Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BONUS: George Floyd medical examiners' reports revealed. What do we learn?

Episode Date: June 2, 2020

Two autopsy reports relating to the death of George Floyd have been released. Both reports, one by the county medical examiner and the other by independent pathologists hired by Floyd's family, rule he died by homicide. The key details, however, on how and why he died differ. Hear death scene investigator and Professor of Forensics at Jacksonville State University Joseph Scott Morgan's analysis with Crime Online's Dave Mack. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Joseph Scott Morgan, there has been a lot of discussion about the autopsy and findings of George Floyd. The prosecutors, okay, what did they say was the cause and manner of death with regard to George Floyd? I think that it's very important that, first off, we frame this in the sense that this is a preliminary finding. This is not the final report. This is something that they have initially released to the public, and it's essentially a one-page document. What they did find at autopsy was that Floyd had significant pathology going on. And what that means is that they've identified hypertension, hypertensive changes in his body, which probably goes to things like thickening of the myocardium

or the muscle of the heart wall. Also, he's got significant atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. And, you know, kind of in a nutshell, what that means is that he probably had elevated cholesterol, which led to these little blockages in the coronary vessels. And that is significant in and of itself. We do know that they have, in fact, ruled the manner of death, and they were very open about this, they ruled the manner of death as homicide, which for folks that don't know, there's only five things that the medical examiner can choose from. Unlike lawyers, they only have five. They have homicide, suicide, accidental, natural, and undetermined. There are not varying degrees in the medical legal community. Only that choice, and they didined. There are not varying degrees in the medical legal community,

only that choice. And they did, in fact, rule the manner as homicide, which means death at another person's hand. The family then hired a private medical examiner in Dr. Michael Bodden. He's world renowned. What did he determine was the cause and manner of death? Well, he's ruling this as well. He's saying that this is, in fact, a homicide. But what he talks about in his release, as opposed to what the Hennepin County Medical Examiner talked about, is that Bodden goes into some kind of specifics and they are significant. And what makes them so significant is that he identifies trauma. He identifies hemorrhage. And if our listeners will just understand that we have what are called cervical vertebral bodies, okay? And that literally

supports our head. And, you know, they range from starting at C1, which literally supports the skull. He's talking about C3, C4, and C5, and there is associated hemorrhage alongside those vertebral bodies, which actually, when you take a look at the video, is very consistent with someone placing pressure directly onto that area. One other thing that's very significant is that our brain, our brains require tremendous amount of oxygenated blood, and that is supplied by the carotid vessels, okay, or the carotid arteries. he has found alongside the right carotid vessel or the right carotid artery significant hemorrhage in that specific area, which means at some point

in time, at some point in time along this continuum when all of this was going on, there was direct pressure applied to that vessel. What about the toxicology report? Oh yeah, and this again is central to this, and we have to go back to the Hennepin medical examiner's findings, which was kind of striking because they released this information much more quickly than we commonly see in many of these cases, and what they found was that he had fentanyl on board, which of course we know is a depressant, which literally means that it depresses the respiratory system. It depresses our ability, our judgment. Many times people that are on fentanyl will kind of give the impression that they're intoxicated, like with alcohol. One other interesting part here was that they stated

that there was evidence of recent methamphetamine use. Now, I don't know how they're drawing that conclusion. I have no idea because let's go back to this and think about this. We have two findings in forensic toxicology. What that means is that we have a qualitative amount, which are qualitative presence, which when you do the initial test, you say this is there. In this instance, let's say there is fentanyl there, or there is evidence of methamphetamine or evidence of alcohol or aspirin or whatever it is, but it's not quantitative. And quantitative is the key. They have not released that information. And what that's going to tell us is how much of these substances did he actually have in his system? Because there are what are referred to as therapeutic levels. That means treatable. That

means using these substances and these substances can be used to treat people with what's an acceptable range, and then what is a fatal level. You know, where are you going to be so impaired that it's going to impact the system? Say, for instance, your ability to breathe, your ability relative to your neurofunctions, all of these things. And most importantly, can it affect the heart? We have two autopsies and these are preliminary findings. As you've pointed out, we have the prosecution with their preliminary findings based on autopsy. And then we have the family hiring Dr. Michael Bodden to provide a second autopsy. Again, these are still preliminary findings and based on the experience of all those involved to project a manner and cause of death.

Purely from a medical standpoint, they are claiming that that knee in the neck did contribute, correct? Yes, yes. They are saying that. Listen, it's very simple. You have to ask this question, and medical examiners do this all the time. They have to ask this question. If, for instance, in Mr. Floyd's case, if Mr. Floyd had not been subjected to this treatment in the street on that particular night with all of these surrounding peripheral issues, would he still be alive today? And I think that probably we can say in the affirmative that yes, he would still be alive today had he not had his past not crossed with these police officers that night. So that has to factor into it. And that goes to the mechanism. It goes to the peripheral causal issues revolving around this. So at the end of the day, it's very simple.

It's academic, if you will. When we talk about the toxicology reports, including history of methamphetamine use, fentanyl in his system. How can these be listed or do they need to be listed as contributing factors to the man's death? From a prosecutorial standpoint, this is the reality. Dr. Michael Bodden's autopsy is not going to be used in court when they go to prosecute this guy. What will be used is what the Hennepin County Medical Examiner has generated, along with the toxicological findings, that will be stated in open court. And we will get those results, I can assure you, probably sooner than later. We're going to find out what they saw anatomically, that is, how badly were his coronary arteries occluded or blocked? What was the degree of the hypertensive changes in the heart?

And most importantly, what were the toxicological findings relative to quantitative amounts? And all of these things are factoring in. Now, Dr. Bodden has the luxury of merely stating without seeing the toxicological results or anything else. He has the luxury of stating that unequivocally that his death, that Mr. Floyd's death is solely related to the compression of the neck. Okay. None of the other peripheral considerations are brought in. He hasn't, to the best of my knowledge, he hasn't seen toxicology yet. He hasn't seen a lot of the other data, perhaps,

at this point. But, you know, he's really sticking his neck out on this because the rest of this report will come out. Now, it might favor Bodden. I don't know. But then again, it might not. But he has already said in the affirmative, but that is not the official report. The official report will be issued by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office. Is there a substantial difference between the findings of what the prosecutors found out with Hennepin County or Michael Bodden? Is there a substantial difference between those two preliminary findings? Well, I think that there is because the M.E. for Hennepin County is stating that this is a homicide, obviously, but they're stating that it leans more or lists more toward the underlying natural causes that were exacerbated by the pressure on the neck, but his cause of death was as a result of some kind of natural disease pathology,

though it was ruled as a homicide. And then very plainly on the other side, Dr. Bodden said, no, this is a traumatically related event. We've got hemorrhage that's running alongside the cervical spinal column. We've got hemorrhage that's immediately adjacent to the right carotid vessel, which is significant. And I, you know, I'm hoping that when I see the Hennepin County medical examiner's report, that data is going to be contained therein as well. Look, the people at Hennepin County ME are very professional and very thorough. And I'm sure that they made note of these issues as well.

At the end of the day, this is going to come down, I think, when it goes to court, it's going to come down to a battle of dueling pathologists. But is Biden actually going to be called in on the criminal trial? I don't know, because you have to understand what's the motivation behind this. You've already got a finding of homicide. So what way, what utility is Biden's expertise going to be brought to bear? Well, I can only think that it's, one, to attempt to leverage the prosecutor to elevate the charges, okay? Because as you mentioned, or as has been mentioned, this is a third-degree homicide that we're talking about,

which is kind of a mushy kind of finding, you know, for the prosecutor charge. It's, you know, negligence, there's no intent. If you read the statute, will this boost this up? Will it compel the prosecutor to elevate these charges? That might be one part. And obviously, when any kind of civil litigation is going to follow this, and I can assure you that it will, Biden will testify in that particular case. Well, the only purpose here of bringing in the toxicology,

which usually takes six to ten weeks to get it back, and we're getting preliminary findings, if he didn't overdose, I don't know how the toxicology even comes into play. Well, the toxicology comes into play by virtue of the fact that Mr. Floyd's system may have been compromised. Listen, just because somebody might be under the influence of something, it doesn't give the police broad latitude to go and treat that individual any way they choose to.

Keep in mind, and this is very important, keep in mind that police are held to a different standard than everybody else. Everybody else. Because they are trained to recognize, say for instance, physical responses in an individual on the street. They encounter people day in and day out. Can you look at somebody and say, well, they might be impaired in some way. We might need to help or we might need to treat this individual in a different manner as opposed to somebody that's completely lucid and has their faculties about them. You can't, it's not a one size fits all.

That's what makes policing very difficult. And in this particular case, this gentleman, Mr. Floyd, was treated in a manner which led to his death. Now, you can't say that the heart disease wasn't a factor, hypertension wasn't a factor, that the drugs might be a factor, but at the end of the day, at the end of the day, this police officer brought about the death of Mr. Floyd. This is an iHeart Podcast.