the ground. After she's placed in that position, the blood in her body would seek that lowest point of gravity and would go to her back, wherever her body is contacting the ground, because gravity is pulling it there.

You know, gravity is a constant force in our universe. And so it will darken the skin. That's one of the things that we look at. It's one of the reasons that people refer to it as post-mortem lividity. How many of you guys have ever heard the term, you're not just angry. People will say, I'm livid. Well, the reason they say they're livid is that there's color change in your face. You ever seen somebody get so angry, their face turns red or purple? I've seen it. And so that applies to postmortem lividity. There's color changes and they stay there. They stay fixed. So you superimpose that over any kind of bruising that was there. Coupled with that, it even makes it more difficult to appreciate any kind of pre-existing trauma. And when we begin to think about that area on her right shoulder that we had mentioned,

you know, if she's laying face up, that could potentially be compromised as well because of the post-mortem lividity where the blood is settling into that area. Gravity is drawing it down. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. This is an iHeart Podcast.