Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Body Bags: Murder in Piedmont Park

Episode Date: November 20, 2021

Discretion advised: Details in this report may be disturbing.Katherine “Katie” Janness takes her dog, Bowie, for a late-night walk in the Midtown area of Atlanta. Janness stops at a local bar to say hello to her girlfriend, who's working.  When Janness' girlfriend gets off work, no one is home, but should have been. After unanswered phone calls and texts, Emma Clark uses the 'find my phone' app, which leads her to a horrifying discovery. Just inside Atlanta's popular Piedmont Park, 40-year-old Katherine Janness has been brutally attacked, stabbed more than 50 times, and her body horrifically mutilated. Letters have been carved into her abdomen and the amount of blood present indicates, Janness may have still been alive when it happened.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. We all have a place of peace that we try to seek out at the end of a long day of work. Maybe go for a walk. Take our dog with us. Our best friend. Clear our mind. That place of safety.

That place of peace. Suddenly explodes. And your life comes to the end. Somebody's wielding a knife. They're hovering over you. They're bearing the knife into your body over and over and over again. And maybe the last thing you see is your dog dying right before you. That's our case today.

I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. Joining me today is my good friend Jackie Howard, executive producer of Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Jackie, what can you tell us about this case? Catherine Katie Janis took her dog Bowie for a walk in Atlanta's Piedmont Park. Now, Piedmont Park, to put this in terms where other people who are not from this area can understand, would be like taking a walk in Central Park in New York. Katie went to see her girlfriend, Emma, who was working down the street as a bartender. And there were lots of people out walking their own dogs. This is kind of a typical scene for this midtown neighborhood. After leaving

the bar, Katie continued her walk. After work, Emma went home, but Katie wasn't there. She should have been. She should have been back from the dog walk by then. So Emma started calling Katie's cell phone, but did not get an answer. Then she sent text messages. They also went unanswered. And that's when the worry set in and Emma went out to look for Katie. Now, obviously, when you're walking a dog, you can go anywhere. So Emma used the Find My iPhone app on Katie's phone. It showed Katie's phone was about 100 yards inside Piedmont Park, which was very close to Katie and Emma's home. Emma thought maybe Katie had dropped the

phone, so she went into the park to find it. But what she finds is a very gruesome scene. The first thing she saw was Bowie. Bowie was dead. That is the dog. And it's a pit bull. Not too far away, Emma found Katie's body and she was dead. This is a very gruesome crime, Joe, that we're going to talk about. But let's talk about the beginning. Bowie and Katie were not found next to each other, but they were found, especially Bowie, at the entrance of the park. There's so much to talk about here, Joe. Jackie, I got to tell you, as you know, I worked in Atlanta for a long time and I'm very familiar with Piedmont Park. This is a wide open space in the area where this young woman was found with her pet is immediately adjacent to one of the main entrances to the park. It's this kind of

big arched area that you can walk through that, you know, plainly states Piedmont Park. It's an area where people actually go through on a regular basis to take nice, long, peaceful walks through this area. It's very bucolic, beautiful old trees and this sort of thing, areas to picnic. And the fact that her body, her body is actually found, I mean, let's face it in plain view is quite striking to me, you know, as an investigator, when you begin to look at a scene like this and trust me, what this young woman went through took time. So that tells us something about the perpetrator. They essentially had no fear of being found, perhaps. Now, you know, some people say, well, you know, that's under the cover of darkness.

Yeah, it is under the cover of darkness, but it's not like we're out in a cow pasture in, you know, rural Georgia somewhere. We're in one of the most populated cities in the South. People walk through this area. They make it a point to walk through this area. It's very popular. Who would do this in this specific environment? And you begin to think about the nature of the scene, where she was found, where Bowie was found. And you have to think this must have been an absolute bloodbath around this area because there were so many injuries to both Janice's body as well as her pet dog's body that blood would have been spilled on all of the surfaces. And those are some of the things that you have to think about as an investigator.

It's an open area. Who would have access to it? Who would have knowledge that she would be walking through this specific area at this time of evening? And who would be bold enough, bold enough to approach this young woman who, as you mentioned, is walking along with a pit bull at their side? I don't know about you, Jackie, but for me, a person that's got a pit bull in tow is going to be probably one of the last people I'm going to want to try to target because they're very affectionate when it comes to their master. They are very protective when it comes to their master. So that gives us an insight into who may have perpetrated this. One of the things that struck me about this show, you were talking about the big sign that goes into Piedmont Park. And on the very bottom of the sign, there is a post that says pets must

be on a leash. So it's not like the pit bull got away and ran after somebody. We know the dog was on a leash to begin with. So we know that the initial attack, the two of them were standing close together. Yeah, yeah. They absolutely would have been standing close together. She's got the dog in tow or it's like my dogs. My dogs have me in tow, you know, many times they're excited. They're ready to get out of the house. They want to go for a walk.

This is their happy place. So you know that the dog was right by her side as they're walking along. The dog didn't get away. The dog didn't alert on something, I don't think, and hopped off the leash magically and ran off to chase somebody that was a threat. That dog would have hung back, if you will, in order to protect Miss Janice. So that's something that comes to mind when you're beginning to try to assess the scene out there in this open area. How did they get this much distance between the dog and the dog's master. How does that happen in this environment in the midst of this attack?

So, you know, it really gives you pause to think. So how does this happen, Joe? How do you kill a dog? Now, we do know there was not a gun used in this attack. How do you kill a pit bull with a knife or a stabbing instrument of some kind? I mean, a pit bull is extremely strong. A pit bull can be in protective mode, and we're assuming that that's the case. A pit bull can be vicious.

So how was the perpetrator able to do this? And do they do autopsies on dogs? You know, in answer to your question, Jackie, yeah, they do. They do examinations on dogs. Now, in this particular case, from my understanding, at least at this point, Bowie's body did not go to the medical examiner's office, for instance, there in the city of Atlanta. The dog's body was actually taken by the state investigative agency, the GBI. And I would probably put money on it that they would have a consulting veterinarian, perhaps, as well as a forensic pathologist out at the state medical examiner's lab to take a look at the dog's injuries. And this is important because,

you know, listen, the dog and Ms. Janice were not killed in two separate instances. This is all one big event that's taking place. So from an evidentiary standpoint, one of the things that you're going to be looking for when it comes to injuries. You want to be able to try to compare the injuries that the dog had to those that Miss Janice sustained. Is it the same knife? That's the big question here, right? Because we do know that this is a sharp force injury death. So, you know, some of the things that you're going to be looking for

on Bowie's body, for instance, is this a single edged weapon or was it a double edged weapon? Was it a particular type of knife that was used? Say, for instance, something that had a smooth edge as opposed to, say, for instance, a serrated edge, which sometimes you can have a combination of both, and it leaves very, very distinctive markings that can be examined after the fact and possibly, possibly compared, certainly at a microscopic level. And there again, you've got this connectivity in forensic science that we are always looking for. And in a case like this, we have two victims. And we would have to be looking for DNA in the dog's mouth because most likely the dog went on

an attack so that we'd be looking for evidence from a dog bite? Oh, you're absolutely right. One of the things that you would look for is you'd mentioned DNA, Jackie, but let's keep in mind, how does a dog attack? Well, when a dog attacks, they bite and they rip. I want everybody to think about just for a second, and this is kind of a little indwelling lesson here. People are familiar with the two pointy teeth that you have on the top and on the bottom. These are actually referred to as canine teeth. And the way biting actually works is that these teeth are sunk in to say, for instance, tissue. When a dog bites, it doesn't chew. The dog bites and it rips. So you're not just going to be looking at a molecular level for DNA that you might can swab

Bowie's mouth for, but you're also going to be looking for things like tissue that might be caught up in the teeth or maybe even fabric that's caught up in the teeth. And these things would actually be left behind. Keep in mind, you know, I cannot imagine in my wildest fantasies that the perpetrator would have taken time to go back and clean the dog's mouth out. There would be something there if, in fact, the dog did attack this potential perpetrator. And again, this begs the question, a dog that is so prone to a defensive posture and a protection posture, like a pit bull, how do you get so close to them that you can actually drive a knife, not just once, but multiple times into this canine's body?

And while this is going on, what's Miss Janice doing? Is she already deceased? Or is she looking on in horror? Jackie, we've had a little discussion about the nature of this environment in which this poor woman was just brutally attacked along with her pet dog, Bowie. We need to talk a little bit now, as hard as it is. We've got to talk about these injuries because I've got to tell you, Jackie, in my career, I've seen very few cases that even rival this one. Katie Janis was found about 100 yards inside the park and about 100 feet from Bowie was found and where Miss Janice was found, that likely Katie Janice tried to run away and the killer caught up to her. And we do know that she died from, as we've talked about, sharp force injuries. Where were those injuries and what kind of damage do they do?

Jackie, I've actually got the autopsy report here laying before me as you and I are chatting right now. And I've spent the past few days just going over it. And I got to tell you, it's extensive. I mean, absolutely awash with details about what she went through. And, you know, we'll try to take this from the top and just walk through this very carefully. She's got, you know, like I said previously, these are what are referred to as sharp force injuries. Now, sharp force injuries, just so our audience understands,

is it's anything that involves an edged weapon. And that can either be a stab wound. And stabs, keep in mind, are deeper than they are long. And then you have incised wounds, which are, just think of them as slices, and they're generally shallow. Okay? So, with Ms. Janice's body, we have to think about, well, first off, how can somebody get so close to her in order to facilitate this? Because there were so many injuries. Was somebody laying in wait for her as she walked through this gate or through this archway at Piedmont Park, you know, kind of tracking her along. And there was such, there's such a level

of trauma here that it's hard to kind of take its measure. I think that one of the things that really stood out to me was the fact that I don't normally use this term, but there is an attempt, at least on my part, at least from my perspective as a medical legal death investigator, an attempt to disfigure Ms. Janice. And kind of let me lay the groundwork here. She's got a lot of injuries over the totality of her torso. But what's really striking is that her face, and these are all, if you think about the head, we have the front, which is referred to as the anterior. These are all anterior injuries. And they start actually at the forehead. There's even one, I think that goes

to the very top of the head. They go all the way to the top, slice through the forehead, across the surface of both eyes. Both eyelids are involved. Just, you know, just keep that in mind. The lips are actually incised. Remember we talked about an incised one. That's a cut. That's a slice all the way down to the chin. And there are multiple of these. So it's almost like somebody is in a fevered state as they are attempting to disfigure her, slice her up and really make her into this grotesque person in death. And you really have to think about, you know, I think to a great degree, what's going on inside the mind of a perpetrator in a case like this. What you're describing to me, Joe, sounds like a slasher film. Yeah, it kind of does, doesn't it, Jackie? You know, you begin to think about it. And to give

our audience a little understanding of this, one of these injuries that really stood out to me, obviously the slicing of the eyes is significant, or the eyelids. One of the things that really kind of stuck with me is that the forensic pathologist talks about the slice injury to the mouth goes down to the buccal mucosa. Remember, we've heard that term before. That's actually where we go and harvest DNA out of the living with swabs. That means that not only was the lip sliced through, it goes through what's referred to in forensic terms as it's a full thickness wound, which means it goes all the way down to underlying tissue. So you've sliced through the lip at this point in time. That gives you an idea as to what has happened. And one other interesting component is that as you work your way down from these injuries on the head, and I'm not suggesting in any way that this is the order in which they took place,

but, you know, if we're kind of, because there's so many injuries here, if we kind of think about this anatomically, if you start with a head, after we have examined all of these injuries on the head, you have to begin to think about, well, the neck, you know, what's involved with the neck. Oh, my gosh, it's remarkable. If you think about the right side of your neck starting essentially directly below your right ear, there is an incised injury that runs. Again, this is what's referred to as full thickness injury. It goes down through the sub-Q fat into the vessels and into the muscle. that Ms. Janice, both of her carotid arteries, which are the main blood supply that goes from the heart to the brain, both of those were sliced through. Now, that's at a depth of over an inch

beneath the surface of your neck tissue. You're getting down close to probably two inches in thickness. You're going down there. And not only that, but her trachea, her windpipe essentially, is what the doctor refers to as transected. These vessels are transected. The windpipe is transected going all the way down to the cervical vertebra. So the supports for the head from a skeletal standpoint, that's becoming involved now. You've even got on the backside of her neck, the skeletal attachments, the muscle skeletal attachments back there, Jackie, the muscles were sliced as well. That's like the C2, C3 level of the vertebra.

So those are really high up in the neck and those have also been cut away. And what's really ghastly about this is the fact that in those muscles on the back of the neck they found hemorrhage and guess what when you find hemorrhage that's an indication the heart's still beating we know that she had over 50 wounds This is taking some time and some effort. Yeah, it does take time, Jackie. You know, when I started reading this autopsy report, I began to think about the years, all of those years I spent working in the morgue as an autopsy assistant. And let's face it, we're just going to be adults here and talk about this.

I spent that time prosecting human cadavers. And it would, of course, we were very purposeful in what we would do. But, you know, autopsies many times involve sharp instruments. That's what we do. And it would take, you know, two hours sometimes. We're talking about a tremendous number of sharp force injuries that have taken place in an open space out on the bare earth, if you will, in plain view, mind you, though it is at night, it's still in plain view. These are taking place out there. So was this a frenzied event or was she somehow removed somewhere else, maybe undercover and all of this stuff was done to her? But you can't get past the fact that this was facilitated by an individual that

had to take a significant amount of time. You know, you can say frenzy, we can apply that term, but still, it doesn't necessarily mean that it happened over a very short period of time. This knife was buried into her body every single time. And remember, every time a knife is buried, it takes effort on the part of the perpetrator to pull it out. You know, you talked about the stab wounds that she had on her back. She had a stab wound so deep on her back. And, you know, I like to teach my students that when you think about an attack

from the rear, people kind of contract up into almost like a turtle shell. The back is hard to get through. This knife was buried into her back so deeply that it actually punctured one of her lungs posteriorly, which means from behind. And here's a kicker. One of the wounds actually penetrated her aorta, which is the main vessel that comes off of the heart that supplies blood to the rest of the body. And you know what I know about this?

I know that she was alive when this was happening because her left chest, her left chest, where her left lung is in the aorta, had begun to fill up with blood. That means that the heart is still beating at this point. And what's very important here, when you begin to try to put this together from a forensic pathology standpoint, you begin to think about what's referred to as sequencing of injuries, because everybody wants to know, what was the fatal blow that brought about her death at the end of the day and how much of the stuff that was going on, this trauma, was it anti-mortem or was it post-mortem? And that means staying around with the body after an individual is deceased to continue

to slice and cut and stab and all of these things that are involved. And she's even got, you know, and we haven't even mentioned contusion. She's got multiple blunt force contusion. So she was struck in some way or struck with something. We don't know what that was, whether it was a hand or a fist or some object, but she does have multiple, you know, that's a lot of activity going on in a case like this, Jackie. So, Joe, what does it tell us about the weapon? You were just talking about that she was stabbed so deep that it cut the eight order around the heart.

What does that tell us about the size or the possible size of the weapon? I think probably one of the most significant things about this weapon, Jackie, I think a lot of people want to think about things like the length of the blade. That's important. Okay. That is certainly important. It's certainly something that we consider, but you know, what really fascinates me about this weapon is that this weapon would have had to have been sturdy. That is the backside of that weapon. If it's a single edge blade, just, you know, if you have an opportunity to go into your kitchen or whatever and look at the knives you have in your drawer, if you take out like an old butter knife or even a steak knife that you've picked up at the store, they're not really robust. They have specific edges on them, and the back is not very robust.

But if you find a butcher knife, like a substantial butcher knife, there's going to be a thickness that occurs on the back of this. And the reason this is important to me, remember what I said about stabbing her in her posterior chest, her back, you're going to have to be able to generate so much force, not just once, not just twice, but we're talking about 50 injuries, Jackie. So that means that that blade would have had to have been strong enough to endure this frenetic slicing and stabbing over and over and over again unless the perpetrator showed up with multiple edged weapons. And one more thing that you have to consider about this. These are very specific injuries. Okay. You know, one of the reasons we sharpen knives, you know, some people have

sharpeners at home. One of the reasons we do that is because you lose your edge, you know, after a period of time, you slice things over and over and over again in the kitchen, you have to resharpen that knife or it's not worth anything. How is it that this knife, you can still continue to use this time after time after time? So I would think that that would be a good indicator from a forensic standpoint as to how well the knife was sharpened, the quality of the blade that it's being utilized, because as these injuries go on, the nature of the injuries is going to become more blunted, if you will. You might see more hemorrhage associated with it because the edge is not there as it was the first time that you put the edge of that knife to Miss Janice's body. The last one is going to be particularly difficult to enter into her body with because the edge is gone on the weapon at that point in time, or it's not the

same as it was when you actually started. Joe, knowing what you've taught me about blood and how it comes from the body while the heart is still pumping, we have two victims here, a dog and a woman. This perpetrator is going to be covered, covered, literally covered in blood. How does a person just walk away and not be seen covered in blood? I've thought about this. This is one of the very compelling points about this case, because you're going to have human blood and canine blood, which in forensic parlance is that's what we refer to as commingling of blood. You can't get past that. And I don't like to maybe I'm being too melodramatic, but I don't like to use the term covered in blood. I like to say use the term bathed in blood, almost painted in blood, because you've got Bowie's blood and Miss Janice's blood commingled, and it would be covering certainly the hands, the arms.

If any of the arteries are clipped on either one of the victims, you might have arterial spray. So that means if you clip an artery as the heart is pumping, blood will be not just gushing out, it'll be spraying out onto the individual. You can't escape that. That's going to be happening. So you might have, if the perpetrator is in a dominant position, not only going to have blood up and down their arms,

think about the area beneath their neck. Think about the area over their chest. Think about the area over their chest. Maybe they've got clothing on. It's going to be covered in this area, almost like they've been painted with blood all over them. So how much blood are we actually talking about here, Joe? You're saying nicking an artery. How much blood are we talking about? Well, you got to think, Jackie, that Ms. Janice's body and the dog's body are not going to be completely drained of blood. There will still be blood there. Now, I can't tell you the volume of blood that a dog has, but I can tell you with a human being, we're looking at potentially somewhere in the neighborhood of about two gallons.

That's the totality of blood that a human being has on board. You have to think that at least probably, I don't know, half a gallon of blood would have been spilled. And it's not just one artery, Jackie. You've got multiple arteries that are probably being clipped. I mean, let's face it. Both of the carotid arteries were clipped in this case. And also the fact that you have to go into, remember what I said earlier about the lung being punctured and the chest is filling up with blood? We think while the heart is beating, one of the things that happens with that is that you have what's referred to as regurgitation of blood. If a lung gets clipped, so you have an individual that's actually forcing blood out of their airway, it's just a natural response to try to clear the airway. So they're coughing and they're spraying blood out. So you

would have to account for that as well. It would be hard to do the calculus simply trying to think about how much blood would be at the scene, but I can tell you it would be a substantial amount. Jackie, as horrible as these injuries are that we're describing right now, there's one piece to this that we still have yet to cover. And it might be, to many of our listeners, one of the most shocking things that any of us have ever heard. It is, Joe. We have learned through the forensic information and the autopsy that Ms. Janice's body was extremely mutilated.

You talked about the damage that had been done to her face, but we know that her body was mutilated and carved. Letters were carved into this woman's abdomen, Joe. Yeah. And I've had cases that are kind of similar to this, but I don't think anything that's this over the top. There were letters carved into her body. I want to back up just for a second and also make note of the fact that not only were letters carved into her body. I want to back up just for a second and also make note of the fact that not only were letters carved into her body,

remember how I talked about that there was great facial disfigure, disfiguration. In addition to that, her left breast, the nipple of her left breast has been severely disfigured as well, sliced, if you will, down to the subcutaneous fat area. So that's again, a full thickness injury. And I hate the word why, but as an investigator, sometimes you have to go there with that. You have to understand, try to understand why specifically would you

target that particular area of the body. And, you know, I think that's pretty obvious. You know, many people will say that there is a sexual connotation there, that there is an attempt to disfigure an individual when you attack their sexual being, if you will. And in this case, her breast was essentially mutilated. But if that was not bad enough, Ms. Janice also had the letters F, A, T carved into her lower chest and into her abdomen. This injury is extensive. The letters F and A are essentially to the right of the midline, which is the middle of the body. And they kind of involve the midline as well. Someone took the time to take the tip of that knife. Remember the knife that we've talked about extensively that I believe is kind of robust.

It's kind of sturdy. And take the tip of that knife and go down just shy of an inch for the letters F and a dragging that tip through the tissue down to the bone, if you will, and kind of laying out these letters side by side. But then as you cross over the midline, you get to the letter T. They took more time with this, Jackie. The incised area that involved the letter T went down even deeper, almost like they were taking more time to kind of put their stamp on this in finality. Can you imagine taking that knife and dragging it across to do the crossbar on the T and then down?

And these letters are several inches in length and width. And again, it goes to this factor of time. Who in their right mind, and I think that that's a valid question here, right mind, would have taken the time to do something so grotesque to this young woman in this environment where they could just plainly be seen. And then it's kind of the final with her body. I just want folks to really picture this so that you can understand what has happened. If you will go, you know, everybody has a sternum. It's that solid, flat bone that's right in the center of your chest. If you'll go to the base of your sternum, there's a little area down there that's called the xiphoid process.

It's kind of a little cartilaginous body. It's the terminus, if you will, of your breastbone. Move from there all the way down to your pubic bone. Ms. Janice was actually sliced from that point at the xiphoid all the way down to her pubis. And this injury went so deep, Jackie, that loops of her intestines or bowels were actually hanging out. And again, this is really hard to hear, I know. But in the report of the forensic pathologist,

the pathologist actually noted that there was hemorrhage in the bowel. And that gives you an indication. She might not have had an awareness of it, but her heart was beating. Remember, we're not necessarily going to hemorrhage if our heart is not beating. And so that really paints this horrible picture of what this young woman went through. So are you telling me, Joe, that she was still alive when this happened? Yeah, I think that we can look back on a lot of these injuries and say that she had at least some kind of level of awareness of what was happening. A lot of these injuries that have been noted over the course of her body have areas of hemorrhage. And some of these things are

going to be post-mortem. The physician doesn't go into great detail, but the detail that this individual does go into relative to these injuries, there are any number of them where there was, in fact, hemorrhage involving these insults or injuries. Remember, let's think back to what I said about the hemorrhage in the neck relative to these muscles that are adjacent to the cervical spine, these skeletal support muscles. And then the pathologist makes note of these hemorrhagic areas in the bowel. I mean, can any of us imagine? I mean, these are areas that you get into that when you're undergoing surgery, you're under. You have anesthesia that's being applied to you so that there is no awareness whatsoever. With her, with Ms. Janice, she would have had an awareness of what was being done to

her, at least for some time. We can only hope that, mercifully, maybe she lost consciousness, and I think that she probably did. But in the meantime, she was just utterly and totally ripped to shreds in this case. We know with the injuries that she sustained, there was particular mutilation damage to the tattoo area on her back, to her breast, to her face. I know you're not a psychologist, Joe, but you've been studying forensics for a very long time. Does this say to us that this was much as much as a psychological, a torturous attack as it was just a physical frenzy? Yeah, this goes deep, deep down into psychopathology. Because when you try to, I mean, let's face it, when we meet friends and loved ones,

the first thing we notice about them are going to be their faces, right? It's that, it's that identifier that we have as, as human beings would look into their eyes. We speak to them. What was destroyed on her? Well, her eyelids were sliced. Her mouth was cut open down to the, to the fatty layer. And then you're going to mutilate a breast. These, these things are specific identifiers that, that, you know, identify our humanity, right? Who we are as people, the tattoo is significant because that's something that

she would have had to have paid someone. And after she had picked this design out, that was unique to her, that she loved. I mean, she loved it to the point where she's walking around with it every day. Why would you go to the point to try to destroy that? Well, I submit, and again, like you said, I'm no psychologist, but I've been around a lot of cases where people have been ripped to shreds. And when you go after their specific identity, when you try to rob them of their individual person, that says a lot about the perpetrator. I think the question that we have to ask is, how would you even begin to measure this level of rage? And I think to a great degree, hatred in order to just absolutely rip this young woman to shreds. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.