Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Medical Misadventure or Manslaughter

Episode Date: December 10, 2023

Jessica Ross and Treveon Isaiah Taylor are filled with joy at the prospect of welcoming their newborn into the world. Tragically, their world is turned upside down when what should have been a routine childbirth becomes a horrifying series of events that end in the loss of their baby. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack unravel the deeply disturbing story of a young couple who were denied the chance to bond with their deceased child. They explore the complex layers of emotion, science, and legality surrounding the case. From a shocking refusal to permit an autopsy, to startling revelations of the baby's decapitation, the hosts scrutinize every angle. They underscore the necessity for trust between medical professionals and patients, particularly when the stakes are this high.  Subscribe to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan : Apple Podcasts Spotify iHeart Time-coded Highlights: 00:00:20 — Joseph Scott Morgan delves into the human need for tactile confirmation during grief, emphasizing the irreplaceable role touch plays in coping with a loved one's death. 00:02:40 — Dave Mack begins the narration of Jessica Ross and Treveon Isaiah Taylor's story, and ​​describes the complications that arose during the delivery.  00:05:00 — The condition called “shoulder dystocia” is explained by Joe Scott.  00:08:11 — A distinction between stillbirth and sudden infant death is made by Morgan.  00:10:42 — Morgan addresses the perilous state of the mother during childbirth, pondering on medical errors that can tip the scale from life to death. 00:11:46 — A conversation around the shocking force needed to fracture an infant’s bones brings listeners to a grim realization about the case. 00:13:00 — The timeline of the events is shared by Mack, highlighting the urgency and critical nature of the situation at hand. 00:13:54 — Parents in the dark: Mack discusses the hospital’s lack of transparency concerning the baby's condition. 00:15:42 — Exploring emotional trauma, Morgan reveals how the young couple missed a crucial bonding moment with their baby due to medical complications. 00:16:16 — Mack raises the curtain on the grim reality that the parents were actively deceived about the state of their child. 00:17:20 — Joseph Scott Morgan sheds light on the hospital's suggestion to avoid an autopsy and opt for cremation, deepening the layers of this tragic tale. 00:18:40 — The term "medical misadventure" is introduced by Morgan, who likens the medical failures in the case to manslaughter. 00:20:40 — In any medical tragedy, trust is paramount, emphasizes Morgan, particularly when the stakes are a matter of life and death. 00:21:40 — The legal implications come into play as Morgan articulates that this case should have been immediately reported to medical legal authorities. 00:24:06 — Mack discusses the parents' decision to hire Dr. Jackson Gates for an independent autopsy, and the shocking revelation that images of the decapitated baby were posted on Instagram.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. When we grieve, it's not about simply placing our head in our hands and crying. It's not about crying out to the heavens, why did this happen? There are so many elements to grief that, look, I could take a couple of hours in my own way of talking about it. But I do know this, We as humans are tactile. And what I mean is that in order to confirm something in our minds, particularly when it comes to death, there is this indwelling part of us that wants to confirm it. We want to know that that person that we love is in fact deceased. And very basic level, the only way that we can confirm that

is if we touch them, they don't respond. When we touch them, they are cold. And if you've never touched the dead, there's no other kind of cold like the cold of the dead. That's why they use terms in literature like the icy fingers of death. It's something different, but it is confirmatory for us. And I cannot imagine how hard it must be when you are a parent and you lose a child that you are not allowed to hold. Today, we're going to talk about a case just like this. We're family. We're prevented from cradling their sweet deceased angel. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. Dave, some of the stuff that we talk about on Body Bags, it's easy for me to get caught up in the science. That's always been a way, as a death investigator, I've protected myself. And I've

written about this before. I wrote about it in my memoir. If I could surround myself with the science that all of the horror that I bore witness to, it somehow shielded me. It shielded my mind and my soul. But every now and then there's a case that comes across our desk that really makes you question the world that we live in. And today is a case such as this. And the subject of this case, his name was Isaiah. And it is absolutely heartbreaking what we have found out. A young couple, Jessica Ross and Trevion Isaiah Taylor, they are the expectant parents. The pregnancy goes like normal, full term. I wonder how much their ages played into the doctors and nursing staff paying attention to them. But here's what happened. The baby's parents, Jessica Ross and Trevion

Isaiah Taylor are 20 and 21 years old. She's carried the baby full term. They go in, it's delivery time. She's in full labor. At 8.40 that night, she's in full labor. At 8.40 that night, problems start happening. It was a regular vaginal delivery and the shoulders got stuck. They had a fetal heartbeat monitor and the monitor showed by 9.26, the heart rate showed abnormal, and it began to decrease from 926 on. The whole time mom is pushing, the baby is stuck. Now, there's a term for a baby's shoulders being stuck. But in this particular case, the doctor chose a different path than what is recommended. That's the thing. This condition, and it's not like this doesn't happen. All right.

It happens regularly. It's called shoulder dystocia. And essentially what that means is that once the child has begun to crown and has the head has begun to move down the birth canal, the width of the shoulders cannot be accommodated by the birth canal. And so, it's a real struggle, particularly in this point. And this is a critical moment in time. And there's a procedure that many of our female listeners will be familiar with that involves delivery, and it's called an episiotomy. An episiotomy is when the delivery doctor, the OBGYN, actually makes a small incision and it's inferior to the birth canal. And this provides for water opening. This is commonly done. This is not something that is rare. It's not something that, hey, we need to call in a super duper specialist to have this

done. Assuming at this point, because we don't know more than this at this time, that an episiotomy was performed in order to accommodate, because the baby was presenting with dystocia, and they were having no success whatsoever. And it was only at that last moment where I think the doctor began to panic because, man, she's applying a tremendous amount of pressure here to the head to try to deliver the baby. The amount of pressure and manipulation, head, neck, bones, broken skull, things were broken on this baby that should never have been touched like this, and suction. Yeah, and suction is common. And for those that haven't seen it, there is a large suction cup, if you will, that is applied to the top of the head. And this aids in delivery as the baby is being pulled forward.

And this is a very gentle procedure that's taking place. And delivery seems quite violent. But it's going to happen. It's natural. And these professionals that are guiding the mother through this process, you're coaching her to push. She's been coached to push. And this is done over and over. And man, this labor went on for some time. She was pushing at 840. And even though the abnormal fetal heartbeat started showing in 926, she continued to push. The doctor continued using

traction and suction on the baby using manual manipulation to try to pull the baby out. It heartbeat started showing in 926. She continued to push. The doctor continued using traction and suction on the baby using manual manipulation to try to pull the baby out. It wasn't until 1149 that they did an emergency C-section and the baby's body was delivered at 1211 a.m. But the baby's head had to be delivered vaginally. The baby was decapitated. Now, was the baby decapitated by the doctor or is there another explanation for how a baby could die and be beheaded inside the womb in utero? Yeah. And that's something that would be examined in post-delivery or postpartum state, because if you have, and I've worked over the course of my career, I've worked a lot of stillbirths. It all depends on the jurisdiction that you're in as to whether or not they're going to be reported to the coroner or the medical examiner.

Okay. Now you mentioned stillbirth. That's something a lot of us are familiar with. As shocking as it is, I don't know how you possibly explain it, but is there a difference between what we're talking about here where we have a baby, how is the baby going to look that is delivered this way versus a stillbirth? Well, with stillbirths, there is many times, not every time, please don't misinterpret this, but many times there will be an awareness on the part of the practitioners and certainly family members that the child has died in utero, which means within the mother's body. And it's a very sad event that occurs. And the mother is still going to deliver, and many times they deliver vaginally, but other times they deliver these babies by C-section. And so what happens is, is that when you have a stillbirth, the big question from a scientific standpoint that has

to be asked is, why did this precious little one die? And you have to have that answer because we're talking about a mom and daddy that are 21 and 20. This is at the beginning of their lives, essentially. And you know that potentially they want to have other children. They might not can see this now. I've lost a child. It's hard to see yourself having another child. But with, in the case of a stillbirth, for instance, you want to do a postmortem examination on the baby's remains in a stillbirth because maybe there are some indicators, developmental indicators, you know, relative to the growth or the development that has gone on as a child has developed in the womb. So you have to examine that in a controlled environment in the morgue. And generally, the hospital pathologist

will do that. And it's kind of a standard thing for stillbirths to be autopsied. Now, in a case like this, because if I remember, they had a heartbeat. So this is not something that they would have had prior knowledge of. It's not like they would come to them and say, listen, we're sorry to inform you, but in this examination prior to birth, we were not detecting a heartbeat. This is very common for, and I still remember to this day, you're at the doctor's office and every time that you have a sonogram done, it's such an exciting event because you can hear the baby's heartbeat. And it lets you know that this precious little life is about to

enter into your life. And so there's no indicator here that this child was dead in utero. So that brings us to potential conclusion here that the events surrounding the death are direct result of this pressure that was applied to the child during delivery. And that's a horrible thing to consider. Here you have mama that's in this. It's a precious time, but she's very vulnerable. She's trying everything that she can do to deliver this baby. She's being directed to deliver the baby. She's being told to push.

And this has gone on for a protracted period of time. And sometime into this, you've already got this abnormality that's occurring with fetal heartbeat. And you know something is wrong, but yet you persist in this. And I think sometimes judgments get clouded, but there has to be a switch that is flipped at some point in time where you understand that the more force that is utilized, you're going to do damage to a child. And listen, you'd mentioned the forceps.

There are any number of stories out there where babies have been blinded. You have misshapen heads, that sort of thing. And sometimes the skull, and this is what makes it very, this particular case, so fascinating in one sense, is that they're talking about the fracturing of bones. And do you realize how much force has to be applied to fracture a baby's bone? Because the bones themselves, both in the skull, there's not this fusion that has necessarily this, they don't have these ossified bones like we do as adults. They're very malleable. This fracturing had taken place there and also in the neck. So that means that tension is being applied and it's being applied to the degree that there has been, unfortunately, a separation. In this particular case,

led to a decapitation. Dave, I have a distinct memory of being present when my first child was born and this precious child is there. And suddenly it dawns on you, you look around the room and you want somebody to tell you, what's the next step at this point? What do I do? I don't want to do harm. My big clumsy self, you know, and I'm thinking, what do I do? You know, What do I do? I don't want to do harm to my big clumsy self. And I'm thinking, what do I do? What do I do to guarantee that this child is going to continue to survive outside the womb? I read this and saw that at 840, she was pushing. At 926, the fetal heartbeat is going crazy. By 1149, they finally take the baby back for a C-section, but it's already over. The baby is born body only by C-section vaginally. She delivers a head, but the nurses and doctor involved in this

birth, Joe, they actually prevented the mother and father from knowing what was going on. I don't know how they did it, but I do know how crazy it is in a room when you've got a lot of confusion. Of course, you've got a C-section going on. The dad's not going to be in there for that. It's just going to be the mother. She's surrounded with nurses and a doctor. So I could see how they would do this in such a way that mom and dad do not see the baby. They don't know what has happened. You and I know more about what happened to that baby being beheaded than they did at the time. And this is their baby. Nobody told them. I was asking you about this because I was trying to understand what was going on. And you brought up a term called maceration or macerated. And I was Googling

it when you were telling me what it was, because I don't understand what we're actually physically dealing with. That's the incredible part. And we have to step back just for a second. Maceration can occur in any number of different events. But when you're talking about with a mother that delivers a child, particularly a stillborn child that is macerated, there will be, it's almost like it's evidence of decomposition in utero. And so it's almost confirmatory that the child is dead. And maceration is also used sometimes by some physicians to describe severe trauma,

where something is essentially broken down. You'll hear them use the term a macerated liver sometimes or a macerated kidney. And it's kind of a broadly used term many times, particularly in forensic pathology. But that's why it's so important, I think, that once this occurs, an event like this, you need more answers than simply a hospital staff that tells you your baby didn't make it or whatever the case might be. And it's something that really, trust me, and you know me well enough, Dave, that what I'm about to say, it takes a lot to make my skin crawl. But this information about the presentation of the child's remains, this really does make my skin crawl. And remember

what I told you earlier about that tactile thing, that if you're a mama, you want to touch your baby. You want to look at your baby. You want to see the fingers and the toes. You want to rub that little tummy. You want to pat the head, kiss the forehead, all those things. From what I'm understanding, that wasn't allowed here. The shocking truth, Joe, is that this young couple was lied to, and that's why there's a lawsuit. You mentioned touching. You know, they do a thing now when a mother gives birth, and that's why there's a lawsuit. You mentioned touching. You know, they do a thing now when a mother gives birth,

and it's called skin-on-skin time. It's a bonding time for the mother and the baby to just the two of them, skin-on-skin. And it's a very sweet thing, and that's all this family wanted. You were talking about that, and I'm just thinking what they were denied. But not only were they denied, they went to the hospital expecting to have a baby and they came home with not even a body. They actually were lied to. And then when they said, I've got to see my baby, I know my baby's dead, but I've got to see my baby. The staff, they wrapped the baby up in such a way with using blankets and whatnot so that the mother and father of this baby, baby Isaiah, did not

know that he had been decapitated. They did not know that. Nobody at the hospital told them the condition of their baby, Joe, and the medical profession. Would that not set off every alarm bell there is within the hospital? This has just happened. A baby was decapitated. This mother gave birth to a headless body by C-section, vaginally a head. I mean, isn't there going to be an examination right now, right here, calling in experts? We've got to know what happened. You would think so. And I've heard a couple of stories relative to this, and I'm sure that as the lawsuit develops, we'll hear more. But one version has it that mom and daddy were allowed only to view the child through glass. And then on top of that, the lawsuit actually

alleges that, and remember, we're talking about a 20 and 21-year-old mom and daddy, they were directed to forego an autopsy and have the baby cremated. Joe, it's even worse than forego the autopsy. They were told to their face they wanted an autopsy. We want to know what happened to our baby. And the hospital said, well, you're not entitled to a free autopsy. You don't qualify for that. I'm not trying to dismiss the trauma of a miscarriage.

However, you're talking about, and I've seen pictures of the mama displaying her belly and smiling. It's the sweetest thing. You've got a child that has gone to term, Dave, and you have no explanation as to why they have died. And they're telling you, no, you can't have an autopsy. So let me go a step further with this in my medical legal forensics mind. So, doctor, how are you going to sign the

death certificate? What are you going to put down as your fatal diagnosis? You know, when you look at a death certificate, there's under cause, there's like three of them. You have the primary and then there's a secondary and then there's the third below that. And they'll list those. And they're bulleted like that, one, two, three. And then of course you have the manner. The manner is one of the five. And I can tell you what it ain't. It ain't a natural death. This is not a natural death. And one of the things that's always fascinated me when working in the medical legal community, when things happen at hospitals and they are at the hand of staff at a hospital, it's like there's this cushion that is created and they use this term, and some people may have heard it, that's called, now dig this,

a medical misadventure. A medical misadventure describes, it's kind of a very soft thing to say, oh, it was a misadventure that led to the death of a child. Or you'll have these stories about where some physician amputates the wrong limb. That's a medical misadventure. But, you know, in the case of a death, there are things that occur while people are on the job and they bring about the death of another human being. Now, I guess you could call it an accident in the world of medical legal death investigation, but you know what a DA would call it? Manslaughter. Here's the thing about the general public when it comes to death. They don't know anything.

They don't, and they shouldn't. I don't want the general public to know a lot. I'm not saying that in a nefarious way. There's people like me that have to deal with death day in and day out. If you're a 21-year-old and a 20-year-old mom and daddy, you shouldn't be thinking about death. It should be the color of the nursery, or do I have the right car seat, or do I have enough diapers? It's very frustrating. It truly is. And so when you're in that position, you know who you're dependent upon? You're dependent upon the medical staff to give you the correct advice. What's the next step that we take?

People think about funeral homes. They rarely, if ever, think about autopsies. But in this particular case, Dave, a postmortem examination is, in fact, required. I didn't know that. I thought it was on the parents to demand it. Let's say, for instance, you have stillbirth. The coroner or the medical examiner is not going to do, in most cases, is not going to do an autopsy on stillbirth. They're just not. They'll leave that to the hospital pathologist because the hospital has been following the course of treatment. Your attending has been following your course of treatment. So they've got everything on the ready there. There's no indication that nothing nefarious has happened. However, let's just say it plainly. What's the answer here? Well, this case should, in fact,

have been reported to the medical legal authorities, given the nature of what is being stated in the lawsuit, that this is actually what happened, that we had a heartbeat and now the child is decapitated and deceased. And so the family is being told that, well, you don't qualify for an autopsy according to the lawsuit. And so they go out and they raise money for it. They cobble together whatever they can. 2,500 bucks is generally, I've seen them go all the way up to 5,000. It all depends on how much has to be done for what's referred to as a private autopsy. And there are any number of pathologists out there that can do them. Most of the time, you can find a hospital pathologist that will do it. You pay them that money, they will do the examination,

they'll do all of the microscopic slides. If it necessitates some kind of chemistries, they'll have those performed, all of that sort of thing. But they have found somebody to do this. And I'm not saying that they're relieved, because I have no way of putting myself in these poor people's minds. But at least, I can only imagine, at least they think that I'm going to have somebody give me some answers as to what happens. Now, remember, the last time that they see this baby, the baby has been presented to them wrapped up with its head appearing, at least giving the appearance. The head is still attached to the body. If this case couldn't be any worse, Dave, it actually gets worse.

It truly does. And I'm beside myself right now. Just please fill in the blanks for me here and help our friends here understand that they're out here listening. The hospital told Jessica Ross and Trevion Isaiah Taylor that they did not qualify for a free autopsy and they encouraged them to have the baby cremated. Now, Ross and Taylor opted to have a funeral and baby Isaiah was then sent to a funeral home. But remember, at this point, Ross and Taylor had seen

baby Isaiah through a window. And when they saw him, his head had been placed on his body and wrapped with a blanket in such a way to disguise the fact that he had been beheaded. So Ross and Taylor don't know their baby has been beheaded. It was only after Willie A. Watkins' funeral home notified Ross and Taylor that the baby had been decapitated. By the way, while the hospital did notify the medical examiner's office of baby Isaiah's death, the medical examiner's office says in a statement that they were not aware of the circumstances surrounding the baby's death until they were notified by Willie A. Watkins Funeral Home. Now, with information from the funeral home, Jessica Ross signs a contract with Dr. Jackson Gates to do an autopsy of baby Isaiah for $2,500.

This is a standard price for an independent autopsy. What is not standard is what happened next. Jessica Ross and Trevi and Isaiah Taylor were notified by a family member that Dr. Gates posted an image of their newborn's decapitated head on Instagram. Now, Dr. Gates claimed the pictures and video of the decapitated baby were for educational purposes, and that Dr. Gates did not name the baby in the pictures. Attorney Roderick Edmund, who is a medical doctor as well as a respected trial lawyer and represents Ross and Taylor, he asked the question, quote, what educational value is it to anybody to view a picture of a decapitated baby, unquote. Now, Gates took down the original post after getting a cease and desist letter, but two days later, two more

videos from the newborn's autopsy were published to Gates' Instagram page, and that included the autopsy of the chest cavity of the child and the cranial cavity of the child. His Instagram page, by the way, has several posts from other autopsies that he's conducted. Gates says that he does not disclose the identity of the individuals he posts. But remember, he didn't get permission from Ross and Taylor to post the pictures and video. Edmonds, their attorney, said, what community or country do we live in where somebody can form the words and say it's OK to post photos of a decapitated baby? That's filling in the blanks, Joe. You know, I've talked about how the dead, though they're not regarded as

persons any longer, the dead are the most vulnerable among us because the dead, though they're not regarded as persons any longer, the dead are the most vulnerable among us. Because the dead, first off, you can say anything about the dead you want to, and because they can't defend themselves. And that's why there are laws in the books about desecration of human remains, abuses of human remains. And this fully qualifies, as far as I'm concerned, if we are to believe what has been alleged in this suit and what the family has put forward. Because it is the type of thing that would be saw off-putting by people in the future, that if they're faced with the prospect of wanting to have an autopsy performed on one of their loved ones, oh my gosh, you know, you sit there and you think, well, is this what happens? Is this the example, the professional example that's put forth?

Because we are trusting you with the most precious thing that we have. And literally, we have nothing left. We've given everything at this point in time. We want to know what happened. And I saw one newspaper headline, I think, that stated putting salt in a wound, which in the old days, that was a form of torture. And I can't, it's hard for me to imagine. And I've heard other stories over the years about things that have been done in morgues, horrible things. But in this particular case, I cannot imagine under any circumstance why you would want to do this. And plus, who in the hell are you educating, by the way? Are you at an institution of higher learning? Is that what you're doing?

Are you putting this out there just from a salacious standpoint? I mean, I talk about death all the time, but I'm not one that's going to be pushing out these horrific images of something like this that is somebody's precious little one on display for the whole world. And so I really question this. I think that it will be interesting to see how this develops. But I got to say this, Dave, if there is anybody within the sound of my voice that ever offers up prayers, I think that this family in particular has a great need.

I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. You're listening to an iHeart podcast