Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: When Home Isn't Safe, A Dissection of the Armstead Case

Episode Date: October 22, 2023

Lovetta Armstead and her young daughter Jazzmen face a nightmarish reality: they are murdered in cold blood by Gary Green within the walls of their own home, the very space that should be their sanctuary. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack delve into the complexities of this chilling case, from Lovetta's thwarted plans to escape her malevolent partner to the unsettling psychology driving Green's actions. The episode uncovers letters that reveal Lovetta's intentions to leave her husband and the twisted psychology behind Green's devastating actions. With commentary on sharp and incised wounds, duct tape restraints, and a myriad of forensic evidence, this episode serves as a haunting yet informative dive into the harsh realities that forensic professionals confront in their quest for justice. Subscribe to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan : Apple Podcasts Spotify iHeart Time codes: 00:00:20 — Joseph Scott Morgan sets the tone with personal anecdotes about death and introduces the spine-chilling family murder case. 00:03:00 — Dave Mack provides further context on the Armstead family and the malevolent Gary Green. 00:05:00 — Mack shares Lovetta Armstead’s gut-wrenching letters that reveal her desire to escape from Green; one particular letter outlines his calculated intentions to annihilate his family. 00:08:23 — Sharp force injuries are explained by Morgan, introducing listeners to the intricacies of homicidal drowning. 00:09:16 — Discussion of the brevity of Gary Green and Lovetta Armstead's marriage and the circumstances that led up to the fatal event. 00:10:24 — Morgan elaborates on the calculated tactics employed by Green, emphasizing his control over the fatal situation. 00:13:24 — The sequence of the murders is discussed by Morgan, suggesting the chilling possibility that Jazzmen was made to witness her mother’s murder. 00:15:42 — Incised wounds versus stab wounds are clarified, enlightening listeners on how these affect the body differently. 00:16:20 — The aftermath of a stabbing is graphically detailed, spotlighting the ensuing blood and damage. 00:18:40 — Jazzmen’s autopsy details are revealed, including the heartbreaking signs that she struggled until her last breath. 00:21:00 — The complexities of determining fatal stab wounds.  00:24:36 — Joe Scott discusses the frightful reality of internal bleeding, especially in cases involving multiple stab wounds. 00:27:01 — Causes of death like hypoxia and signs of drowning are detailed by Morgan, rounding out the episode’s comprehensive forensic analysis. 00:30:39 — Joseph Scott Morgan comments on the chilling aftermath and Gary Green’s actions post-crime, wrapping up the episode with a look at the ultimate consequences. 00:32:20 — A recount of the dreadful discovery made by the surviving siblings.  00:32:40 — The timeline of the crime’s aftermath, including Gary Green’s eventual death sentence.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Think back just for a moment. Think back to a time before you ever knew death. Now, remember that moment in your life when death first visited you. Maybe you were at a bedside watching over a family member. Or maybe you received a phone call. It's something that marks you. I still remember the first time it happened with me. I had an aunt that I loved

very, very much. And she died as a result of a car accident. And it's my earliest memory, true earliest memory of death. But just imagine for a moment, you're a young child. Your mother is your world. You've got a baby sister and you've been brought home. Been brought home to that place that you've always known peace. You're nine years old. Your toys are there. Your room is there. Everything that defines you as a family is kind of in that environment. And the person that has just killed your mother makes you kneel

before her body to bear witness to all that remains. Today on Body Bags, we're going to talk about one of the darker cases that I've come across. And we're going to talk about a mother who tried to make a family in a very fractured environment. Lovita Armstrong's attempt to leave her marriage ended in violence. Husband Gary Green stabbed his wife multiple times with two different knives. When Armstead was dead, Green grabbed his six-year-old stepdaughter, Jasmine Montgomery, and bound her hands together behind her back with duct tape. Montgomery then drowned the girl in the bathtub.

Green showered in the same tub, dressed, and went to pick up his two stepsons from church. Back at the house, the older boy was stabbed in the stomach. The younger boy was able to talk Green out of killing them, but not before Green forced them to look at the dead bodies of their mother and little sister. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. Dave, we talk about death on the show. That's what we do. I hate to be so morose. Because of our relationship that we have, I know how much you love your mama. I love my mama.

I've talked about having been the child of a single mother. And you look at your mother and she holds up the world that you live in. She is that foundation. She's your atlas, essentially. Potentially, in my case, the man in my family's life walked out the door. I can't imagine the depths of sorrow and horror. I can't imagine that, that the small child experienced when he saw his mother and his little sister laying dead on that floor in that house and this monster standing right

over his shoulder. It just makes you shudder to think of what people are capable of. Gary Green was married to Levita Armstead. She has three children. Jerome Armstead is 12. Jared Armstead is nine. Jasmine Montgomery is six. And Levita had decided it was time to annul the marriage.

Based on what we know, there was more than just physical abuse, psychological abuse, and we know that Gary Green was not psychologically healthy. Not throwing that in there as an excuse for what took place, merely pointing it out to the level of hell that he put his wife, Levita, and the children, Jerome, Jarrett, and Jasmine. On a daily basis, they had to be walking on eggshells, Joe. Yeah, I got to tell you, Gary Green, when you see this guy, the first term that comes to mind for me is ogre.

He is a big, hulking mass. I mean, he is a big man. And you look at him and you think, how easy is it to just maybe intimidate for somebody like him, a grown man, how much more so this woman that he's entered into a marriage with that he's supposed to be her protector, right? And then these babies, you think about them and how intimidating is this? Many of us have been on the receiving end of verbal abuse and physical abuse and that sort of thing over the years.

And you see somebody, this hulking person that is able to do this, this life that they led. You're right to say this. I think that it was probably a hellish existence. Well, we know that there were two letters written by Levita Armstead explaining to Gary Green why she wanted to do what she wanted to do with regard to her family and protecting everybody. And in those letters she wrote, and I'm trying to, she said, she told him, I love you, but I have to do what's best for me. And hers was this tone of

love, of caring about, she was caring about his feelings and how he thought. And he wrote a letter to her. And when you read it, it's not love. It's anger. It's a rambling expression that he believed Armstead and her children were involved in some kind of plot against him. He also laid out exactly what he planned to do to his wife, Levita, and those three children. What he was going to do was end it all and then take his own life, Joe. Yeah. And one of the most dangerous times to be around someone that has this level of discord in their life has this potential for anger. And you hear this a lot. I've worked a lot of suicides over the course of my career. And you begin to kind of develop a kind of a standard profile

when it comes to this. There's one thing for somebody to maybe think about what the world would be like without them. Then you've got another level where they might make a comment, well, I'm just going to take my life. Then you've got this kind of third phase that they go into where now they have planned. In a case like this, where you've got a planned, or at least it's intimated that there is a plan in place for a murder-suicide, and they begin to specifically explain how they're going to go about doing this, that means that in the front end of their mind, they're actually formulating that. And that's when it gets dangerous. And this is what psychiatrists and psychologists actually

refer to as suicidal ideation and homicidal ideation. And you add this other component to it that's called vocalization. You can kind of understand what that means. So not only are you thinking it, now you're saying it. This intimidating thing. And little kids like this, I don't know about you, but when I was a little kid, I didn't think about the end of things. Everything seemed like it was going to go on forever and ever. Now that I've gotten a little bit longer in the tooth in my life, you know that there is a terminus that's approaching all of us. You don't think that way when you're a little kid. And so if he ever threatened these kids with that, it may have been more abstract.

They may have just thought, well, he's going to hurt us. You know, he's going to hit us or he's going to yell at us again, or maybe he's going to hurt mama again. But at the end of the day, it wasn't this monster that killed himself, but he rained hell down on this family and brought two lives to an end. A combination of sharp force injuries, which means any injury that is generated with an edged weapon. We think about knives, meat cleavers, axes, a machete. If it has an edge on it, that can generate a sharp force injury. It could be your grandpa's pocket knife that's been passed down for generations.

I've had homicides committed with pocket knives. But you've got a combination of that. And Dave, in this particular case, we've also got the added element of homicidal drowning. That's something that you don't commonly come across because it requires so much exertion. It requires so much effort on the part of the perpetrator. And like I said, this guy is so big. And when you're talking about kids, when you're talking about, say, a woman that might be physically weaker than him, it can be pulled off, but it's not going to be pulled off without some kind of fight. I want to point a couple of things out very quickly here. One, Levita and Green had not been

married very long. It'd only been a matter of months. And that's why the term annulment is used. It's not thrown around in a silly way. It is an annulment, meaning that married long enough to do the divorce. She had already seen enough in a very short period of time that she wanted it over for the safety of herself, but her children more than anything else. Also, when the act took place, the boys were at church and Levita and Jasmine were at home with Green. Then he goes to the church and picks up the boys and brings them back, Joe. I mean, what kind of person? Yeah. And that's one of the things that you begin to think about. It's one thing when you have, and I've worked these cases where you'll have sharp force injuries, for instance, and the person

comes running out of the home and there's some kind of fevered mental state and they're screaming and they're blood covered. That's not what happened here, Dave. This is kind of cool and calculated, isn't it? And that adds level because Levita has sustained multiple stab wounds. The number is astronomical. In addition to that, there is water involved. So you've got blood and water because these victims, the little girl in particular, has been drowned, Jasmine. So you've got blood that is potentially covering this fellow. And then you've got bathwater that has splashed all over him.

He would be covered from head to toe. So from an evidentiary standpoint, when you begin to think, if he has calculated this out in his brain where he wants to pull this thing off and perpetrate it, well, he's got the mama and her daughter separated from the two boys, right? So he's not going to have to deal with a larger group of people. The boys are at church. During that period of time, he has taken this opportunity to perpetrate this horrible crime

on Lovita. And in addition to that, Jasmine, well, it's a mess. It's an absolute mess. So what does he have to do before he goes and picks up these boys? Can we back up a minute, Joe? Because I'm all right. We know that he's got two and he has to control the entire situation. Six year olds are fast. Six year old girls are really fast. And I was looking at this trying to figure out how did he do this? How was he able to be this? He didn't have LaVita tied down in the bed and just start stabbing away.

They were in a fight. And I wondered the whole time what was going on with Jasmine, that Jasmine had duct tape. Her hands were duct tape behind her back. We know he's brandishing the weapon and threatening. I'm wondering if he made Jasmine witness what he was doing to her mother, because what he did to her mother was multiple. I don't know how many times and I wondered they were in this fight because Levita actually was able to stab Gary Green twice during their fight. He broke a knife on her and had to get another one.

This was not some, I've already got her down and I'm stabbing. This was a fight. Yes. It's not some kind of stealthy attack. And that goes through the viciousness of it. LaVita was trying to save not just her life, but think about it. She knows her daughter is over here and she knows the boys. At some point, they're going to come home. Now, we know that he had to have killed Levita first based on this. Yeah, he would have had to. He would have attacked her. I don't know if the little girl may have been in another room when all of this initiated. But here's the thing. We know that he killed her, the mother, Levita. And then you take that and you compare it to the injuries that Levita has sustained. And I'll look, man, I'll go

ahead. What I'm going to tell you is that this number I'm about to tell you is going to be shocking. Levita was stabbed 30 times, Dave, 30. Just let that sink in. And anybody in the sound of my voice, think about what it would take to hold a knife and almost like a sewing machine, an old-fashioned sewing machine, drop that knife 30 times into somebody, the will that it takes to do that. Because you're passing through multiple layers of tissue when you're doing this. And so she's been injured grievously. And the one thing that we know about stab wounds is that they generate a tremendous amount of blood. Copious, we use that term quite a bit when you go on to a scene where there has been a stab,

a stabbing event. Those scenes are the bloodiest. And I think that a lot of it has to do with you're compromising the structural integrity of the circulatory system. And so you're opening up these large gaping injuries, and they're not all going to be the same because some of these can be what are referred to as classic stab wounds, while others will be referred to as incised wounds. For instance, like our teeth, our frontal teeth are referred to as incisors, and it goes back to an original definition of bladed, so or edged. So they're used for cutting. And so incised wound means that if you incise an area, just like surgery, that means you're taking the edge of the weapon and drawing it across the skin. So it's always the rule of thumb for us is that

incised wounds are longer than deep and then stab wounds are deeper than long. And so you're going to go deeper into the tissue with a stab wound, say if you stab someone in the chest and withdraw the knife. Now you may or may not hit a major organ, that if you stab someone in the chest and withdraw the knife, now you may or may not hit a major organ. That's possible. But you are going to hit some kind of vessel structure that's in there, whether it's an artery or a vein. Maybe sometimes you'll clip both of them along the way, along the track, because stab wounds have tracks just like bullets have tracks. So you're going to damage that tissue in there. And the scene would just be covered in blood. And that's what's so fascinating, that after he had perpetrated this crime, if this child is restrained or if he restrained her in order to get her to the bathtub, he would have just been covered in her mother's blood. So not only is she disoriented because there would have been a lot of

screaming, there would have been a lot of banging, there would have been a lot of carrying on. Her terror level is rising. Now she's got duct tape over her mouth and she's already shallow breathing already. The only way she can breathe is through her nose. He doesn't want her to scream. And she's born witness to this and he is just covered in blood. So he grabs her. And when he does, he's got water in the bathtub and he begins to submerge Jasmine. And the last thing that she has seen, Dave, is this image for her of her mother splayed out in that house with blood. You can just imagine maybe the last words coming out of her mouth is, don't hurt my baby. Maybe she calls out her name, Jasmine, because mom has no idea what is going to happen. She doesn't

live to tell the tale. And she knows in her mind, trust me, mamas know where their kids are. She knows that her babies, her other two babies are at church. She's thinking, what's he going to do? No wonder she fought like a tiger in the midst of this because she knew this horrible event was taking place. And she is that last line of defense, Dave. If he even attempted to wash his hands off in any way when he's grabbing Jasmine, which I doubt that he would have. And even though she would have been in the bathtub, there's still going to be transfer of her own mother's blood to her body in some way. That's the thing about death. Everywhere death is present, there will be a trace left behind. One of the most horrific aspects to this family being completely destroyed

is that when the forensic pathologist, Dr. Meredith Long, was examining Jasmine's body at autopsy. She made note of the fact that she saw that Jasmine's ankles, Jasmine's wrist, were bound with duct tape. Imagine that, if you will. You're six years old, and you're restrained to the point where you can't move. In kind of this little final note, she looks at Jasmine's little cheek on the left side, and there is adhesive that has been left behind by duct tape. We can appreciate this because lots of us have used duct tape over the years. You know that when you peel it back, there is that residue that remains. And she probably would have seen some blood. That is Lovita's blood. The blood of

this child's mother would have been on the body in some form, maybe minute, but it would have been there. As she's conducting this examination, she's taking a look at Jasmine and her broken little body there. And she's noting that there are petechiae, little blood vessels have burst in her eyes and overlying the thymus, which is an organ that is situated beneath the breastbone in the body. And as we get older, it kind of decreases in size. But in a little child like Jasmine, very diminutive, six years old, when her little chest would have been opened up at autopsy, that thymus would have been very visible.

And it was covered with petechiae as well. There were petechiae all over the lungs, Dave, over the epiglottis, which is that flap that kind of covers the windpipe, if you will. They were everywhere. And that means that this child struggled, Dave, in the wake of what had just happened. Joe, I'm looking at both of these, the victims here with Levita and Jasmine. Now, we have Levita stabbed 30 times. Now, did that number come from Gary Green saying, I stabbed her 30 times? Were they counted? And then the second part here, when it comes to Jasmine, asphyxiated and drowned. All right. So how do we know? How is it possible for somebody to be stabbed 30 times in the case of Levita and not one

of those stab wounds actually be fatal? And how is it possible to determine was Jasmine asphyxiated or drowned or was it a combination of both? It's an excellent question. And I'm so glad you asked that because it's confusing because this is a layered case. I know I always fall back to gunshot wounds. There's a simplicity in gunshot wounds. Okay. Some people would argue that, Morgan, you're out of your mind, but there is a real complicating factor. Every time you stab someone, there's no guarantee you're going to strike a critical area. You can pass a knife through interstitial tissue that is just maybe sub-Q fat. You'll have these superficial wounds in the arms, in the hands, maybe lateral chest, maybe even the neck that are not necessarily fatal.

But you've got this combination of all these. And the trick is when you're examining at autopsy the body of someone that has been stabbed, first off, you have to clean the body very, very thoroughly externally. You document it in its pristine state where you have blood-crusted clothing. You've got these injuries that are crusted with blood, but you're not truly going to be able to appreciate the injuries. So you have to clean it very, very thoroughly and then go back one by one and try to count the number of wounds. And you have to orient them anatomically. You have to state there's a stab wound to the apex of the left shoulder, or there is a stab wound that's more medial than it is lateral relative to the left shoulder blade.

And you have to do anatomical measurements. That's all of the external stuff. And then one of the other things that you're going to be looking for as you begin to get into the dissection is do any of these stab wounds, or let me say it this way, how many of these stab wounds actually have hemorrhage? Because I know a lot of folks are probably thinking, well, every stab wound would have hemorrhage. No, it wouldn't. Because if stab wounds have occurred post-mortem, you're not going to have hemorrhage in those areas. So it's important to try to determine where the most hemorrhage is and what organ systems are affected. I mean, if you've got a stab wound that's going into the lung, for instance, there's a high probability that that's going to be lethal.

If you've got multiple of them, that when you stab someone, this is not just merely an action that is solely involving that edged weapon passing through the tissue. It involves a kind of a slamming down or an insertion, a forceful insertion of this blade. So if the person is still alive, you can get what are referred to as hilt bruises that surround actually the incised area where that area around the injury itself has hemorrhage. This is one-on-one combat. Let's face it, Dave. You'll have bruises all over the body many times because people are being punched and pummeled and kicked in addition to being stabbed. So they're very, very complex, these stab wound cases.

Are they not overlapping? I mean, are they not interconnected? I'm just picturing if you're stabbing that there's going to be a general area where the stab wounds are going to be. I'm just kind of picturing a circle and just these whole stabs because it's all happening so fast. And I'm thinking, aren't some of these going to blur together? Or one ends here, the other one starts here, but then they intersect here. And how do

you separate? Because that's the goal here at autopsy is to figure out exactly what happened. But how long would it take if you, if none of the actual stab wounds in and of themselves is fatal? How long does it take for somebody to bleed to death? Well, again, that's dependent upon which vessels are clipped. And many times, and this is one part that's really horrific, many times you can have multiple stab wounds and you're not going to be bleeding externally. Imagine that. Guess where the blood is going? And particularly if you have stab wounds to the chest, well, it's filling the chest. I've participated in an autopsy before, man, where we've had individuals that have been stabbed in the heart and the lungs, and they lived. But the entire time they're living, it's not much of a life. They're bleeding

out internally. So there is this pressure that is building in what's referred to as the pleural spaces around the lungs. And the lungs are essentially, their ability to expand is being compromised greatly, not to mention there's probably a stab wound to one of them. So it's even further complicated by that. And all the while, the chest cavity is filling up with blood. That's one of the reasons when people are shot in the chest and stabbed, when they get them to the emergency room, there will be a little incision that is made in between the ribs and there will be a drain that is inserted in there. And what are they doing? Well, they're draining blood out of the chest because you've got what's referred to as

pleural effusion. And it literally begins, you know, people say it drowns the lungs. It's really a pressure event that's complicating the lungs' ability to expand and refill with air. So they have to relieve that pressure and to get them into surgery so they can close that area. And this is how complicated it is. If you want the person to survive, you've also got to hang units of blood on them because they've lost blood. It's a real race against the clock in this particular case. We know that Levita is stabbed 30 times or more. She's bleeding out. She's dying. And Gary Green then moves on to his stepdaughter, six-year-old Jasmine. And we know based on duct

tape with her hands behind her back, we know this. We also know, as we mentioned earlier, asphyxiated and drowned. And my question really, I don't know how far to go with this, but I'm thinking, was he trying to strangle her first? Was he trying, you know, putting his hands on around her neck and then sticking her underwater or was it simultaneous? And can you figure that out? Yeah, you can figure it out. I know one thing that kind of popped to mind for me when I was reading the physician's autopsy report, the cause of death is actually going to be hypoxia, which is a lack of oxygen. And you can create that event into one of two ways. You can either be drowned. There's other ways, but in this case, there's one of two ways. You can either be drowned. There's other ways,

but in this case, there's one of two ways. You can either drown or you can inhibit their ability to breathe outside of water. You can cover their airway. You can compress their neck, maybe with your hands or a ligature. So I think that you've got this going on both levels. However, she was producing, and this is noted by the physician that's doing the examination, she's producing this kind of pink froth that's coming from her nose and her mouth. And many times we see that associated with drowning. And you see it with drug ODs too. But you'll get this, we call it a frothy edematous cone that's coming out of the mouth and it will rise up. And it's really kind of this strange event that occurs. I've been present, I started my career in New Orleans, so I had a lot of water-related deaths, drownings.

And when you pull the body out of the water many times, all of a sudden, when you're laying the deceased on their back, this cone begins to appear out of their nose and their mouth, and it's bubbling. People will think about the head of a poorly poured beer. They show it on television, you know, where you have beer and it's this glorious thing. They say, you know, you don't want this gigantic head of white froth on the beer. It's like that only in the case of a drowning victim. And in some poisonings and some ODs, it'll be pink tinged. And that's that hemorrhagic event that's going on in the lungs.

The lungs are screaming. They're crying out for air. And it's just, it's not on the way. So this thing presents as well. And she makes note of that, the physician does, in addition to the petechiae. And the petechiae are those little blood vessels that are bursting. And many times this is happening as a result of just the strain of this lack of oxygenation. You're struggling for air. In some way,

the airway is being compromised. And I see it a lot in strangulations where you have these little pinprick hemorrhages that are taking place in the eyes. It's one of the things that we'd look for in cases of strangulation. And you'll see those presenting, and it's quite striking when you observe them and you make note of it. You know that there's something has gone on relative to the airway being compromised. According to the autopsy report on Jasmine, she had a hemorrhage on her brain. And I'm trying to figure out how that could happen in the bathtub, assuming that's where she died, assuming that he put her in the tub and was trying to drown her and choke her, asphyxiate her. How does she end up with a hemorrhage on her brain? Well, there's a fight that's going on. She's got little scrapes and scratches that are covering her body. Oh, and by the way, in addition to the duct tape,

there was a telephone cord that had been tied in a knot around her ankles as well. I forgot to mention that. That actually matters when you think about it. It wasn't why she didn't run. It's because she was tied up. Her legs were tied up, so she couldn't run. No, she couldn't. There's no way.

And why you would have to restrain a six-year-old to that point. You've got her contained in this specific area. He has destroyed Levita. He has destroyed Jasmine. He actually takes a shower where he killed Jasmine in that same shower tub. He washes himself off, gets dressed and goes to church, picks up the boys and comes home. Now, to give you an idea, when they walk in the house, Levita is in the bedroom. You know how a master bedroom has a master bath? Well, that's where the murder of Levita and Jasmine took place, was in the master bathroom, master bedroom. And that door is locked. When Gary Green left, he locked that door.

So when the boys come home, they are told that their mother wanted them to take them someplace else. He tells tells Jerome, go take a bath or shower. And so he goes in there. They don't know that Levita and Jasmine are dead at this moment. And so Jerome goes to the bath and to shower and he hears screaming coming from outside. He gets out of the tub, and that's when he finds out that Jarrett has been stabbed, and Gary Green's holding a knife to his throat and threatening both boys, saying he's going to kill them both. These two boys, 9 and 12 years old,

are able to convince this monster who has just killed his wife and his stepdaughter. These little boys are able to convince him to spare their lives. Don't kill us. We're too young to die. Yeah, too young to die. What kind of fortitude does that take in that moment? What level of bravery?

And I should mention that he actually, the boys don't know what has happened to their mom and sister at that point. And we're too young to die. Gary says, okay, you're not going to die today. By the way, I need you to go back here to your mother's room. He unlocks the door, opens it up, and that's when the boys see their mom and their sister. They see mom in the bedroom. They see the sister on the floor of the bathroom. And that's when they see the devastation.

They testified to this at trial. The destruction of this precious family actually took place in September 2009. And it's been since that time that Gary Green has roughly been incarcerated and has been sitting on death row in Huntsville, Texas. That is until March 7th, 2023, when Gary Green died by lethal ejection at 7.07 p.m. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. This is an iHeart Podcast.