Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: One-On-One with Nancy Grace and Joseph Scott Morgan

Episode Date: October 27, 2024

Nancy Grace joins Joseph Scott Morgan to talk about their years working together in front of the camera as well as their time BEFORE they were both on TV.  This is the first episode to be recorded in the brand new facility at Jacksonville State University, where Joseph Scott Morgan is the Distinguished Scholar of Applied Forensics. Nancy Grace talks with Joe about Chris Watts, Ellen Greenberg, and the most recent events in the Scott Peterson case. Recorded Live at JSU on October 9, 2024           00:57.81 INTRODUCTION  02:33.81 When did Nancy Grace and Joseph Scott Morgan meet? 05:08.13 Talking about working with Nancy Grace on HLN 10:16.87 Nancy talks about victim families. Kaylee Goncalves in particular 15:07.06 What is the biggest need for prosecutors from Forensics, be prepared 20:26.83 Talking about people coming from rural areas and metro areas 25:55.57 Processing an outdoor scene 30:19.17 The importance of the right time of death 35:42.26 Talking about Ellen Greenberg case. 40:24.33 Scott Peterson and the new testing of duct tape 45:19.91 Training Evidence custodian and the chain of evidence 50:16.21 Multiple areas of Forensics 52:47.16 Conclusion - Thanks to Nancy Grace  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Body Bags with Joseph Scott Moore. In my opinion, at least, life is a series of intersections. You go down this road that, you know, you just think that, you know, everything that happens in your life is kind of this benign event. You never know, however, when you cross paths with somebody, how that person might change your life. Today is a very special edition of Body Bags because I'm joined by one of the dearest people in my life, my good friend, Nancy Grace. And today, we're going to talk a little bit about the importance of education in forensic science.

I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. Nancy, welcome to Jacksonville State University. Well, I've got to say thank you, number one. It's a beautiful campus, and I'm so knocked out by your new forensics building. I think, of course, you'll never admit this. I think a lot of this has to do with you. I really do. You have brought the Jacksonville State Forensics Studies to the forefront, and you should really be proud of that. Now, let me think. How did we first meet?

You were still at the DA's office in Atlanta. That did not happen. And I was with the ME. And look, everybody in my world, in the medical legal world, because, you know, we're a lot smaller. Oh, here we go down the garden path. No, no, no. That's your new title. Down the garden path with Joe Scott Morgan.

No, well. Get to the point, for Pete's sake. Be direct. Okay, this is body bags. Not responsive. Not responsive. We take our time. She is unresponsive.

Okay, so here we go. We take our time. She is unresponsive. OK, so here we go. So, yeah, you know, the medical legal community, when you think about the forensic practitioners like forensic pathologists, the investigators and even people there at State Crime Lab, we're much kind of smaller group than your everyday police officers that you're going to have coming in and out of the DA's office. You mean we're all elite and special? I'm sure they're happy to hear about that. No, I don't know that we're elite. As a matter of fact, I stayed in the field probably too long because I didn't have enough good sense to get away from all these dead bodies. But I did wind up here at Jacksonville State, and it has absolutely been a blessing. And you're a big part of that. You had mentioned how I'm a part of this. I believe your honor, objection, non-responsive. I will have you declared a hostile witness. I can't do that and cross-examine you. How did we first meet? Can I be any more clear, Joe Scott? Yes. We met actually, Nancy, on a telephone call. And that's really all I'll say about that. No, say the rest.

No, we met on a telephone call. And it was at that I'll say about that. No, say the rest. No, we met on a telephone call and it was at that point that you were looking for something that you were missing from the medical examiner's office. What was it? I can't remember. It had something to do with an autopsy and I think it actually had to do with a toxicology report. Oh, hell yes. Okay. So, medical examiners never, the forensic pathologists don't take phone calls. It's the investigators that take the phone calls. And so I was on the receiving end of a bit of your fury at that moment. Tom said, well, I don't think I need to have anything to do with this woman.

Yes, actually, you did. But that's okay. So we started in conflict. I can't believe I hung up on you because you, what, told me you didn't know where it was. How can you have an autopsy and declare COD, not MOD, COD, if you don't have the toxicology report? Well, exactly. And I'm sure that that's the question you were asking. But if you knew how things operated at the office at that point in time, it would not be completely a surprise to Fulton County.

Oh, that's right. Oh, dear gravy. Yeah, everybody there would hide under their desk when they saw my beat up Honda. I didn't care if anybody walked through the door. I was a friend to all attorneys, all comers. But I always knew that I had to take everything with a grain of salt. A bag of salt. A box of salt. this, is that we, particularly, I can only speak in my practice in medical legal death investigation, we try to stay right in the middle of the road. I cannot believe any self-respecting medical examiner investigator would tell me, the DA, the ADA, that you don't have the toxicology report, yet somehow you have the manner of

death. That cannot be, because until you have that toxicology report, you don't know what happened. You might think you know, but until you find out what was in the system, you don't know. You're absolutely right. But here's the thing. Do you hear what's happening here, Dave Mack? Wake up, Dave. I see you in the distance on remote.

Do you hear him? Oh, my chest is hurting right now. This is assuming that I knew what the cause of death was at that point you wanted the damn toxicology report and it didn't exist and i couldn't pull it out of my well there you go there you go and that's how it all started that's how it all started and you know and then you follow our relationship and uh the fact that you would even consider having me on when you were certainly with HLN. And then I couldn't resist. I could never say no to you.

And I was still at my previous academic post, wound up here in Alabama. And you're actually one of the reasons that I came here. Oh, tell me. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. Because the administration had seen me on your show. And they were like, you keep popping up on HLN and you're with Nancy. And I had a relationship with them anyway.

I'd been teaching the police academy here for years and years. And I was like, yeah, I appear on Nancy's show and I appear on this show and that show and this show. And I was like, my other institution, they give me a hard time. They ask me things like, well, are you going to be here for your office hours? And the entire time I'd go on these shows, you would mention my other institution. I came to Jacksville State, and you would proudly say Jacksville State. And they saw the value in that. Hey, what was your old place?

University of North Georgia, North Georgia College up in Dahlonega, Georgia. And I helped establish the forensics program there. You know, when you think about what you do and what medical examiners do, Joe Scott, or do you insist on being called Joseph Scott? You call me anything you want. Joe Scott is really my nom de guerre with you, though. Nom de guerre, really? You've created a brand. Nom de guerre. Well, we are at a university.

Okay, look at Dave Mack. He's actually holding his head down. He's trying to say my special name that you call me. There you go. You don't want to know what Dave calls me, but go ahead. Because, and I'm not altogether jesting when I say people would hide under the desk when I would pull into the medical examiner's office. Because, you know how long medical examiner reports are. They're extremely detailed, as they must be.

But a jury, nor can I, tolerate. I want to hear it fast and furious, hard, now. Give me the bottom line. Because you don't want jurors, like, drifting off during the medical examiner's testimony. So and also every line would be a minefield for me because I did not understand all of the language or the implications. So if somebody said, oh, like when we were talking about Ellen Greenberg the other day. OK, if Ellen Greenberg died in the space of the time of one workout, let's just say one hour. Yes.

And she was in ambient temperature in her apartment. Yes, there was a blizzard outside, but they had the heat cranked up really high. And she was in the kitchen. Yeah. Then how were her fingertips cold? So in one line of the medical examiner's report, it might say something like the fingertips were cold to the touch. Okay. See that right there is an element of proof that tells me about 50 things. So I would have to go through each line of the medical report and say, what does that mean? What does that mean?

And the doctors thought their time was too valuable for that. And they're right. They're the physicians. They've got tons of dead bodies. They've got to analyze tons of reports to turn out. They don't really have that kind of time. But when you're preparing for a jury trial, you have to be able to catch every nuance in a medical examiner's report. So, the way you speak on the air makes it so understandable. You have a certain way of speaking, and that's valuable. Well, one of the things with MEs, I take exception to what you said as well. There should always be time for, as I know that you would agree with this, for all the victims. All the victims, yes, but not all the prosecutors.

Yeah, but you're the voice for that. And we should even more so in the medical legal community be the voice for the dead. I mean, we physically have possession of the remains. We literally, and this is, I don't want to get off and be too melodramatic, but we hold the hearts of the dead. I mean, we physically have possession of the remains. We literally, and this is, I don't want to get off and be too melodramatic, but we hold the hearts of the families. Because one of the big questions they always ask me, when I would go make a notification, I'd made like 2,000 in my career in person. And so, when I would, the first question families always ask me was

after I'd established the person had died, they would say, where are they? Because we're tactile. We want to experience that. We want to hold on to them. And so we tell the tales of the dead through the science. And many times there's a detachment with forensic pathologists where they behave as though that they don't have time for other people. And this is the most human of all practices because you're telling the tale

of what happened to this person. If you can't make yourself available for that, and that goes back to objectivity as well. You know what you made me think of? What's that? I've been thinking about my fiance's murder a lot during the last 48 hours because I had an hour sit down with Steve Gonsalves, Kelly Gonsalves' father.

If you don't know who Kelly Gonsalves is, Google her. She was one of the four beautiful victims of the Idaho murders. I believe at the hands of Brian Koberger, that's yet to be proved in court. And when I say beautiful, yes, I'm referring to Ethan as well. When I look at the four of them, they're just so beautiful, full of life, full of potential vitality, stars in their eyes, the dreams of their futures. Anyway, speaking to him and he was talking about having to go to the trial and what that was hardship is going to be on his family, seven and a half hour drive one way. It just reminded me so much of what I went through. But when Keith died, but to what you're saying,

the medical examiner report, the COD, the, is highly, highly sensitive to crime victims' families. Do you know, to this day, I've never read Keith's autopsy? That doesn't surprise me. And if you, for whatever my advice is worth, I would advise you not to. I'm not. I don't want to. Because you know what, Joe Scott? It took me a really long time to come out of that horrible place.

Years. I think that's what delayed me so long in marrying to the point where I almost lost Lucy. Lucy and I almost died in childbirth because I was old. Yeah. Trying to get past that. I've never read the autopsy report. I've never gone to the scene of the crime. I've never read the appellate transcript because I don't want to go to that spot.

My children need me. Yeah. To be whole. They do. And one of the things, if you remember the old, and they do it all the time on television, where they take family members into a viewing room. Oh, gosh.

And they pull the sheet back and the family gasp. And there's some ghoul-looking guy that's pulling the sheet back. Oh, horrible. It is. It's really assaulting. And most modern medical examiner's offices have gotten away from that. And the reason why is that the family's already going through enough. It was terrible.

And you further traumatize the family by doing that in order to achieve positive identification. It should be done in so many different ways. In so many different ways. I did not even want to see Keith in his casket. Right. And I remember when I went into the funeral home, I happened to look off into a chamber where he was at a distance. I only saw a tiny slice of his face. And Joe Scott, I passed out.

My mind just could not take it. Yeah. And it's something that's burned into your mind forever. It really is. I'm so glad to hear that practice is out. So my point is medical examiners, death investigators. Yeah. The impact you have on proving cases is amazing.

Well, I think that it is. And in our world, and one of the things I try to convey to my students here is that my kind of investigation is completely separate from what the police do. Police are interested in finding a bad guy, locking somebody up and getting them to the prosecutor and they can be prosecuted. My interest begins and ends with the body. Okay. I've got to know we not I, but we have enough to process without getting into this mindset of getting outside of our lanes relative to the job. We have enough on our plate. You talk about cause of death, manner of death, identification of these people, notification of family. And so that's why in a, you know, in a, the world that I inhabit, I welcomed all attorneys,

for instance, whether it's a defense prosecution prosecution, and just lay it out before them. And plus, it would give us a sense of what to expect when we got on the stand, you know, because each one of you guys are probing for something different. But I got to ask you something real quick here, particularly considering that we're in this academic environment at Jack State, looking back through the lens as a prosecutor and having dealt with so many forensic scientists and practitioners and field personnel, if we could, I'm interested, first off, very broadly, what do you see, if you can kind of come up with a one-sentence answer relative to the biggest need as a prosecutor? What do you want to see from a forensic practitioner that's going to walk through your door as a prosecutor? That one element, maybe characteristic, that is really going to help you as a prosecutor to do what you have to do and help the courts to.

The number one thing to put it in a nutshell. The single most important thing is be prepared. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Do not come in my courtroom without knowing your case backwards and forwards. I will have already been to the scene myself. Yeah. Without the police or anybody else with me, so I can understand.

That is important as it relates to the body. For instance, you can give me the trajectory path of a bullet, but unless I've been to the scene, it means nothing. It's in laboratory conditions. So you must be prepared. Also, secondarily, you have to be able to communicate your knowledge in a way that's easy to understand. Nobody went to medical school. Nobody wants to hear your Latin phrases or your French phrases. Non, de guerre.

May we? That's to be. C'est moi. Okay. So, long story short, you have to be able to communicate. And that is a problem with a lot of doctors because they're so smart and they're so educated, it's hard for them to break it down in a simple way to make everyone understand. different scenarios, not necessarily for the medical examiner, but possibly for the death investigator, and the importance, the critical nature of crime scene analysis. You were talking earlier, before we took to the airwaves, about various cases. Yeah.

One you mentioned is Chris Watts, may he rot in hell, who totally, totally disregarded the value of his wife, Shanann Watts, their children, Celeste and Bella. And Nico. Yeah, baby Nico, yet to be born. Yeah. Celeste and Bella. Nico and Nico. Yeah, baby Nico, yet to be born. Yeah. He murdered all of them. He was a POS in technical legal terms, cheating, going on websites just for hookups while his wife, you know, worked to bring in the money and had the children and raised the children.

And I remember it broke my heart. I looked in their home. She had a lamp just like a lamp in our guest bedroom. And I remember looking and looking for the right thing. Then I suddenly saw it. And yay, it was on sale. I think it was at Pier 1. And I thought, I wonder how long she took to decorate that home herself. Because I immediately recognized that we had gotten the same thing.

And make everything just right. And I look back at the children's pictures before he murdered them. They were often matching outfits. And their hair was always done. And you know that was her, Shanann, doing all that. Oh, absolutely. She was nothing to him. Now, to the crime scene.

Now, you've got the home, of course, where Shanann Watts was murdered, but the disposal site. Yeah. And you and I, you really opened my eyes to the excruciating aspect of their disposal.

It was out where he worked. Anna Dark something. I'll think of the. Anna Dark. Yeah. It's the oil refinery. Oil refinery. Yeah.

Out in the middle of nowhere. Now, it's significant to me because he had worked there or worked near there. So that was a place I would immediately look, a place where he had lived, a place where he had worked, a place he passes, his haunts. Because think about it. If you're going to hide out, you don't have to blurt it out, Joe Scott. Think to yourself, where would you go hide? Well, I guarantee you it's a place that I could find you because it's going to be a place familiar to you. Familiar, yeah.

Okay. So that's, there he goes, Anadark, oil fields. That is an open area. Yeah. And I got to tell you, one of the things, you know, and as it goes to that particular question, we're in a very rural area here at Jacksonville State, and we have a lot of kids. Well, we have a lot of kids that come from Metro Atlanta and Chattanooga and Birmingham. Our student body is that way, but we have a lot of kids that come from rural places. And guess what? They're going to wind up going back to rural places. And, you know, people will hear about

my career, and they'll say, well, you worked in New Orleans with a coroner, and you worked in Atlanta with an ME. You've seen everything. No, I haven't New Orleans with a coroner. You worked in Atlanta with the M.E. You've seen everything. No, I haven't. I've never seen everything. You've never seen everything. And you know what? I hope not. When you're a rural practitioner and you're going out to do forensics, it's actually probably a tougher job because you have to be all things to all people.

I was just teaching a class the other day and I was telling my kids, these young kids that think they want to go into forensics. And I was like, look, when you ride on the scene, if you're in a 20, you've got like a 20-person police force, you might have to be the crime scene photographer, the crime scene tech. Oh, and by the way, you're also the beat unit that responded. And then maybe you might have a detective. What's wrong with that? I always took my own photos. I would look for ballistics. I would visit every scene, find witnesses, canvas the neighborhood all by myself. Yeah, I know. But, you know, now and you know this, when you walk into a courtroom, though, the first thing that, you know, when it comes to forensics, they claim they don't you like it when they claim it.

But it is claimed that jurors, what they, they want to hear about DNA. And when you start to get up into that skill level and you're in these areas of rural isolation, how is it that that practitioner, their background has to be so thorough relative to what they've learned prior to showing up on a scene, like out there in Anadarko, at the oil fields out there. The day to prepare is not the day of the scene. It's months and months in advance having done all of the training. And who could, you know, you think about this is the thing that always interests me about that case and cases similar to it. We always think about big city with mass violence and all these things. And I don't think that people up in Idaho didn't think those four kids were going to

get butchered up there. And you've been there, Nancy. That's an isolated place. You think about Chris Watts, isolated place. They don't have the same resources. So I think for me, if you were prosecutor in that area, how do you- It's not like you're walking into an apartment in Manhattan High Rise where you've got four walls around your crime scene. Yeah.

And you can do blood spatter analysis in the comfort of the air condition and bring in photography. Oh, no. oil field and you discover by deduction that the children have been forced into cylindrical oil repositories that are so narrow it pulled the skin off their arms. I believe you said de-armed? De-gloving. De-gloving. Well, you see the thing about- I learned that term from you.

And that makes me think of a foxglove flower or gloves I wore as a Girl Scouter to Cotillion. De-gloving. What it is, is it tore the skin off their arms as he stuffed them down into that cylinder. And now here comes an investigator. You've got to look at all the dirt in the surrounding area, all the potential DNA fingerprints on those cylinders. How do you open the cylinders? Is there a crank?

Is there a handle? You have to dig into the dirt. You have to bring out the dogs. And, of course, they found Shanann Watts in a, I would say, shallow grave nearby. She didn't get an oil cylinder. It was a coffin berth. Yes, coffin berth. Well, here's the other thing that danger was a real part of this, too, because folks don't realize that that was unrefined petroleum that was in there.

So you had things like- I didn't realize that. Oh, you had things like toluene. So when they went in to drain- Ooh, flashback to arson cases. Yeah. I mean, so you're talking about literally something you could clean metal with. These people that had to go work that scene, they had to drop the hatches on the side,

put on rebreathers and completely suit up just to go in there and to retrieve those bodies, because if they had stayed in there, it would have killed them too. That's what he introduced everybody in that area too. So you can't anticipate what is going to happen. You have to prepare for it, you know, and, and try to understand that, you know, when you when you see a case like this and you think, well, how am I ever going to get to the point where I'm going to be up and running and functioning as an independent investigator out in the field? All of these things come flooding in. And I can promise you, you don't think that lightning is going to strike. You don't think it's going to happen. And, buddy, it happens.

It's going to be delivered to your doorstep, even in the most isolated places. I mean, think about every blade of grass as a potential source of DNA or evidence. And there you are looking at an oil field and you have to process the scene. I find that to be the most difficult scene is the outdoor scene. It is. I mean, from your perspective. It is. That and Dave and I were actually recently talking about this. Geez, what's his name?

The little boy, Simon, that we just taped on the other day and out of Savannah, out of Savannah, Georgia. And, you know, the mama had thrown him away. Well, he wound up in the landfill down there in Chatham County. And those, let me tell you something. Kudos to those police officers and FBI. They went in there and removed all that garbage. A landfill search. It's the worst cases you can work.

Yeah. They're so hard to do. Yes. So hard to do. Yeah, absolutely. And so it will absolutely, it's soul crushing sometimes when you look back. It's like looking for a needle in a stack of needles. Hold on. I just posted a picture of Meany for anybody listening right now. Joe

Scott says, hey, I got a surprise for you. I'm like, oh, goody, what could it be? I come here. I said, is it me sitting down and doing your show for you? He goes, yeah. You ready, Dave? Okay, so I posted this picture. Cheryl McCollum has already spotted it. This is BS, man. Hey, Cheryl, now home to criminal justice and forensic investigations. It's something we're going to do kind of a tour, show Nancy around today, but just some

of the elements here. Can I talk about one more case? Yeah, absolutely. Jodi Arias. Okay. Can I tell you why Jodi Arias? Yeah. Okay.

Obviously, the bathroom is important where Jodi Arias stabbed Travis Alexander, all because they had been dating. They broke up because she's crazy and a wackadoodle not in the legal sense i think if i have to listen to that woman sing a christmas carol you know i'll play that every time we cover it i have to hear oh holy night make sure she can still hit the high note yeah make sure i'm on that show america's got talent yeah behind bars so obviously where she killed him in the bathroom and outside the bathroom are the critical areas.

But leave no stone unturned because what's in the washer idiot left her digital camera in the sheets. She took off the bed, which were covered in DNA. And the DigiCam is in the washer. And what's on the digicam? A picture of her foot during the murder. Yeah. And wearing pants that were found in her dresser drawers.

Yeah. I mean, how can you fight? Her foot is near the body. Yeah. And for so long, you know, because that's actually. Who do you think to look in the washer? That's actually the first case that you and I covered together. body. Yeah. And for so long, you know, because that's actually. Who do you think to look in the washer? That's actually the first case that you and I covered together. Really?

Yeah. Going back to then. You mean after I hung up on you? Yeah. After you hung up on me. When you were at HLN. This is long after that. And so that and Trayvon Martin.

Those were the two that we were covering. But anyway, with Jodi Arias, that was fascinating because, you know. Pure evil and. Plus, she shot a bird atas, that was fascinating because, you know, pure evil and plus she shot a bird at me in the courtroom. So, you know, it's personal. Yeah, it is personal. Well, it sounds like it's personal because she's got all these people that are after her for marriage. I am not interested in another man. Good. I've raised one. I don't want to raise another one. I got to ask you, though, with with Jodi Arias, so much time had elapsed between the time that she murdered Travis and the time he was found. And we find ourselves in these positions as death investigators many times.

I still remember those photos from the crime scene, Nancy. I know you remember them. And from the autopsy, too. He was in a moderate state to advanced state of decomposition by the time. And so one of the things that we have to teach our students and one of the things I work on here at Jacksonville State is walking through postmortem changes is one of those elements that might be one of the most important points along the continuum of the investigation. Because if you don't have a time frame. Yes, I need a TOD. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. To start the whole thing. Because with the correct time of death, I can rule people in and out very quickly. If I have the wrong time of death, I'm screwed. Right.

And we've got a couple of times associated with death. And just so folks understand, you have time of death, which is an actual scientific or semi-scientific. People think we can do it like we can get it down to the minute. We can't. That's a fallacy. And then you have time pronouncement. And that's a legal thing.

That's like, you know, they're dead forever and ever. Amen. They're pronounced dead. Those are two separate things. So time of death, what Nancy's talking about here is all of these elements when we're assessing rigor mortis and liver mortis and post-mortem morbidity and stomach contents and all of these changes that are taking place in the body, we have to be able to, again, this idea, how do we communicate that effectively to you as a scientist so that you can utilize it? Because your job is not to talk to the judge, not to talk to

the defense attorney, but those 12 people in the box. How do you communicate that to them and what tools do you need from the forensic science community? Yeah, you just brought back a memory. I remember being in court every day for so long and it would be like a tennis match when I would either be questioning the witness and I'd look at the witness and look at the jury, look at the witness, look at the jury, look at the witness, witness, witness, jury. And when the witness would be on cross with the other side, I look nowhere but witness jury, witness jury. It was like nothing else existed. And I would be so extremely irritated when the judge would suddenly, usually a man, no offense, gentlemen, would jump in and say something like, what? What do you want? Right, right.

So it's so important, you know, how you communicate this to a jury. How would, if you had a perfect forensic witness on the stand, what would be your preference as far as, let's start off with level of detail and how to effectively communicate. I know that's very broad and I apologize for that. But if we're forensic practitioners and we're trying to explain one of these complicated, complex scientific constructs about the mechanism of death and all of this, it's hard for us many times to rein ourselves in. All right. And I can, and I do this with you on the air. I know that you're doing it with me because your brain is like screaming, get to the point, get to the point, get to the point. And that's hard for us to do. And for to have an effective witness in the forensic realm for you.

What are you looking for for that person to be able to communicate? Somebody you've called to the stand that's going to be testifying for the prosecution. Well, number one, I would never put up a witness cold. I would have gone through. I always wrote out by hand, not a computer. Yeah. Hand written questions that I would go through with the medical examiner after I had gone through his or her report line for line.

Yeah. I think the best thing to do when it comes to medical examiners is the district attorney should stand right with the jury, with the report in your hand. Gotcha. And go through it line by line. First, ask general questions. And then let the medical examiner cannot help himself, herself. They have to expound. So it's like asking a lawyer to be brief. So in that vein, you got to let them go.

But you will have to interrupt quite often to clarify. Yeah. And to get to the point, I found it fascinating. I'm glad you mentioned Ellen's case, Ellen Greenberg's case, that autopsy report, which you and I both reviewed. A lot of that stuff is what we refer to as boilerplate. You go in there and some of those things and just here's a big industry secret in case people aren't aware of this. Lots of times when, and I've heard them say this, forensic pathologists will say they're talking, they're taping, right? Dictating. Dictating. And they'll say standard documentation, standard documentation. And what that means is that each one of those sections, that's actually their boilerplate statement.

And the person that's typing this thing up, it's going to be standard. You can look at these reports and they all look the same until they get to the finer points. Stick in the right height and weight, the weight of the lungs, the this, the that. And then you do injury descriptions. You know,

you said something really interesting just a few moments ago. I hope I'm not going to def come forward, but you said a different time of death and the pronouncement of death. Because that autopsy, if my memory serves me correctly, he put the time of death and the pronouncement of death. Because in that autopsy, if my memory serves me correctly, he put the time of death, Ellen's time of death, is when they filled out the death certificate. I'm like, okay, that's not her time of death. No, it's not. She died several hours before that.

That's what I'm counting on you to figure out, man. Yeah, it's a scientific. They didn't, didn't he? Yeah, it seems like it's something like that because I found it. I found it very, it was so ridiculous. And you, you think about that and you think about what,

and maybe, I don't know. I look at this now with Ellen Greenberg and I think, well, you know what? Maybe, and this loops back to what we were saying. Maybe they didn't see this coming,

but baby, let me tell you something. You got to see it coming all the time. You don't know when you're going to walk into the scene. The ears later, I was going to be reading that autopsy report going, this doesn't make any sense. And we're going to be talking about it. All this time later, this poor, beautiful young woman,

whose life was literally ripped to shreds, and her parents now up in their years, and just the ongoing grief. They had to sell their house. It doesn't surprise me. They had to sell their house because they've sunk their life savings, about $800,000, into fighting the suicide ruling. Yeah, we're talking about Josh and Sandy. The beautiful home.

Oh, yeah, and lovely people. How many times have we been on the air with them, Nancy, over and over and over again, talk to them, and just trying to counsel them. I know, just exhausted from me saying the same thing over and over, but I can't get past that suicide really. 20 stabs to the back, the neck, the back of the head. No.

It doesn't make sense. And then you've got a neuropathologist that's saying that a neuropathologist that's actually was hired by the ME's office there that actually made the comment, you know, that post-mortem, I don't see any kind of injury here. So that, can you imagine getting that information as a parent? And then all of a sudden it's like a glimmer of hope. Oh, they're saying that there's a post-mortem injury now that proves something to us in their mind. That she didn't do it after she was dead. Exactly. So I, it's going to's going to be, I'm all in on following the case, continuing to follow the case. You asked me about three cases.

Jody Arias, Chris Watts, and. One of your favorite cases of all. Oh, Scott Peterson. Yeah. I'm going to credit Dave with this because it seems to be a pattern that is developing with this case. I'm going to ask a Nancy Grace question. Yes or no? Was he or was he not on death row, Nancy Grace? Yes.

And is he still on death row? No. Okay. So if you follow that line of logic, it seems like his life is gradually improving here. What are the odds? What are the chances that they're going to be able to find something after all these years?

Because this thing is cycled. Oh my stars. I just remembered something. Yeah. What's that? I found a picture. Yeah. be able to find something after all these years because this thing is cycled per the innocence project i just remembered something yeah what's that i found a picture yeah that i forgot to work into our program we taped today i found a picture of the inmates having a luau at mill creek pen dave matt can you believe we did that? I am so mad. I could just shoot my toe. A luau for Pete's sake. A luau. I'm getting it. We're doing Scott Peterson again.

So I can use that picture. Why is he? I'm not having a luau. Why is he having a luau? Oh, why a luau? Okay, never mind. Go ahead. What about the crime scene?

I blame you, Dave Mack. Well, I think that after all of these years, after all these years, how in the world, because they're talking about... You should really make this a simulcast. I really should. Because I'm watching Dave. It's hard. He's distracting, isn't he? He's a lovely man. Okay, now,

what about... They claim that they've encountered or recovered new evidence as a result of this effort on the part of the Innocence Project. The L.A. Innocence Project. The L.A. Innocence Project. And I'm just curious, what's the potential here for this case moving forward? I'll tell you, potential new trial.

And this is what I think. The judge has just made two critical rulings. One, she is allowing, allowed, it's done. The duct tape that was found on Lacey's body has already been tested and the results are under seal. Now, let's think that through. The duct tape on Lacey's body, is it duct tape that was placed on her body? Is it some other item that have you ever seen

like those six-pack? Yeah. What do you call those plastic things? Yeah, those things that hold them together? Yeah. Floating in the water? I have. That her body intersected with

out in the water. So, that place is a cesspool. Oh, it is. It's not like it's Crystal Springs. No. It's all sorts of fisher people, gasoline, debris, waste. All sorts of DNA is out there.

Yeah. So what could be on that tape? Now, best case scenario in my world, Scott Peterson's fingerprints would be on that tape or his DNA on the sticky side of the tape. Is that going to happen? Probably not. Maybe. But any number of foreign DNA debris cells are going to be on that tape. It was down at the bottom of San Francisco Bay where she was weighted down with weights.

Okay, that's already been tested. The second thing the judge allowed is testing as it relates to a burned out van that had a mattress in it in the area that they think was blood. It may not even be blood. And I don't think it's going to relate back to Lacey Peterson. Well, you know, I was going to tell you the fear. Oh, what's that? They have all new discovery, which, you know, discovery is the state turns over items that they are told to by the law, such as scientific reports.

That would be medical examiner, crime lab, ballistics, all that. That's scientific reports. Statements of witnesses, names and addresses and phone numbers, if you've got them, of witnesses. Brady v. Maryland evidence, which is evidence that tends to exonerate the defendant or help the defendant in the sense that one of your witnesses has changed their story. Something about one of your witnesses that could help the defendant in the sense that one of your witness has changed their stories, something about one of your witnesses that could help the defendant. All that has to be given to them. Now, what I think is going to happen, they've got wide discovery that occurred at the time

of trial, and they're going to see every avenue of investigation, which means, let's go back to Travis Alexander. Okay, first, I'm sure they looked at the roommates. Of course, they looked at the roommates. Did one of them do it? Now, they're going to see, aha, didn't you investigate Travis Alexander's roommate? Because at one point, you thought the roommate may have done it. Right.

And the cop's going to have to go, well, yeah. And that's going to be spun out to every person they investigated is going to be a specter in this case that i think that's what's going to happen so it's just going to be almost like total chaos it's going to be unleashed yes yeah well i don't know i think a lot of people i think it at minimum do you think that he'll be granted a new trial i think it possible. However, if discovery is relegated to the new scientific testing, no, I do not think that what's found in that van is going to help the defense in any way. The only way the duct tape found on her body could help the defense is it may show some other debris that occurred in the water, met, as you say, intersected with the tape in the water. Right.

What they can do with that, I don't know. Yeah, it's going to be really hard. And here's the other thing, because I know you've spent a lot of time in evidence rooms over the years. And if there is still any retained evidence from this case because this case has been previously disposed of. I told you about the case. How'd this go? Mr. Slayton, my boss. Great, great DNA. Great, great district attorney. Call me to his office and he says we got a reversal Nancy I went okay

and I thought oh dear lord please don't let it be one of my cases it's got to be retried it was not it was the case it was actually tried

when I was in law school and it went all the way up to the fifth circuit one step below the U.S. Supreme Court and I can't believe the prosecutor did this and I know him

and he's a really good prosecutor he had he tried both defendants at the same time and they had interlocking statements, like they pointed the finger at each other. That's disallowable under the U.S. Constitution because what if, say you and I rob a bank and we shoot somebody. And my statement, I go, Joe Scott did it, that idiot. And you go, Nancy Grace did it, that idiot. If we both come to trial together and both of our statements come in and you don't take the stand, I can't cross-examine that statement. And the defendant under the Sixth Amendment has a full right to cross-examine all witnesses against him.

See what I mean? So interlocking statements, no. They brought in interlocking statements. That was the reversible error. So I got one of the defendants to retry. I go to the crime scene. I mean, excuse me, I go to the evidence locker. Yeah.

There was one x-ray. It was not of my murder victim, who was the little brother of an Atlanta PD. Okay, so couldn't screw this up. And a baseball hat that said, kiss my bass. I'm like, what do these two pieces of evidence have to do with this guy? That's the physical evidence that was left. That was it. Yeah.

Well, you know, when we're training people to be even an occupation called evidence custodians. You know, they are in charge and they control the infamous chain that we all hear. You could make a whole class out of that. Oh yeah, you really could. And all the little potholes along the way that you can run afoul of, you know, over and over again.

And it's not just physically securing the evidence, but how do you document security of that evidence? And here's the other thing. When do you document the security of that evidence? And here's the other thing. When do you know to dispose of evidence? Because if you look at a Scott Peterson case, everybody thought that that thing was done and done. Oh, my God. If they call out for more info. Chain of custody.

Yeah. I can't stress enough. Yeah. Okay. Another story. I'll try to be brief. Yeah. I had a serial killer.

Yeah. I could get him on one murder. One. I needed his DNA. We got his DNA. We sent it to the crime lab. It matched to what I wanted. It wasn't DNA from this scene, but it was DNA to some other item.

But I still needed it. The APD, homicide detective, had just lost his wife and he forgot to sign. Oh, my Lord. Oh, dear Lord in heaven, no!

Where, you know, he took the guy's DNA, he put it in a sealed envelope. He took it to the cryo lab. The person that accepted it signed it. But this was like a week before trial. And I saw his signature was not on the envelope. So my chain was broken.

I went back to that lab and to the jail that day. And I stood and watched through a glass window the jail nurse take his DNA. Yeah. I had her sign it. I didn't touch it. I watched her give it to my investigator. And we drove it to the crime lab and retested it. Yeah.

I mean, a serial killer. The fact that you were able to catch it. But, you know, you think about that. And here's stuff that will keep you up late at night. It does me at least. Yeah. I mean think, you know, those homicides in particular, was there a serial perpetrator that was involved in this? And probably something that I missed along the way, or my colleagues missed, something we didn't pick up in. But I'm saying all this to make the point that you never can predict the future. The only thing you can do is truly, when it comes to the field of forensics, and I would say in law as well, you have to be prepared. And you do. And as rote as it is, you have to expect the worst.

You know another difficult crime scene? What's that? An arson scene. Yes, it is. It is. And the reason— That's a tough case. You have to be very clinically trained that I take exception to is that many people, I think for whatever reason, they don't include arson investigators among those of us that are forensic investigators many times. And I submit that arson investigators are the most skilled forensic investigators that are out there. That is a niche. It is. And when you walk onto a scene. And I'm very proud that I developed an expertise in arson prosecution.

Yeah, and you have to. It is. It's very difficult because when you go out to one of these scenes, Nancy, even if there's a dead body there, everything looks the same. It's all charred. It's all either charcoal color or darker charcoal color. All you can make out of shapes and forms. And these people are amazing

that work in our center. They're amazing. Because they can see things that we normally... You ever work with a fire dog? Yeah, yeah, I sure have. They're so amazing. Yeah, to check out, to see if there's any accelerants at the scene and the things that they can find. You know they can smell accelerant underwater? Yeah, they can. They can actually, cadaver dogs allegedly can smell cadavers.

And I meant to ask, we actually had John Buehler on today who worked with Brocchini on the Scott Peterson case, investigator. I meant to ask him about the scent dog, because I'm pretty sure in Lacey Peterson's case, a dog tracked her from Covina, where the house was. I thought that I'd heard that. I wasn't sure. All the way to the marina. The boat launch, yeah. And then along the tree line and then out to the edge of the water,

and it stopped. That's amazing. It truly is because their spectrum that they're on, the dogs are on. I love watching a dog. I know. It's amazing. Best witness I ever had, I told you that. Dog.

Well, yeah, they're not. Couldn't do much with him on cross-examination. No, you can't. But, you know, I've seen forensic pathologists who can't do much with on cross-examination either. But, yeah, so with, you know, and there's so many different areas that we cover in forensics. And I think that one of the things

that's very curious, anytime somebody says, anytime somebody says, well, what do you do? And you say, well, I'm a forensic scientist. Hell if I know. I don't know. The next question should be,

well, what kind of forensic scientist are you? Because it's like, if you have a broken leg, you're not going to see a psychiatrist, hopefully. You're going to go to an orthopedic surgeon. Well, if you're a forensic scientist, you have to state and understand who you are. And that's the biggest thing. There's a lot of people that believe that they are, in fact, an expert in every field. And that's, you know, when you watch television, for instance, that's one of the biggest disparities.

They will take one person and make them an expert in multiple fields. And I know you've run across this, Nancy, because so many people. You made me remember something funny. People always come up to me and want me to write a will for them. I'm like, listen, either get killed or kill somebody, then come talk to me goodbye i know precisely i don't know a darn thing about a will however you are constitutional experts so i'll go with you on that if i have constitutional questions well i've written like three in my life they were

always like extreme they worked out okay i was hoping after this taping, could you help me establish an LLC? Well, look, Nancy, we're going to shut it down. Yeah, don't we have a ribbon catty? Yeah, we do. Oh, look, there's Dave Mack. There you go. Nancy, it has been just a pure joy to have you here. And actually, this is our first taping.

I cannot believe you got to go to CrimeCon UK. I know. Isn't that something? You little weasel. I love believe you got to go to CrimeCon UK. I know. Isn't that something? You little weasel. I love being over there. I love going to UK. There's no place like home. There is not.

There is not. I'd rather be, as they say, as I often say, I'd rather be Alabama comfortable than LA rich any day. I love to be here. I love to come home to my people here. But over there, we're trying to establish relationships with universities that our kids here in rural Alabama can go over there and go study because there ain't no there ain't no better teacher than travel as far as i'm concerned but we're going to shut it down for the day and i got to tell you nancy well i'll build out joseph morgan again never ends never

ends that's it dave send me the bill nancy right so coming. Dave Mack, make me sound young and glamorous and make him sound old and decrepit. Can you do that? No? Okay. All right. Let's close this thing out. Coming to you live from Jacksonville State University, the gem of the hills, this is Joseph Scott Morgan. And this is Body Packs.

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