Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Buried with Head Sticking Out of Ground: The Brutal Murder of Sam Holthaus

Episode Date: July 12, 2026

Kenneth McNally shot 59-year-old Samuel Holthaus in the face, tied an extension cord around his neck and the other end to the victim's pickup truck, dragged the mortally wounded man more than 300 feet, buried most of his body in a shallow grave, leaving his head sticking out from the ground. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss the death of a well-liked man, Samuel Holthaus, by a man who was on probation for attacking a dog with an axe.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Quality Bucks with Joseph Scott Moore. I want you to think about a number real quick. A number I'm going to give you. It's not some kind of mind reading trick or anything here. Think about a number. 216.

216. 216. Now, take that number and think about it in terms of years. I can tell you, 216 years from now, I ain't going to be here. I think I'd be just absolutely too tired to be here. But imagine, imagine, if you will, you've committed multiple crimes that are so incredibly heinous that the courts in California have sentenced you to 216 years.

Today, we're going to talk about an individual that has recently been sentenced. And the story I'm going to lay on you today and what he did to wind up where he is, well, it's nothing short of a horror story. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body bags. So, 216 years from... now, Dave. If my calculations are correct, we will be in the year 2,242. It reminds me of the, what was that song from the 60s? In the year 25, 25, 25. And by the way, trivia, trivia. Zagrin Evans

have the only song in the history of the top 40 that went from number one to completely off the charts. Never happened before. No kidding. No, it hasn't happened. You mean it's just like instantaneously, it was, it was big forever. I mean, it was like huge, huge, huge, big for weeks. I mean, number one song forever. And then it was like everybody stopped playing it the same day. They went, okay, we're done. And it was gone.

So from number one to off the charts, there you go. And now. I don't know that I've ever really taken time to dissect that song. Is it, was it too? I mean, when you compare it to like the Archie Sugar, Sugar, Sugar, was it just too existential? or everybody. I don't know.

I'm just asking for a friend, all right. I'm trying to understand. I'll give you more trivia. Do you know who originally was supposed to record sugar, sugar? The monkeys.

It was written for the monkeys. That kind of makes sense. That kind of makes sense. They refused to record it. So the writers all said, the brilsty guys, fine. Don Kirchner,

we'll do it ourselves. We don't need you. So they just got a bunch of studio people, get Ron Dante and a few others to go sing it. There you go. Friends, Do you see why I love Brother Dave?

I could sit around with this man and have discussions with him about all kinds of things, particularly dealing with pop culture in the 60s and 70s and particularly music. It's something that we both share a love for. But I got to tell you, Dave, there ain't too much love for the subject, the center. Well, there was a lot of love for our victim a lot, and that's evidenced in everything that came out afterwards about this. But I got to tell you, this individual, this monster that committed these crimes, ain't too much love there. Let me tell you that family members said of Samuel Holtus, who is our victim, that he was a generous man who often cooked meals for homeless people. He was devoted to helping mankind.

He cooked meals for homeless people. He didn't give him a dollar to go to McDonald's. He didn't, you know, he went and cooked meals specifically for people without. That's the kind of person our victim is today. And when you hear what was done to him, it happened in El Cajon, California, which is just outside of San Diego, Southern California. When deputies responded to reports of a suspicious death on a property, the suspicious death was that basically somebody tripped over a head sticking out of the dirt.

Is that about right, Joe? Yeah, yeah, it is. And can I tell you, it's kind of getting in the Wayback Machine. And I think the name of this movie is correct. There was a movie, one of these horror movies, kind of schlocky kind of things, but it was really popular. I think it was called Motel Hell. It came out in the 80s. And it was, these people were burying people in the backyard.

And I think their heads were sticking up out of the ground. And I got to tell you, Dave, when I, when I heard about this, these circumstances. And listen, the burial part of it is the least of it. Oh, yeah. And, you know, this, you know, this mental moron here, he didn't even have the ability to create a really good grave, right? So he's doing one or two things. He's either ineffective at digging a grave or he's a sadist, the ultimate in sadist, where it's almost like taunting the dead, that you could be disrespectful to the dead.

And yeah, our victim here, Dave, his head, he was buried so that his head was protruding up out of the ground in the shallow grave. Think about the effort, okay, of what you're doing. a lot of times, and I don't try to get into the mind of those who would do murder, but oftentimes when people do a crime and they dig a shallow grave, they put the body and cover it up in hopes that they'll get away. But this one, he went out, he told all the trouble to bury the body, but make sure the head was sticking up. So it wasn't like he got in a hurry.

He did it on purpose. And the thing is, in this area that we're looking in outside, of El Cajon, California. It was a six-acre area that had a number of trailers, house trailers on it. And Kenneth McNally Jr., he's the guy who was living in several different trailers over a period of time. He was not well-like, Joe. Kenneth McNally, Jr., had problems with everybody, it seems, but he kept bouncing around. You know, he'd stay over here at this trailer for a little while, and then he'd go to another one for a while and just continue to wear out his welcome.

But I want you to take a look at what was taking place in the weeks before Samuel Haltus at the age of 59, a guy who cooked meals for the homeless before he was killed. Kenneth McNally, Jr. has a lengthy criminal history. He was on probation for a conviction of a. attacking a dog with an axe. Think about that for just a minute. It wasn't enough to just, you know, kick a dog or something. No, no. He attacked a dog with an axe and was convicted and was on probation for that.

On his post-release community service, you know, when you have a probation officer, right? And he was on probation for attacking the dog with the axe. He had two documented attacks against his probation. officer, Joe. Now, I thought that if something went bad with your probation officer, the probie pulled your work and, you know, pulled your paper and put you back in jail, right? That's what I assumed happened. Yeah, back into the joint because, you know, you have to think about this is demonstrative, but violence, obviously, I think that that's, I'm the master of understatement today. Yeah, I think so. So when you come after a parole officer

like this and you're going to attack them, I don't understand. Unless it just goes to the point of, well, it's easier to keep him out on the street because our prisons are full. You know, we can't accommodate him. In today's world with governmental oversight bosses, this sort of thing, I can imagine a world where a government supervisor would look at a probation officer that was attacked and say, this is probably your fault. Oh my God.

This happened to you at the hands of this person. It's not his fault. He has to be excused. Let's add some more things that weren't his fault, Joe. You know, I told you that he was living in the six-acre compound with a number of different trailers. Well, he threatened one resident with a handgun. Now remember, he's on probation for attacking a dog with an axe. Now he's threatening a human being with a gun.

he fired several shots into another person's van and people living in the same compound with him in some of the trailers that he was living in from time to time. And he strangled a roommate while making incoherent statements before someone intervened. Now, this is while on probation for attacking the dog, resisting a police officer, attacking the people that are providing him with shelter, and then the only reason that doesn't kill this one person is because somebody got in the middle of it and intervened. And he was still not put back in jail.

This seems to be a theme that's running through a lot of cases that we're covering recently. And listen, I know it goes without saying that this happens all the while, and I hate to use the term epidemic. epidemic is, that's a term that is used without much thought to it. You know, they'll apply the term epidemic to other events and other things that are occurring that are not, there's no underpinning from a scientific standpoint. This is a organizational behavior problem that leads to this.

So, you know, all signs point back to those that are in charge relative to how, individuals are being handled. You know, it's, it's amazing that people will sit back and say, I can't believe this happened. What, you've been living in another universe? You're saying you can't believe this happened. And over and over again, we see violent offenders that are cut loose on on the rest of us that are just trying to get by, trying to live our lives, trying to live in peace. And yet, these people go uninterdicted. And it's a constant thing. They're always allowed, given more latitude. They're given more range, you know, to go out and bully people around and make their lives horrible. How many women do we talk about on this show that are living in fear

of domestic violence all the time? And nothing ever happens relative to the people until, you know, those women, of course, they wind up on our show because they're murder victims. And, you know, we wind up talking about some ghastly thing that has happened to them. And the forensics is unbelievable. You know, we sit there and, you know, and we'll stand back and we'll say, wow, this is really, really horrible. Well, Holmes, let me tell you something. Horrible could have been avoided, all right? It could have been avoided early on. But unfortunately, we handle people like this with kit gloves and we don't want to do anything about it

or the authorities don't want to do anything about it because they're afraid that they're going to offend somebody or they're afraid that they're going to violate, I don't know, whatever community norms there might be. The one norm that we have as human beings is an expectation that we're going to be able to live a peaceful and fruitful life. You know, I'm sure that if you're living on six acres outside of San Diego, you're not thinking that you're going to be living next door to a raving lunatic that attacks dogs with hatchets. And also, you're not going to live adjacent to somebody who, for all that we know, was one of the most benevolent people around that would help the least among us.

Who knew that the most benevolent could coexist in a world and in a space with the most malevolent? I'm Ruby Carr, the host of the podcast, Encore. Check out our brand new episodes featuring music from the show that everyone is reheating as we speak. Heated rivalry. Join me as I go behind the podcast.

songs that brought Shane and Elia together. I'll tell you the stories of Fice, My Moon, My Man, Wolf forades, I'll Believe in Anything, and tattoos all the things she said, and how they all became a part of this global phenomenon. Stream encore on IHeart Radio, crave, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brother Dave, sometimes I sit back and I think,

you know, gee whiz, I see these cases that we talk about, particularly from a scientific standpoint, you think about just all of the havoc that has been visited upon victims. And, you know, it's really easy to go through the science of it. I think to a certain degree, it can be rather complex many times, obviously. But the science part is the easy part. The explaining how we wound up where we're having to use science to explain things is the hard part to it, right? And in this particular case, this poor man was subjected to just the ultimate in brutality day.

Well, you know, we mentioned the type of man, 59-year-old Samuel Haltus was. But the type of man that Kenneth McNally Jr. was, well, here's what was happening, September 3rd, 2023. Okay? We've mentioned he's living in a compound, a six-acre area with a number of trailers where people. live and McNally has lived amongst these people for a while. They know what kind of person he is. This is not going to be one of those scenes, Joe, where you're going to have a reporter talking to a neighbor that says, he was such a quiet guy. I never expected anything like this. As soon as the reporters got on scene, anyone that wanted to talk, they're like, oh man, we can't believe he was

walking amongst us. Kenneth McNally, September 3rd, 2023, was terrorizing people that lived in the area. people he would call friends or acquaintances, McNally was demanding somebody drive him off the property. Get me out of here. They said he was acting erratically and aggressively in demanding somebody give him a right out of the place and that he was intimating, holding his hands in a certain way to make him them believe that he was armed, that he was holding a weapon, that he was willing to use said weapon to get his way. His way being, get me out of here. Now, we don't know what was going on in his head to make him feel like that, but we know that this is a guy who has no boundaries, no physical boundaries to anything, anywhere, any time.

And I got to be honest with you, Joe, if I was one of those people living in those trailers in this six-acre compound, I'd be afraid of McNally. Kenneth McNally Jr. would have frightened me because he doesn't seem to care. You know, you can usually reason with somebody. You can reason with animals. Not this guy. He could not be reasoned with. So September 3rd, 2023, that is the day that Kenneth McNally decided to kill the one person on planet Earth that if Kenneth McNally was homeless and needed food, Samuel Haltus would have made him the meal.

He would have made the meal and fed the man. But what he got, I had to read over the police report a couple times, Joe, because we do have the physical reports of what was seen, what happened. But we also have statements made by Kenneth McNally Jr. talking about what he did. I don't know if he was bragging or confessing or both. but we have an idea of what he did, and it's all bad. Kenes McNally Jr. shot Samuel Holtus in the face with a gun.

He then, McNally, tied an extension cord around Samuel Holtus neck. He attached the other end of the extension cord to a pickup truck. Kenneth McNally Jr. then dragged Samuel Holtus cord wrapped around his neck, dragging him with the truck 329 feet. He drugged him

to the area where he was going to use a shallow grave to put his body in the dirt. Not all of his body, but about 75, 80%. But, Joe, that's what Kenneth McNally, Jr. did to Samuel Haltus. You already know he left his head sticking up out of the shallow grave. Now, I don't know how much head, because we know that he was shot in the face, Joe, and you're going to have to shed some light on this for me because I've been trying to figure out,

was it just the top of his head, like, you know, hair or a bald spot, or was it his head, you know, neck up. Right. Yeah. And that's something that's quite interesting. me because there have been events over over over time where people have literally been buried up to their necks okay and it was it was kind of like a form of torture uh to do that um and left alive isn't that when the pirates used to do that on the beach they would yeah i think that there's it's been it's been done over multiple civilizations for a long long time um i don't know if they'll do it in the year 25, 25. But he's certainly going to be.

In the year, 23, they did. Yeah, the year, yeah, no kidding. When you see, you see what has been done to this victim. And let's back up just a second because I'm going to go back to the gunshot one. Yeah. I think that folks believe

that if you shoot someone in the face, that death is instantaneous, that's not the case. I want to tell you a quick little side story here. I actually had a guy that worked as he had been contracted to kill, to kill a family. And he shot the father and two sons in their home, killed them. And then I guess I don't know what happened at the end, but he took a 44, 45, sorry, caliber handgun. that he had brought to the residence inside of a binder that had a styrofoam cut out

where he could put the weapon inside of the binder and also extra magazines. And after he had shot the father and his two sons killed them both, he takes the weapon and puts it beneath his chin, pulls a trigger, and doesn't kill himself. And this is a 44 caliber. I'm sorry, I keep saying 44 caliber, 45 caliber. Colt, a semi-automatic pistol. He did succeed in blowing off the lower portion of the leading portion of his mandible,

took out part of his maxilla, his nose, and survived. I actually testified in that case. Really? Yeah, I did. And the guy still lived through it. And an interesting little aside, while they were doing reconstructive surgery. on his face and the reconstructive surgery took place at Charity Hospital. Many of you guys might remember Charity Hospital.

It was the big hospital in New Orleans got wiped out with Petrino. And they had a plastic surgeon that was working on him. These are residents led by a staff physician. They actually, when they were reconstructing his face and along his neck and rerouting things and all that sort of stuff they do, they actually wound up clipping. his vocal cords in there. And he didn't have the ability to talk anymore. And to make matters worse, he was Korean and didn't speak English. And so it was this really bizarre case. But the reason I'm telling you this is it's possible. And I've had it happen on other case. Had a guy with a

shotgun as well. And it was shot, self-inflicted, and didn't die immediately. Wandered about. So the idea that he shot this fellow in the face and that he automatically died, is, is not necessarily the case every single time. Wow. Just because you score a head shot doesn't mean the person is necessarily going to die. It all depends on where they're shot. Because you can be shot in the face without it impacting your brain. That's a possibility, right?

And so you have to take that into account. And the fact that beyond that level of violence that he would have subjected this victim to Dave, He goes and gets an electrical cord. Now, right now, you know, I'm kind of thinking, well, when you wrap an electrical cord, because he's using, he is using the neck itself as a point of contact. So if he is using that as a point of contact, he's anchoring this. It's essentially alligature, right? Right.

he's essentially tying this off around his neck. Did you know that you're going to have features on this guy's neck that will approximate what hanging would look like? Because with this you would actually get, and you and I have talked about tinting feature in the past. We've talked about it with Epstein over and over and over again, right? And you get that presentation that goes up in the back. It sharply goes up behind the ears. In a dragging case like this, where you have an individual, that is anchored by their neck,

you're actually going to get this because the weight is pulling against the rear of the truck. This is absolutely horrific because you're talking about this individual having been shot, tied off by the neck and the other end of the cord being tied to essentially the bumper or the trailer hitch and then being druged 329 feet. Now, I am imagining right now, I'm imagining right now that the surface that he would, was drug over is probably not an improved surface, okay? So your, his body is going to be making contact,

uh, with the underlying road surface. So if you're talking about, even if it's, it's fine sand, all right, um, that's still going to abrade the back.

Uh, when we see people that have been drugged by vehicles, you'll get these kind of long curve, what are referred to as curvilinear, abrasions that depended upon the side that they're on. Let's say they're on the anterior side, you know, on the chest and the abdomen, you'll still get them. If they're wearing clothing, that will add some level of protection, but even clothing gets torn away. And you can actually see that presented at autopsy.

It'll catch hold of rocks, this sort of thing. If they're on the back, same thing, you'll get these curviline or superficial marks to be really red. there won't be a tremendous amount of blood unless they go over like really sharp rocks, which I've actually seen happen, where the rocks act as like they're penetrating particular areas. What's really haunting is when you get a body into the morgue that has been drug over surface like this. And remember, we take the bodies out of the backs at the autopsies, right? and I have distinct memories of this, taking bodies out of the bag that had gravel all of the body. And just for a moment, you can hear that gravel striking the stainless steel surface of the table or the tray,

you know, where you're doing autopsy. And it really, it really captures you for a moment. You know, you hear that. You're kind of connected to that event. So the layers of terror and horror that you have here are pretty significant. I think one of the big prevailing questions, questions here about these injuries that he has sustained. One of the things that we would want to know in this particular case is, was he still alive as he was being drugged down this road?

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2026 FIFA World Cup. Stream it all live on TSN Radio. Available on IHeard Radio. Well, they just, just the horror of this action that started 300, over 300 feet away, that's only part of the tail here, right? Yeah. From a processing standpoint, we still have where his remains wound up. I want to ask you a question about when you were talking about how getting a body on the table and having, you know, sand and grit, when you have a body that's been drug and then put into a shallow grave and.

and when you're on the scene I'm trying to figure out in my head first responders show up I mean they're called because well we've got a body they're going to determine that the person is dead fairly quickly are they going to dig that person out before to see if they can render aid are they going to okay so

they're going to determine this person is dead their head sticking up but I mean because look man you could be beaten to a pulp and still be alive we have seen people you know and this yeah this goes to and a bit threatening that we were going to do an episode on the seven cardinal signs of death but this would go to one of those initial things that we would look for we're going to check for for the status of the eyes to see if they're going to respond to light right and something that you see people do on television these sorts of things right you know if the pupils have blown out and non-reactive to light and you can also

access one of the strongest pulse points in the body, which is going to be the carotid, even if you have to go subsurface slightly to feel to palpate for this. And they would probably, you know, there's actually, you know, we talk about responding to pain stimulus. Right. That's one of the seven cardinal signs. When we talk about responding to pain stimulus, generally there's like a sternal rub. If you've ever had that, if you've ever had an EMT, try to get your attention, they'll do that.

Did you know that there is a way to do pain stimulus and get them to respond? Remember how I talked about the eye to see if the pupil was blown? It's also something else you can do. If you want to try to do this, see if you can touch your own eyeball without blinking. And one of the things that happens that will be done by some people is that they will attempt, there are clinicians out there that will attempt to touch the eye of an individual if they have questions as to whether or not they're alive. Now, it's not 100% guaranteed because you can have brain injuries where you won't have

this responsiveness with the eyes, but it's just kind of a confirmatory. You reach, and if they don't react, if they don't blink or retract, that's one of the boxes that is ticked. And you couple that with checking for a carotid pulse. then, you know, right then, you're in the, you're in the neighborhood. So EMTs, and granted, it's a very bizarre situation, but EMTs roll up on bizarre situations all the time. People don't think about all the folks that are penned in cars, you know, or that have taken great. Yeah, impaled on a fence. That does happen.

It happens frequently, more frequently than people think. people that are trapped inside of debris where house has collapsed. There are people out there that have been shot multiple times. And you might walk up on them and think that they are dead, but they still have kind of agonal respirations. There's still life there. So they're going to go through this. But once the EMTs have determined, look, this guy is buried.

we see that there's some kind of trauma going on here. We're visualizing in this case, if his head is sufficient and depended upon where the entrance wound is, we see he's got a gunshot wound to the face. Right. Well, and that's the, okay, the call that came in on at 3.30 p.m. on September 3, 23, was a suspicious death. All right.

That was the call that was made. Now, and that's why I was kind of curious, because I know that people survive odd things. So somebody made the call suspicious death. Now, I want to make sure I get this exactly right because this is what officers found. Okay? San Diego

County Sheriff's deputies arrive on the scene. A witness noticed a human head protruding from the dirt and told them when they get there. They found Haltus partially buried in a shallow grave

and they found the extension cord was wrapped around his neck and it hadn't been removed. He still had the cord around his neck, Joe. He's buried in his head sticking out. But a gunshot wound to his face was obvious as well. So now I'm thinking he's buried from here up. Well, here up. Extension cord around his neck so they could see like from here up.

This gets worse as you look into it. The officers, the deputies on the scene, they're able to ascertain that he arrived in this place where his body was placed in the shallow grave by dragging you know how they could see the extension cord drag marks of the body yeah and a truck that had blood um the drag marks even led to another location so he wasn't shot in the face you know and and buried right there they were able to quickly determine that Samuel Haltus was shot in the face somewhere else and as they followed the drag trail they found the spot where a lot of coagulated blood was there and then sort of like okay he was shot

here but then he was tied up drug to here and he wasn't even buried completely he was buried so he could be found in this most heinous of ways. That's what deputies saw. This is why I don't think people understand what some law enforcement individuals go through on their daily life. I'm going to be honest with you, Joe, this right now talking, this is my crappy day at work, you know, their crappy day at work that day was being called to an, a death where a nice guy's head is sticking out above the ground. He's been his face blown away. And there's an electron cord tied around his neck like a noose.

And he was drugged to that location before he was buried. That's what their crappy day at work looked like. Well, yeah, and it's a horrible thing to have to go out and reconstruct this and try to understand what happened. But here we are. And it's one of the things that we have to do at scenes. Let me tell you about these drag marks, which is kind of interesting. interesting. One thing you're going to be looking for, and several pieces of evidence here,

if you have an individual that is being drugged behind a vehicle and you've got tire tracks, so you've got these bilateral tracks that are running in a specific direction, correct? Okay, so they're going up a hill down a road. Okay. Now, they are making impressions on the soil surface. let's say it's a soft surface, and they're making their own impression going up the road. Well, in tandem and running behind, depended upon how much slack was in that extension cord and to what length, there will be concurrent drag marks

being generated by the body that is actually going in some spots. In some spots, it's going down the midline of these tracks right in the center. Now, you can, what's interesting, if you want to try to understand which vehicle did this, and scientifically you have to demonstrate this in court. You can't just say, yeah, it was this vehicle. You would have to go in and first off, you would have to measure, you would have to get an idea of the tire tread pattern itself. And tire tread patterns are just like shoe patterns. Okay, so think about the tires on your car. The longer you use them, the more worn they become. you have to get new tires, right?

Okay. So let's just say, let's just pull, let's just say they're good ears. Does bald count as having tread? Like, I mean, yeah. They make a very distinctive pattern. Yeah, because you'll have intermittent, you'll have intermittent tread patterns relative to wear. Okay.

And let's say you have brand A from Good Year and you get a set on your brand new truck and you drive for a month. Well, I go out and buy the same truck, the same tires, or maybe it's what's called, uh, uh, hang on, let me get quite. O-A, which is called original equipment. That's a term that's used in forensics. Like OA, those are the, the tires that the truck comes with from the dealership. Right.

That, you know, if Goodyear has a contract with Ford or Chevy, whoever it is, they supply those tires. And you can go ahead and customize them and get whatever kind of tires you want, you know, but that's the OA. Well, if I go out and I order the same truck as you, you've been driving yours for a month. Well, our tread pattern, even though it's the same tire, same wheelbase of the truck,

they're going to look different because we drive different. We go over different surfaces. So those tread marks are unique to that vehicle. So when you marry that up, when you marry that up, that's going to be something that's demonstrative, right? Then when you take the victims back or his front or his side, and you compare it to the marks in the soil.

One of the things that they will ask the pathologist on the stand, you know, Dr. Jones, do these marks on the body, do they appear consistent with an individual having been drug behind a vehicle for over 300 feet? And we actually have pictures here. We're showing the pictures in court. We have pictures of what are being called drag marks on the ground, does what you're seeing right here compare to exhibit 1A, which is an image of the victim's back

at autopsy? Yes, the doctor says, yes. Within a reasonable scientific certainty, that would compare well to this. And then they'll say, now, could this particular surface create these kinds of injuries? It's a core surface. It's not improved. It's got loose gravel. It's got sand. It's composed of debris. And Dr. Jones would say, yes, that type of surface would, in fact, create within a reasonable scientific certainty, these kinds of injuries. So all the while, when they're out there and they're having to behold all this horror that you were just discussing just a second ago, a day in the life, right?

Yeah. They're having to go back and reconstruct this from where it started. my suspicion is, is that wherever, wherever this gentleman was shot in a face, there is going to be a focal area of blood there. There will probably be bits of biological material dispersed throughout those drag marks. You have to look careful for him, though. And then wherever the body came to rest, because the body could still be seeping blood at that point in time. I don't know if he survived the dragging. But even if he didn't, the body still will probably seep.

blood or seat blood from injuries that might be caused by the dragging. You can have injuries like the, well, the primary injury is this GSW to the face where it could be seeping from there as well. So you'll have these kind of beginning points and ending points, which is kind of fascinating scientifically. You mentioned that just getting shot in the face is not enough to say that's what killed him. Would you be able to determine if that was, you know, the gunshot to the face or was he strangled? Was that the electrical cord around his neck? Is that what killed him? He strangled by being towed around. Yeah, I think that the marks on the neck are going to be as close as you're going to get, brother. Okay. And this is why. We have to make an assumption, you know what they say about us soon.

But we have to make an assumption here that if, in fact, he was not dead, with a gunshot wound, we would look for indwelling hemorrhage in here, because I guarantee you dollars to donuts. Through here, through the neck, the soft tissue, the strap muscles, there is going, if he is a lot, there will be hemorrhage here. Okay. Okay. Now, he can just have agonal respirations,

but if this is traumatized to the point where these vessels are disrupted in any way, you will have hemorrhage that is created here. They'll bleed out into the interstitial tissue. the muscle tissue, all this sort of thing, and that will be existing. Now, if he is shot, if he is shot and he dies at that moment in time, okay, the gunshot one, you'll have marks on the neck, but they will not be hemorrhagic. You're not going to have, like, you'll have a furrow, but the furrow is not going to have any associated hemorrhage.

Then you reflect or dissect the neck, and you're not going to have any hemorrhage in here either. Does that mean that the neck cannot be traumatized? No, it doesn't. still have like you can still have the larynx being fractured. Possibility, though remote, depending upon how up it went, you know what I'm going to say here. You could fracture the hyoid. If it slips up high enough because there's so much force being put behind it and it goes so high, you don't know how secure the knot may have been.

If it's secured in a one focal point like that, it's not going to move a lot. And it all depends. A lot of it depends on at the pace at which The vehicle is being driven. And one other thing. If this guy is swerving back and forth, keep this in mind, the body's swerving back and forth. He was, Joe.

The body is being swerving. Just so you know, that was one of the eyewitness accounts that he was driving erratically with the body behind him. Unbelievable. And so you're going to have debris. You're going to have vegetation on the sides of the road, perhaps, that would be disrupted. They can call that drag marks as well. Let's just say that he goes over vegetation.

Okay. Any of the local flora, if you will. Yeah. He's still wearing clothes. You'll see, it's just like when we were kids, you know, and we would fall in the grass. Right. And, you know, our sears, tough skin jeans that we would wear. And mom would have to get the grass stains out of our knees, right?

And so those grass stains or that debris, whether it's cracked up wood or bits of grass or anything, that's still going to be on him. And that's something that we use in road investigations as well, where we have pedestrians struck by vehicles, individuals that are being dragged by vehicles, will look and see if anybody's gone off of the road with this while they're dragging the person that's been knocked off into vegetation

is going to be critical as well. All right. Well, there are a couple things we have. Now, you've gotten us from finding the body, determining how this individual died, cause and then one other thing came into this and that was before it got to trial Mr. McNally decided to confess he gave multiple stories about what actually took place one witness said that McNally described shooting Samuel Haltus dragging him with a noose

wrapped around his neck and burying him. That was confession number one. Confession number two, witnesses observed McNally driving Haltus truck erratically before parking it near the grave where he buried Mr. Holtus. And then we have the third witness. Now, this witness did not come forward at first, Joe. Remember how I told you this guy was kind of terrorizing everyone in this little compound? This witness did not come forward until months later.

But this witness provided a detail account of what he saw, he or she. he saw, okay? Stated that McNally shot Haltus and was witnessed by this person. This person witnessed McNally tying the electrical cord around Mr. Haltus' neck. He witnessed McNally tying the cord to the truck and then watched him as he drove 329 feet dragging Mr. Haltz's body to the burial site. those are the three eyewitness accounts or stories of confession that were told to individuals who later testified in court at the trial of Kenneth McNally Jr. So there was a lot of evidence going into this show.

Yeah, and there would have been, you know, relative to the grave once this gentleman's body was removed or extricated from that site. and it froze that moment in time for the investigators that were out there so that they could see, you know, what had, what was the end result of all of the horror that this man had reaped, you know, over this entire community. And Lord only knows how many other people in his life over the years that he was willing to do violence to. And it's a very sad end because the thing about it is, that a light has been snuffed out in an otherwise kind of dark, dark world that the light went

into for a long period of time. But yet another light shines on. It shines on in a prison in California, where this individual has been sentenced to 216 years. Let's see how violent and intimidating he is in that environment where he doesn't have a gun, he doesn't have a truck or an extension cord, he doesn't have a shuttle. Let's see how that works out for him. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is BodyBags. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.