Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: An Alternate Ending Edward LeClair

Episode Date: March 25, 2023

Edward LeClair, aged 57, was on trial in Denton, Texas for five counts of sexual abuse. While being read his conviction, he chugged an entire bottle of water in the courtroom. LeClair was then transported to a holding cell and later when checked on by the bailiff was found unconscious. Emergency services were immediately called and LeClair was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. In this episode of Body Bags, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan and special guest co-host Dave Mack discuss LeClair’s crimes, his decision to take his own life, sodium nitrate, what it does to your body, and more. Subscribe to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan : Apple Podcasts Spotify iHeart Show Notes: 0:00 - Intro 1:17 - Background  4:45 - Sentence for going after a minor 6:30 - The bottle of water 9:45 - LeClair’s decision to take his own life 11:50 - Would he have been allowed in with his own bottle of water? 14:55 - What substance was in the bottle? 17:50 - Sodium Nitrate 20:50 - What does Sodium Nitrate do to your body? 25:00 - Other times Sodium Nitrate has been used and what the toxicology tells us 28:15 - Can you reverse the effects of poisons? Could LeClair’s death have been prevented? 30:10 - Wrap up  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. You talk to any prosecutor that's been doing it for a while, and some of the most memorable moments that they have in court is when they've completed a case and they've got a conviction. And there on the other side of the room stands the individual that has now been charged, prosecuted, and stands to pay the price for their misdeeds.

And the prosecutors will tell you it runs a gamut. You never know how anybody is going to react on any particular day to a sentence. But for us today, we're going to talk about an individual who may have thought he was cheating the hangman. Today, we're going to talk about the death of Edward LeClair that actually began at the time of his sentencing in a Denton, Texas courtroom. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. For those of you listening to my voice today, I have to just remind you that if there is anyone either listening or if you have a friend that is dealing with thoughts of self-harm, suicide, there is help for you. And that help can be found at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. And that number is 1-800-273-8255. That's 800-273-TALK, T-A-L-K.

Joining me today is my good buddy, Dave Mack. Dave's a crime reporter for Crime Online. Dave, I got to tell you, sometimes a bottle of water is not as innocent as people might think. When you told me about this story, my first thought was, how in the world can you get anything into a courtroom? In this particular case, Edward LeClaire at 57 years old, accused and on trial, five counts of sexual abuse. And he was out on bail. So he came in from the outside. He was not in jail being led into court. And so I thought he snuck it in that way. Nope. He actually bought a bottle of water, Joe, inside the courthouse.

They saw him on video, 7 a.m., buying a bottle of water out of the machine. In there, that bottle of water was just fine. He was able to go through all the things one has to to go to court, and nobody found anything on him, apparently. So we find Edward LeClaire waiting on the judge to read the verdict from the jury. Three hours later, we have a verdict. You have a well-planned out thing for Edward LeClaire. You called it cheating the hangman. I thought how interesting of a term that was. He was prepared for a guilty verdict. Yeah, he's staring down the barrel of

this thing. He knows what's coming. The evidence that had been presented was so incredibly overwhelming. Lawyers like to use the term compelling when they're talking about things relative to evidentiary value. This evidence is so compelling that it causes you to give pause and you can begin to see this thread that runs through the entire prosecution. Here's what happened. Edward LeClaire met a girl online. At first, he didn't know how old she was, but after they met up the first time, he learned how old she was,

and that was 14. She told him she was 14. He continued to come after this girl. Well, right there, you can't say I didn't know how old she was because she told you. And there is evidence. There's plenty of information onlineire has a girlfriend, Melody Mel Shea. She found out about this ongoing situation between Edward LeClaire and a girl. And when Edward LeClaire would not stop what he was doing, she goes to the girl and said, he is grooming you. When Edward LeClaire didn't let up, the girlfriend went to the victim's mother, which is how all of this came about. And we ended up with 57-year-old Edward LeClaire staring at up to 100 years in prison.

Yeah. And you think about what could that possibly hold for him? Because when he goes into the prison system, we've heard all of the stories for all of the years about what happens to people that abuse children. Whether or not you knew she was of age, the court is going to hang that on you. That's going to be worn around your neck forever and ever. Amen. And you're talking about 100 years. And there's only so much isolation in the prison system that they can do relative to individuals that have been charged with

crimes against children. And this guy has got a background where he doesn't really have a criminal past at all. As a matter of fact, he had been in the Navy. He had gotten out. And for years, he had worked as an executive or corporate recruiter and had a good career leading up to this point in time. And then he makes this decision. You were mentioning he had an awareness after that first time that he engaged with her,

where she told him or revealed to him that she was 14. Now, I'm not saying that he would have gotten out of this scot-free had he ceased and desisted at that moment in time in the criminal activity. But the fact that he continued with knowledge that he was committing a criminal act, he continued to do this. And it's important for people to understand for every time he engages in this behavior, that's an individual count. And anything that's associated with it, you got everything from enticement to the actual act itself. Each individual element of these crimes has distinct punishments that come along with it.

And so, the entire time, you're just piling more and more onto this thing, and he's aware of it. It doesn't surprise me that he wanted to get a bottle of water. You're nervous, and one of the physiological reactions to being anxious and being on edge is that you develop dry mouth. I don't think that for the folks in the courtroom, it was necessarily a surprise that he had a bottle of water. I think even his defense attorney at some point in time had commented on the fact that he was sweating and that he had the bottle of water and he suddenly began to toss this thing back. The only problem is that he didn't just simply take a sip. He took the bottle and guzzled it.

Important to note that he did that after the judge read guilty on the first charge. Once he heard guilty on the first charge, that was when the bottle top came off and he tripped it back. charge. Once he heard guilty on the first charge, that was when the bottle top came off and he tipped it back. That's an awareness that you're staring into a very dark chasm at that point in time because you know this is not going to get better. What's fascinating is that he had exhibited no kind of disengagement during the trial. As a matter of fact, his attorney, his counsel there at the table with him was saying that he was fully engaged the entire time. He was taking notes. He was asking questions. He was fully involved. He began to understand the depth and breadth of

everything that was involved. Can you imagine sitting in that chair, you've committed these acts, and now they're kind of slow rolling this thing out before you. Every single act that you've committed these acts and now they're kind of slow rolling this thing out before you every single act that you've been engaged in with this minor child and you're watching this develop in front of you and you can see it it's like a house fire that kind of sweeps through your entire life and you see it just being burned down to the ground and many times in my experience as a death investigator, this happens with people that do finally wind up taking their lives. They have these things that occur in their life that just push them to the edge. And it's not necessarily every single time it is one single event. It is the culmination of everything over a period of time. But I think that this happened in a condensed version for him.

And who knows, maybe it started from the first time that he engaged with this young girl. And maybe he was ridden with guilt to begin with. And he just decided not to stop. And it started all the way back there. And then finally, in conclusion, he decides that he's going to take his life. Being in court is kind of like, it's very formal for people that have never actually been in court. And still to this day, if I have to go to court as many times as I've done it over the course of my career, it's intimidating. But how much more so for somebody that has just had a sentence passed on them, particularly when you're talking about what LeClaire was faced with. And I cannot begin to imagine where his mind was going at this time, Dave.

You mentioned that Edward LeClaire, he's a 57-year-old man. He had a Navy career. He was a corporate recruiter. And then he's charged with five counts of sexual assault on a person between the ages of 14 and 17. He pleaded not guilty on all the charges, and he knows if he's guilty on the first count, all the others, he's going to be guilty on all those. So, he is nervous, and he knows what's coming.

And I think in a case like this, it is essentially like dominoes. It's going to fall, and you can kind of see the proverbial writing on the wall at that point in time. So, you really wonder, was this going to be the trigger event that when he heard that term, he knew that it was all over and that he was determined to take his life? When someone is found guilty like this and you know what you're facing, there are certain steps that have to take place. First off, we mentioned earlier on that he had walked into this courtroom under his own free will. So, obviously, he'd been out on bond. He showed up and appeared at his own sentencing. He didn't try to go on the run or anything. What witnesses later stated, though, was that they did see him go to a vending machine in the courthouse and retrieve a bottle of water from it.

When we think about planning, and taking one's life does require some planning, sometimes it can be done spontaneously, but many times people will ruminate over and think about it for a protracted period of time. I find it very interesting in this case that he didn't show up with a bottle of water to begin with. He went to the vending machine to retrieve a bottle of water. I think some things can be taken away from that. Was there a chance that he might not go through with it? Because you would think that if he was certainly prepared to do that, it requires two things. First off, you have to have the agent that you're going to use, the poison, if you will, and then you have to have the conveyance for it. You have to have a water in order to mix this substance up with.

He didn't show up prepared for that, which is quite striking when you begin to think about it. Joe, if he had come into court with a water bottle that was cloudy and didn't look like water, he would not have been allowed in with it. That is true. But why didn't he just show up with a previously bought bottle of water from home? He actually went to the machine in the lobby there to purchase this thing, which is odd. Just think about this. How many times have we been to a vending machine, you put your money in, and it says sold out? How many times? That's the ultimate frustration, right? Wouldn't that be something? He shows up, he puts his money in, and things says sold out. How many times? That's the ultimate in frustration, right? Wouldn't that be something? You know, he shows up, he puts his money in and things says sold out. Now, what are you going to do? You're going to get a bottle of soda instead of a bottle of water?

Can you predict what's going to happen if you put this agent into a carbonated beverage as opposed to just straight up water? I don't know. It just seems a bit risky on one hand to me, Dave, that he would show up without that element in place. But I do know this, he showed up with a substance that was very lethal. Well, let me ask you, because Joe, I didn't think about that. I just looked at it as his pre-planning was, I'm going to come into court, I'm going to go through all the things that check me out, and I'll go buy a bottle of water. And then somehow in the time period between the time he buys the bottle of water and the

verdict is read, he is able to put something in the water that witnesses said was cloudy, but it didn't occur to me if it was out, if he could have done it with another liquid. We just know that he had water and that witnesses said that water was cloudy, which again, he was drinking it in such an odd fashion after the first guilty that it did draw attention. People did notice, including an investigator for the county. It's within our nature as humans. When somebody is faced with this kind of charge in LeClaire's case, that's so very ominous and dark. When you hear this, and if you're in the audience, whether you're the judge

or maybe a detective that has been following the case, maybe worked the case, his counsel that's sitting next to him, or maybe the prosecutor, or maybe just a reporter that showed up from the local newspaper and you're taking notes, you're going to be looking at this guy anyway, because that's what everybody wants to see. They want to see how someone is going to react. Camera will pan over to that individual in court. It's the ultimate in drama. And to try to capture their reaction, how much more so in a case like this where you've got a guy that's literally looking at spending the rest of his life in prison. He's certainly now going to be a convicted sex offender at that point in time.

Then he's going to be put into the population in Texas in state penitentiary, where he's going to have a very rough go of it. That in and of itself is drama enough, but you're right, Dave, when you say that suddenly it's not just taking sips, it's throwing this thing back and guzzling it. Some reports say that he actually grimaced a bit when this occurred. So, you're thinking, It's not just taking sips. It's throwing this thing back and guzzling it. Some reports say that he actually grimaced a bit when this occurred. So you're thinking, why is he drinking water like this? Because all of us can kind of identify with having dry mouth. You're kind of knocked that back as best you can. But no, that's not what happened.

I guess the only way to really phrase this, he was drinking with a purpose. I'm going to ask you, Joe, what could he possibly mix with water that could cause his demise? What could he do where nobody can see? Because he's got to do this hidden. He's got his bottle of water there. He somehow is able to open it and put something in that water. The prosecutor believed early on that LeClaire had perhaps ingested cyanide. And I think that most people think of as kind of a default position when you suspect that someone has taken their own life, they're ingesting something. Cyanide is kind of this classic thing that you see in the movies. We've

heard of L-pills that contain cyanide where people can take their own lives. And it's kind of what we think about. Interestingly enough, it was not cyanide. It's actually a chemical that is used sometimes to decrease the lethality of cyanide ingestion. It's kind of fascinating because he chose to use a substance called sodium nitrate. It's a salt. And we most commonly associate it with preservation of food. It's something that you find in any kind of food preservative nowadays. We've heard of how years ago they used to salt meat to store it for a protracted period of time.

People have a smokehouse. They would salt their meat. We're talking about pure salt in order to do that. This is a compound, sodium nitrite. have a smokehouse, they would salt their meat. We're talking about pure salt in order to do that. This is a compound, sodium nitrite, and it's utilized in order to not just preserve food, but it also facilitates maintaining kind of a healthy-looking color to food. In the old days, salt would actually dry out the meat to the point where it would look brown and it would make it very unappetizing in appearance but with this substance it still maintains kind of a beefy red appearance it still looks palatable even though the salted meat in the past was palatable and

preserved but there's something to be said for something that still looks viable when we're looking to ingest something. And it still achieved the same goal. But this substance that's used for a wide variety of things, as I said, it can be used as a treatment to knock down cyanide ingestion. It's also used in treating metals. It's got a very broad spectrum utility to it. But here's the thing. When taken in very big doses, it's highly, highly lethal. And of course, in the case of Leclerc, it ended his life. Sodium nitrite, a stroke of genius, as it were.

It's something that is easily accessible. It's a substance that just about anybody can get their hands on. If you try to find an agent like cyanide, you're going to draw attention to yourself. But with this particular substance, it is something that the general public can actually purchase and readily use. And in this case, that's what Leclerc decided to end his life with, Dave. Now, you're kind of confusing me just a little bit because you said that sodium nitrite can be used to make meat look more appealing. Yet, in the same token, the very thing that can make the food look better can kill me as well and is readily available. And you pointed out cyanide is going to draw attention, but sodium nitrite is something that is common and commonly used in many different things. How much is enough? If I'm

using it to make my meat look good, is there like you can go three marshmallows, but the fourth one's going to kill you? I don't know if I'd reduce it down to marshmallows, Dave, but you have to have a significant amount of it, and you would have to have the ability to transport it as well. In appearance, it's a white crystalline substance. It's a salt. So, it's going to have that kind of appearance to it. It's completely odorless. So, it's not necessarily going to draw attention to you. It was a real risk, I think, for him to bring it into the courthouse, though, because you're surrounded with law enforcement types. You've got this in some kind of conveyance, whether it be, and they've never been very specific about this, but you've either got it in a bag or you've got it in some kind of vial.

And just imagine you're around law enforcement types. They know that you're going into criminal court and suddenly they search you. Well, the default position for the police around law enforcement types. They know that you're going into criminal court, and suddenly they search you. Well, the default position for the police or law enforcement is if they search you and they find a baggie with a white, crystalline, nonspecific substance in it, they're automatically going to begin to think, well, what is this? Is it some type of illicit drug? Could it be coke? Could it be meth? Could it be any of these things running the risk with the bottle of water not showing up with it be coke? Could it be meth? Could it be any of these things? Running the risk with

the bottle of water, not showing up with it in hand. And then you're going to walk into the courtroom with a white crystalline substance. You're really kind of sticking your neck out here with this plan. But he decided to roll the dice. And in this case, it certainly worked. And with this particular substance, it inhibits the uptake of oxygen. And in this case, it certainly worked. And with this particular substance, it inhibits the uptake of oxygen. Our red blood cells transport oxygen to our cells throughout our body. With the introduction of the substance into the system, it inhibits that ability. So, the oxygen can't bond with the hemoglobin and transport it around. And it causes, at a cellular level, for the cells to begin to struggle. You have to have oxygenated blood in order to function.

And essentially, the cells, for lack of a better term, begin to kind of strangulate at that point in time. This shocked everyone. Nobody saw this coming. Knowing what he was facing, facing 100 years in prison, nobody thought this was going to happen. They didn't. It's not like he had gone through some type of assessment just prior to walking into court.

He's here to hear the final outcome. Trial has been going on. He's living on the outside. And he's faced with the reality. He knows what the evidence is. He's faced with reality. There's a chance he is not walking back out of that courtroom without bracelets on his wrist and not being shackled at this point in time.

And he's got a very narrow window to work with. So in answer to your question, I'm thinking probably a 5 gram to 10 gram dosage would probably be enough to push him over the edge. And it would certainly give that water that cloudy appearance. The water didn't appear dirty. It kind of turns it into not really beige, but kind of a white. It is water-soluble, but it takes a few seconds for it to begin to break down where you would not be able to appreciate it. So, he dumped it in pretty quick and used the water to ingest it. It begins to work very, very quickly. When they begin to take him away,

already at a cellular level, he's beginning to struggle. He becomes diaphoretic. His skin is getting cold, clammy, starting to sweat, unsteady gait. They're leading him back to a holding cell where they take all of these people that have been found guilty. And once they plop him down in that holding cell, he begins to vomit. He begins to vomit. It's the body's reaction, at least in the initial phase, to the substance being within his digestive tract at that point. His body's having this retching event that's kind of clear the system, but it's too late at that point. As a matter of fact, at autopsy, one of the things that you see with the gastric mucosa,

which is kind of the lining of the esophagus and the stomach, when that area is opened and you've been exposed to the substance, it forms this film. It's kind of got a beige appearance to it. It's a reactive event that your body reacting to this stuff. Just from the initial onset, you've got an indication in the gastric mucosa that the stuff is being absorbed. That's one of the quickest ways to get it into the system. So, it's already being absorbed. As soon as it begins to hit his mouth, that digestive process begins at that point, and

it's going out systemically at this point. It's getting into his bloodstream. It's inhibiting oxygen uptake. The body is retching. It's trying to get rid of it. And another thing that you see with this kind of event is that individuals become hypoxic. That's an outward demonstration of a lack of oxygen. Sometimes they'll become cyanotic.

And cyanotic or cyanosis is something that you see many times with congestive heart failure or respiratory failure. You see it with drug addicts many times. They'll have this eggplant-colored hue that comes over them where they're purple almost. But in his case, he was in the early stages when they initially saw him. The reports were that he had become very pale, ashen, and eventually he begins to convulse, which is again associated with ingestion of this stuff. When you think about the time involved, he starts drinking after the first guilty verdict is read. They read all five.

He's chugging. Ding, ding, ding. He's taking this down. Five verdicts. Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. And then the judge then sends the jury out of the room, our convicted pedophile. They're both sent out of the room. He is moved to a holding cell adjacent of the room. He is moved to a

holding cell adjacent to the courtroom. The jury moved to their room. He immediately goes in there and starts throwing up, which isn't going to shock anyone right away. The man was just found guilty. He's now a convicted pedophile. He knows he's staring a hundred years in prison. That's what the judge is going to now discuss with the attorneys about sentencing. So while he's in there, he starts throwing up and somebody says, hey, I believe it was the investigator for Denton County said, go check on him. Something's not right. And that's when a bailiff went and checked on him and found him unconscious. It was that quick. It is that quick. That goes to the level of

lethality. And this is something that he had planned out. But here's the key, Dave. I found this quite chilling when I was taking a look at this case. This is not the first of these cases involving someone utilizing this substance. I guess it was back in 21, you had this young actor, Matthew Mindler, that had utilized the substance to kill himself with. There's also another actress that had utilized the substance. You himself with. There's also another actress that had utilized the substance. You got a couple of kids out there that have used it. The fascinating thing is that Amazon, the company Amazon, was actually sued over the substance because people were peddling what turned out to be, quote unquote, suicide kits. There's no reason for anyone to be in possession of this substance unless you're preserving or curing meat at home perhaps. And it's not something that's naturally occurring

in our system. At autopsy, after you've done the gross examination, we've talked about this on body bags before where you're actually staring at the organs after you have the body open. Then you do the dissection. You look at the changes microscopically through histological examinations, and there will be a few changes that you can notice, but nothing really specific. So, the answers are traditionally going to rest in toxicology, and that's one of the reasons it took some time for them to work their way through it. They know at the medical examiner's office that they're dealing with some kind of toxin that has brought his death about. It's not like he was just found lying out on the street deceased.

They know that this is something that he has ingested. The trick is, how do you begin to whittle this down? And when you're conducting an investigation like this, it's not just what you find at autopsy. You have to go back to this individual's home where they were dwelling. You have to look for receipts. You have to look for maybe a larger amount of this substance. Did they have access to it? Did they work in an industry, perhaps, that utilizes substance?

You would look through the computer files. You'd want to see, had he searched out means to take my own life by some type of substance that I can ingest, he's not going to walk into the courtroom and be able to get through a metal detector with a gun. In his mind, apparently, this was the next best thing. And there have been other people that have taken poisons in court. There have actually been people that have done great harm to themselves in court. But in this particular instance, he had to have something that was portable, that he could simply unscrew the top of a bottle of water and pour this in very carefully without drawing any kind of notice and shake this thing up and then ingest it. This brings us to another point. He's thought about this. I wonder, back at his home, if when the investigators went there, they found any evidence that he had been practicing. Because that's something that occurs many times with

people that decide to take their lives. They will go through a series of exercises to see if things function. We see this with suicide by gunfire. People will do what's called test firing a weapon. We hear about test firing as it applies to ballistic examination or gunfire examination. Individuals that are bent on taking their life with a firearm, they will actually test fire weapons prior to using them on themselves. If you suspect somebody has poisoned themselves, is there something that can be done that could reverse the effects of this and maybe other poisons? For years and years, there's been an induction of vomiting that has occurred. You hear about

people having their stomachs pumped, but most of the time that's going to be with prescription medications. Many of those things will have like time releases. With a substance like this, time is a big element here. You said something very, very interesting a moment ago, Dave, that had not struck me until this moment. And that was when they take him back to that holding cell and he's in there and he begins vomiting, that would not be an unexpected reaction to this kind of sentence, would it? So, you have a time delay there, I think. And some people have drawn this into question in this particular case. Did they delay getting the paramedics there?

Well, when you see somebody begin throwing up, you don't automatically think poisoning. Okay? It's not like the guy's got a sign around his neck that says, I've just ingested this. You got a guy that is looking at 100 years as a sex offender in a state penitentiary at this point in time. I could see somebody throwing up. I could see somebody having severe gastrointestinal distress at this moment in time. So, the bailiff, who you can only imagine these holding cells, have seen just about everything in there. And to see somebody throwing up is not beyond the pale. It's something that may have been expected.

Maybe it's something they had seen before. So they're going to delay. But it's when he goes into an unconscious state, when he starts to convulse, this sort of thing, they know they've got a problem. So time is of the essence. Is there an agent that they could have induced vomiting with? Perhaps. But the key is there was nobody around to do that. And this agent worked so very quickly, Dave, that he was beyond salvation at that point in time.

The number to call if you or somebody you know is suffering through life right now and is really considering taking their own life or causing harm, the number to call is 800-273-TALK. That's 8255. 800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. You're listening to an iHeart podcast