Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - CHRISTMAS MURDER-BY-FREEZER? Relatives Arrive For Holiday, Find DEAD WOMAN IN FREEZER

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

Around 11:45 a.m., two days before Christmas, a 911 call is made to the San Diego Police Department. Out-of-town visitors find a badly decomposed body inside a chest freezer. The case is turned over to the homicide unit. San Diego police say due to the frozen condition of the body, the only thing they can confirm is that the corpse is female.  During our broadcast, it's announced that the body has been identified as Mary Margaret Haxby-Jones. She would have been 81 years old at the time her remains were found. It's believed that she lived at the home at some point.  She may have been missing or dead for up to nine years.   SDPD says no missing report was ever filed for her. Police say the out-of-town visitors were not related to Haxby-Jones. Instead, they are related to someone currently living at the residence.  The Medical Examiner's Office is working to determine the cause of death. And again, the body did not have any obvious traumatic injuries.   Joining Nancy Grace Today: Daniel Horowitz – Trial Lawyer, Legal Commentator; FB: daniel.horowitz.140    Dr. Angela Arnold – Psychiatrist, Atlanta, GA; Expert in the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women; Former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology: Emory University; Former Medical Director of The Psychiatric Ob-Gyn Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital; Voted “My Buckhead’s Best Psychiatric Practice of 2022” Sean Patrick Farley - Former Law Enforcement, Licensed Private investigator (specializing in criminal defense), and Owner of Sean Patrick Investigations, with Services in San Fransico and San Diego Metro Area  Dr. Othon Mena – Forensic Pathologist (working as a medical examiner in Southern California) Alexis Tereszcuk - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Writer/Fact Checker at Lead Stories; Twitter: @swimmie2009   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. It seems like everybody went somewhere over Christmas, whether it was home to Arkansas, out to California, to New England, down south. Some people even go surfing in Nicaragua. Yeah, I heard that. They go all over the place for Christmas holidays. But this is a trip I don't think the relatives will ever forget because when they arrive there near San Diego, California to visit, they find their female relative in the freezer. That's right. You heard me in the freezer. And if you have any question to that, which I'm sure you don't because you're all legal eagles. Yes, she's dead. I'm Nancy Grace.

This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Crime Stories and on Sirius XM 111 dead in the freezer. You know how hard I had to look to find a medical examiner that has a special expertise in people that have been stored in the freezer or died in the freezer? That's something you don't see every day. But upon further research, I learned that it's more often than we think. So how did this woman end up in the freezer? Why hasn't the medical examiner released a cause of death? What do they think? She crawled in there and committed suicide by freezer? I don't think so. But again, it ain't the first time and I doubt it

will be the last. But let's start at the beginning. Take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com. It was a family trip to visit relatives in the Allied Garden section of San Diego. The out-of-towners arrived just two days before Christmas. Surprisingly, the visitors aren't greeted as expected by their loved one as they arrive at the Zion Avenue home. As the travelers settle inside, they check everywhere in the three-bedroom, 1,300-square-foot home that's valued at $900,000. No one is home. What in the world? This is not a cheap neighborhood. $900,000. Now, this is near San Diego, California. You know, I've got an all-star panel, but first I think I need to go to my longtime friend and colleague, my partner in crime quite often, although usually we're on different sides of the fence. Daniel Horowitz is joining me, a renowned lawyer, legal commentator,

and you can find him at lawyersinlafayette.com. Now that's new. Daniel Horowitz, what is Lawyers in Lafayette? Well, it's where I live and it's just my local community. So I stopped being so national. I just want to stay close to home. I'm getting old, Nancy. You're preaching to the choir and you're not getting old. Okay. You can't say that because that would reflect on my age. So let's move forward with this. Daniel Horowitz. It seems like every one of the twins friends were going somewhere for Christmas, either

on Christmas or right after Christmas. scandal ever in the Grace family was when my uncle showed up at the Grace home place in Oglethorpe, Georgia. And instead of eating Mama Grace's meal, and it's a meal, Daniel Horowitz, she would have fresh oysters and shrimp brought up from the panhandle. I don't mean brought up. I mean family and relatives in the panhandle would catch it, put it on ice and bring it up in the back of the pickup truck. Roast beef, chicken, you name it. A whole table of vegetables from their farm. And she would make those cakes. And I didn't understand how they made them.

But the cakes with like 11 and 12 layers. Stack cake. Yes, Jackie. She'd have a chocolate cake. She'd have a pineapple cake. She'd have something with the white carrot cake. And my favorite, caramel cake. She'd make all that.

That said, my Uncle Valney, who both of the grandparents always refer to as Brown, showed up having stopped for a hamburger before he got to the big lunch. Well, all H-E-double-L broke loose, and various family members scratched off and left the party. That's the biggest scandal at Christmas time in our family. So Daniel Horowitz, this family travels from out of town to visit nobody's home and they find the victim in the freezer. Do you have any reason in all your years of trial experience why a COD, cause of death, would not be released as of right now? No, this is a very peculiar case. First of all, did they call the day before and say we're coming over? Man, you do like the details, don't you? Okay, go ahead. Yeah. Well, they said, come on over.

And when you get here, if we're not around, go open the freezer and see what's there. It's peculiar to go to a house, have no one there and go through the freezer. You go to the refrigerator, you sit around, you go out to McDonald's, you do something. But going through the house and opening a freezer is bizarre. Okay. So you, Daniel Horowitz, find the bizarre part of this is that they looked in the freezer? Yes. Okay, because I have a problem with the dead body in the freezer. I would like to start right there. And I know where you're going. You are suggesting that they kill the woman. But I'd like to point out, I know where you're going. Don't

even go, what? No, that's where you're going. Isn't that where you're going? I'm going that they knew something was up. They didn't just go there and go into a cold freezer for nothing. It's peculiar, Nancy. Daniel, I didn't just fall off the turnip truck. And you're normally, you're doing what you always do. You point every which way, but where a jury should be focused. If they did it, why the hell would they call 911? Why would they be on the scene? They probably knew who did it. They covered it up. Oh, dear Lord in heaven. You know what? Let's start with something called the facts. Joining me is Alexis Tereschuk, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Alexis, thank you for being with us. Let's just start at the beginning.

Family members visiting San Diego for the holidays are in shock when they find who they identify as their female relative's badly decomposed body. And that is significant, Alexis Tereschuk. Badly decomposed body. And I'm going to go back to Dr. Mena on that. Hold on. Let me write myself a note. She was already badly decomposed. That is significant. While I appreciate Daniel Horowitz's far-fetched theories, which actually have worked many, many times on juries, I would like to stick with the facts. We know they get there. Her body is badly decomposed and the homicide unit is investigating due to the nature of the discovery. We know it's a female. We know the female that lived in the home wasn't there to greet them at the door and they have identified her. And just before you say anything else, there is another case where a victim was identified

specifically by clothing. OK, take a listen to our cut. A from Dave Mack. When police described a sweatshirt on the body, they found Gabby Petito's stepfather, Jim Schmidt, tells Dr. Phil he knew Gabby had passed away. Schmidt said the description of the piece of clothing matched Gabby's favorite sweatshirt that he knew was hers. Schmidt also said it was from a local store, so we knew it was hers. You know, Alexis Tereschuk, I have a favorite windbreaker that I wear all the time. And I have a favorite sweatshirt, Fulton County Fire Department sweatshirt. That is something that would, those two items would positively identify me.

Now, let's start with the facts, Alexis. Tell me what happened from the beginning. So family comes from out of town to visit, and this is town Allied Gardens. It's a suburb of San Diego. You know, San Diego. You know San Diego is right on the water in Southern California. Can you slow down because everybody doesn't know everything you're saying about San Diego. Okay start start again. I want to hear it and slowly. San Diego is really one of the most southern cities in California right on the border of Mexico.

Allied Gardens is a suburb. It's a little bit east of the ocean. This house is worth $900,000. It is a very, it's a nice neighborhood. It is a family-friendly neighborhood. Good schools are in this area. Neighbors have said nothing like this has ever happened in the neighborhood. These family members come in on December 23rd,

two days before Christmas from out of town. They cannot find anybody in the neighborhood. These family members come in on December 23rd, two days before Christmas from out of town. They cannot find anybody in the house. The family members that they were expecting to be in the house were not there. Question, isn't Allied Gardens very close to the college area as it is called? That house is San Diego State University. Yes. See, that's very interesting to me that we're near a college town and not far away at all. But back to what you were saying about Allied Gardens. Go ahead. I'm sorry. So it's a nice family neighborhood. This is a nice street. Neighbors say that nothing has ever happened on the street. They have no reason to think that anything

had happened in this house. But the family shows up. The family member that they were expecting to meet them is not there. And so they search the house and they find a body in the freezer. The thing is, while we've been saying it with our family member, the body is so frozen that the only thing they can really tell from the frozen body is that it is a female. Okay, I want to follow up on what you're saying. I'm going to go back to the neighborhood and what the significance of the population of Allied Gardens means to this case. Maybe nothing because it's just really a borough or a neighborhood of San Diego.

So its population really wouldn't matter. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Sean Patrick Farley joining me out of Discovery Bay, California, former law enforcement, now PI, sadly specializing in criminal defense, but I won't hold that against you. Owner of SeanPatrickInvestigations.com. Sean Patrick, thank you for being with us. The reason I'm curious about Allied Gardens is because there's a big difference if a murder happens, say, in Manhattan, as opposed to Lysela, Georgia, near where I'm from, Macon, Georgia. Because when you've got a very dense population with millions of people, it's like finding a needle in a haystack. As opposed to a much smaller population or a rural population, which really limits your suspect pool. Agree, disagree?

Certainly agree. I think the fact this occurred in a dense population is a credit to law enforcement's investigation. I think that provides potential evidence, whether it's through ring doorbell cameras, technology, you know, cell phone ringing, things of that nature. Certainly with today's modern technology, that's going to assist law enforcement. I would like to go back, you know, to your initial statement, though, and you said, you know, homicide. You know, we're assuming this is a homicide. And I think everything points to that.

I think the fact that the victim was found in a freezer is an initial point that something is wrong. But we don't know how she got in the freezer. OK, can I just stop you right there, Sean Patrick? Please do. OK, we're not in defense land. This is Nancy land. OK, I look at the facts as they are. John Patrick? Please do. Okay. We're not in defense land. This is Nancy land. Okay. I look at the facts as they are,

not how a defense attorney would want them to be. Like you just heard Daniel Horowitz, he'll have this thing spun out to where she took a nap and accidentally shut the lid on herself. You know, that's where he's going or that the relatives who find her body and report it, they did it. I don't

believe that either, but it can't be anything but a homicide. It's not, there's only three ways to die. You've got natural, you've got accident and you've got foul play. Let's start with your initial. Cause I agree with you. Let's start with your initial, the natural, because I agree with that. And I think that's a possibility. You know, we all deal with death in a number of different ways. The emotion that comes with that, and we all handle it differently. And it's a very tragic thing. It's a very difficult thing. There's been many cases. Now, the average person, I think when somebody in our home, our loved ones, or we come across a deceased person, we call the authorities, we call 911. Unfortunately, that's not the way

everybody deals when they come across that sort of a situation. We have situations where a family member will die and a husband, a wife, a father, a son, they just can't let go. Okay. You know, Sean Patrick, I've heard all kinds of great things about you. Thank you, ma'am. You have a sterling reputation. But again, let me direct you to what is known, and that is there are three causes. There's three ways to die. Natural death, like you kill over with a heart attack. Accident, like you have a car crash.

And foul play. Okay. Are you suggesting this was an accident? Certainly not suggesting anything at this point. no yes no are you suggesting was an accident that she died in a freezer certainly not i don't have enough information to suggest anything what is she naughty coming at you she had to jump into it it's not an accident you don't land in a chest freezer certainly agree by accident certainly agree that okay natural it's certainly not natural to die in a freezer chest freezer. Certainly agree. By accident. Certainly agree with that. Okay. Natural. It's certainly not natural to die in a freezer. That leaves me one choice and that's foul play.

Agree or disagree, Sean Patrick Farley. I think with the options that you're presenting with the words that you're using to describe it, of course I agree with you. But before we move on, because I think ultimately my agreeance is with you and I. But before we move on, because I think ultimately my agreeance is with you and I think my information will support that. But I don't want to move past the ailing family member who lost and just can't report it and put their family member into this freezer to store them there with hopes of maybe someday reporting it, maybe someday just keeping their family member in that state. Now, do I think that happened? No. As an investigator, do I consider that? Absolutely. Because at this stage, we don't have any information as the audience, as the outside looking into law enforcement's

investigation. So as an investigator, I will not discount anything at this point because that would be irresponsible. I don't certainly don't want to go back and recreate. Well, I certainly would never call you, Sean Patrick Farley, irresponsible. Guys, this is what we're learning. Take a listen now to Dave Mack, A Crime Online. Around 1145 on Saturday, a 911 call is made to the San Diego Police Department. Out of town visitors find a badly decomposed body inside a chest freezer and their loved one is missing. The case is turned over to the homicide unit. The name of the deceased has not been released.

You know, I looked this up on Zillow because they haven't released any crime scene photos yet. And I'm looking at this place. It's nice. 4914 Zion Avenue, San Diego. And I notice how close and I think this is the norm out there, Alexis Tereschuk. The homes in this neighborhood are very close to each other. They're really pretty, but they are very close to each other. My point, of course, is the point of criminal law.

If there had been any sort of altercation, would the neighbors have heard it? That's what I'm looking at. But have you seen this? It's got a front porch with very well-kept yard with flat, with potted plants all on the front porch that require attention. And then there is a side patio, a sliding glass door. And what is striking me is the attention that has been given to it. There's another patio setting out there. Everything is pristine. It looks like ready for a visit. A tree-lined neighborhood, which is important. And there is a barrier in the front yard before the street where a fence has been constructed to match the home. I'm looking at that. And there's a school across the street. Like, this is a very safe neighborhood.

Three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath, $900,000. What does that mean? It can mean a lot of things, but in my world, Dr. Angela Arnold joining me, renowned psychiatrist out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. Dr. Angie, when you have $900,000 put down on a family home and a family neighborhood across from a school, a public school, that means you're probably not a dope dealer or an arms dealer. That's correct. You know who wants those homes across from the school? People that have children in the school or that teach at the school. That's the neighborhood we're talking about.

And also, typically, Nancy, people will pay more money to be close to a good school. So it indicates that that's in all likelihood a good school, and people are clamoring to be in that neighborhood, and that drives the price of the homes up also. I can count in my head acquaintances of ours that have moved to be closer to the school so they don't have such a long commute for their children every morning. And they'll pay extra for that. Yeah, this is a big deal to me because it's giving me an idea about who the killer could have been.

Of course, you can't negate Sean Patrick Farley's theory that she was killed, she was murdered, and then family members were so distraught they didn't call 911 immediately. They froze her. Dr. Othan Minna is joining me. Very well-known forensic pathologist, medical examiner in this jurisdiction there in California and has had experience with frozen bodies. I'd like to point out also that we know that she was badly decomposed when the relatives got there for Christmas on December 23. Dr. Minna, thank you so much for being with us. How can you, without knowing anything about the death, look at a body if it's been thawed out and know that it's frozen, Dr.

Mena. Well, to know that somebody was frozen, it would be very cold inside. It cools, it warms up last inside. And it also be very hard to cut when examining the body during the autopsy. Wait a minute. What if the body was thawed out at the time it was body during the autopsy. Wait a minute. What if the body was thawed out at the time it was put on your autopsy table? Then if it gets thawed out, it actually will continue decomposing at a different rate. For example, where it's still frozen, it'll maintain, but then the more fingers, hands, the head, the stuff that's more peripheral, more outside, it'll start to thaw out.

So the medical examiner will have to try to have the body thaw more evenly. So sometimes what is used is a fan to move the air around the room, put it at room temperature and use a fan to move the air so that one part of the body doesn't thaw faster. With your hearing, Dr. Othan Mena joining us from Southern California. Dr. Mena, I think I understood you to say that the outermost

parts of the body, such as the digits, the fingers, the toes, you mentioned the head, begin to thaw before the rest of the body. The core, which I assume is the torso, is that the last thing to thaw? Yes. Inside the body the core which i assume is the torso is that the last thing to thaw yes inside the the organs will even have ice on them oh wait a minute first of all organs will have ice on the organs right so some of the water from the organs if of course it depends at what

point she was frozen like how how decomp, how much she decomposed before getting frozen, that really determines. But if the body still had water in it and fluid, it can form crystals and the parts that still have some water in them. Dr. Mena, again, if the body is totally thawed out at the time you get it on your autopsy table how you how do you determine it was ever frozen can you look at the cells and figure that out no once the person is decomposed the tissue will all be um lose its its kind of cellular structure it's hard to see the the details on biopsy but um one thing is to see if it decomposed differently. For example, are some parts of the body more decomposed than another? That tells me that probably the person

has to be thought out and decomposed differently unless the different parts of the body were exposed to different temperatures for whatever reason. I'm very curious about how the body ended up in the freezer, of course, but I find it very difficult to believe that relatives would show up and then call 911 if they were responsible, which leads me to my question, Dr. Othan Minna, as to why her identity and her COD cause of death has not been released. What do you think, Dr. Mena? So I would like to know if she was actually identified already. Depending on how decomposed she is, she could be easily identified, meaning she's still wearing her clothes or still kind of looks like her.

But if she's far more advanced, given that there's different levels of decomposition, so they might actually not know who she is or they just need to confirm that identification, either dental records or if she's still, fingerprints are still available. That's another common method. Now, why is it that after a period of time, the MA medical examiner can no longer get fingerprints off a dead body? Because the fingers just dry out too much or the skin sloughs off so it might have it can come off and so sometimes some medical examiners have become very good at what's called

rehydrating the digits and then then that the fingerprint can actually come back or at least get a partial print. Can I talk to you about what you just said, Dr. Minna? How do you and why do you rehydrate the digits, the fingertips? Could you explain that? Sure. So they can become very dry or desiccated, almost mummified. So what happens is some people, they've developed special formulas to kind of rehydrate and plump up the tissue, the skin again. And then that can be rolled on a piece of paper with some ink on it. And it'll actually look great, almost like the person was still alive.

So people are getting better and better at using this method for rehydrating the digit. This is not the first time a body, a woman's body has been found in the freezer and medical examiners face the same problems that you're hearing from Dr. Minna. Take a listen to our cut five. Does the name Shannon Graves ring a bell? As police are looking for missing Shannon Graves, Ken Eshenbaugh caused 911 to report he and his wife just found a woman's dismembered body wrapped in garbage bags in their freezer, except for the head. It is missing. Eshenbaugh tells police he is storing the freezer for a friend whose power went out, the friend, Arturo Novoa. And more. Before they even find her body

in the freezer, police began checking jails, prisons, hospitals. They've run out of leads. And so they're looking any and everywhere just to see if something has happened along the way. Then a couple of months into the investigation, there's some shocking news coming out of Campbell, Ohio. This is just a 10-minute drive from Youngstown. Word is that a couple living in Campbell have made a horrific discovery in their own house, in their basement, and they think a friend of theirs has something to do with it.

And, of course, I'm going to circle back to Daniel Horowitz in a moment because he'll try to blame them because they looked in the freezer. That's not a felony to look in the freezer, Daniel Horowitz. But the irony as we compare the current case to the case of Shannon Graves in Youngstown, Ohio, is that it all happened around Christmas as well. This is what our friend Ray Caputo tells me. Ray Caputo, former anchor WDBO. It wasn't uncommon, according to family members, for Shannon to go long periods of time without contacting family members. So when she first kind, people noticed that she wasn't around, it wasn't like, you know, somebody you see every day where you immediately notice it. She was last seen on Christmas Day in 2016,

and then her sister said she saw her a couple months later in mid-February. But again, it's kind of abnormal. You'd think when somebody goes missing, in a matter of days, people notice. But it wasn't like that with Shannon. So it all started around Christmas, as in the current case. Now, take a listen to crime reporter John Limley in Our Cut Nine. The beginning of the story goes back when Ken Eshenbaugh says a friend introduced him to a man named Anthony Gonzalez. Well, Ken says he became friends with Anthony because Ken owns some

audio equipment and Anthony was interested in recording rap music. Fast forward to the middle of the July. This is when Anthony asks Ken for a favor. Anthony tells Ken that the electricity has gone out in his home and he's concerned that some meat he was keeping in a freezer was in danger of thawing, going bad. So when Anthony asked Ken if he could bring the freezer to his home in Campbell, Ken said, sure, no problem. That's how it all went down. Has anybody out there ever had your electricity go off and you want to save what's in your freezer? Because it's happened to me. Our next door neighbor asked if they could store all their frozen stuff in our freezer.

We said, sure. And they did because their electricity went out. Now, I'm sure Daniel Horowitz is coming up with all sorts of conspiracy theories about how this went down. But here's the answer in our Cut 11. She begins rummaging through the freezer and comes upon a large garbage bag inside. This is when Ken's wife says she immediately got a bad feeling. She put everything back in, replaced the three screws and called her husband. And when Ken arrives at home, he opens the freezer and found that whatever was inside the bag was frozen solid. Okay, Daniel Horowitz, renowned defense attorney

joining us out of the California jurisdiction. See, you can innocently look into a freezer. That does not make you a killer, Daniel Horowitz. Fancy grace. What? Okay, you're like my labradoodle with a bone. You won't let go. I'm going to take that as a compliment. It doesn't make sense that you're going to somebody's house and you don't call them a few days before saying we're coming over. That body was badly decomposed. That person was probably dead for what, days, weeks? I don't know how long it was in the freezer, but you don't not speak to a person, and then you show up on their doorstep. So they had to have been out of contact

with this person for weeks, and then just show up and go to the freezer. It doesn't make sense. How do I know? I mean, it's California. Alexis Tereschuk, in this area, especially with the Santa Ana winds, we don't know what the temperature was leading up to Christmas.

For all I know, there were warm days. There were definitely wet days. We don't know how the decomposition was aided and abetted by the weather where she had been before she was put into the freezer. And another thing, which I'll go back to you on, Dr. Angela Arnold, we showed up at a lot of people's house unannounced over Christmas because we deliver eggnog and homemade treats and cakes and cookies that we make to people all over our neighborhood.

And we don't call and make an appointment. Well, I would have liked to have gotten some of that eggnog, first of all. Sorry, I'm sure you're on an exotic vacation, but go ahead. Continue, continue. But honestly, Nancy, did you go in the people's house and start rummaging around their freezer? No, because they answered the door and they were not my relative. But if I had gone to my sister's home

and she didn't come to the door on a day that I knew she was going to be there and she didn't come to the door for hours and hours and hours. You would have gone and rummaged through her freezer. No, I would have tried to call her and if I saw her car parked there and I couldn't account for where she was, you darn right I would go in and look for my sister. And with my background, actually, yes, I would look in the freezer. But to you, Alexis Tereshchuk, what about it? Well, first of all, it was very sunny and warm on Christmas here in California. And San Diego is even warmer than Los Angeles. It was, we had beautiful weather.

But the thing is, nobody had reported anyone missing ahead of time. So it wasn't like this person was missing for days and the police, and no one called for a welfare check to the house. Nobody raised any alarm before this family came there. So they were, you can think that they were arriving expecting someone to be there that they hadn't been worried before. I'm wondering if it's a woman that lives alone. I'm wondering if that relative lives alone I wonder if it's somebody's auntie or granny where you just kind of walk in but we don't we haven't been given any of that information Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

To you, St. Patrick Farley, would that make the pieces fit together better for you if it was a woman that lived alone that was a relative of this family that came to visit, like an aunt or a grandma? I sure would like to have some pieces of a puzzle to start putting together, something to start a foundation for this to make sense. Because I think we all agree this is not making sense. And law enforcement is being very slow in their ability to release information. Now, we're at the holidays.

So law enforcement, their resources are going to be information. Now we're at the holidays. So law enforcement, their resources are going to be minimal. Here in California, we already have an issue with law enforcement being understaffed. At this time, it's the holiday season. So they'll patrol maybe up and running the outside resources, meaning support staff, administrators, detectives, things like that. They may have been on holiday leave, vacation, things of that nature. So that's going to push back a little bit of information being released to the public. But I certainly, to your point, I would like some pieces to begin with. I think right now, they're just so scattered that any comment or any strategic lead that we believe we have is just

based off of frivolous hope or in the past, it seems that this has happened. But right now, from an investigative standpoint, a number of things can happen. And I'd like to finish with, you know, you seem to throw great parties. I would love to come to one of your parties. I'm a social person. I would show up, if it was the holidays, with something in hand. I would have a nice pie. I would have some sort of dessert. I would have something to bring. I would have some sort of dessert. I would have something to bring to the party at a friend's house, especially a family member's house. So if I walk into the home and they're not there and I'm looking around and I'm looking for

Aunt Joan or Uncle Bill and he's not around and I keep looking, I keep looking, nobody can find them. At some point, what am I going to do with the frozen pie that's in my hand? I'm not going to continue to just walk around the home with it. At some point, I'll secure that food as I continue to look for my aunt or my uncle or my friend who's invited me over. Now, where am I going to secure that frozen pie? Well, another thing is if they had been there and they're waiting and they're waiting and they're waiting, they may have looked in there for something to eat. Why did they go in there?

I don't know. And I don't care. The only reason I would care is under Daniel Horowitz's, as I say, far-fetched theory. I want to make sure that they're not the ones that put her in there. Do I think that they did? No, because they called 911 over. Now, another thing really jumped out at me in that last case of Shannon Graves, Dr. Othin Minna joining us. Dr. Minna, Shannon had been dismembered and her torso was frozen

solid. You said something earlier about how the body cells begin to degenerate because of the freezing, would that make it difficult to get a DNA match? Because certainly within that home, they're going to find the woman's DNA from a hairbrush or a comb or a toothbrush. But can you get DNA from a frozen body? Yes, actually from bone. You can use the long bones are ideal, such as the femur or the humerus. But yes, you can use some of the DNA still remaining in the bone.

And actually freezing would probably help preserve it as opposed to somebody out in the sun in the desert or something. So that DNA might actually have been helped by freezing. So that's probably the method they would use unless there's still any blood and then the blood can have some. Dr. Othan Minna joining us, forensic pathologist who has experience in frozen body cases. Dr. Minna, every time you say something, I have a million new questions because everything you say is incredibly interesting to me. Now, I just learned that the best bones, we got to remember this, Jackie, from which you get DNA would be the long bones, such as the leg bone. You mentioned two of them being one being the femur. I don't remember the other one. But why is that? Is there more DNA? And do you get it from essentially the bone marrow, the living tissue inside of the bone?

Where do you get the DNA from a bone? Actually from the outer part, what's called the cortex. The really hard part on the outside of the bones is what we use. So kind of it would get ground. Interesting. I would have thought it would have been the inside of the bone, but you're saying the outer covering of the bone, the cortex, correct? And why a long bone? Why is that preferred? Because there's more of it? There's more cortex? Exactly. Okay, interesting. So even if all we had is say her torso, as in the Shannon Graves case, you could still get DNA from a bone, even if frozen.

Yes. And again, it depends at what point the person was frozen. So some people, after dying for whatever reason, they get frozen. So if it happens right after death, the better preserved the tissue will be. If the person was really badly decomposed and then frozen for concealment, for example, then the less likely the tissue will be helpful. People look in freezers for all sorts of reasons. What about Melissa Mooney? Take a listen to our Cut 20 from Crime Online. Melissa Mooney moves into an upscale apartment in Los Angeles.

When she doesn't return to pick up some items from her previous residence, her mother gets worried. Realizing nobody in the family has seen Maylisa Mooney for several days, her mother calls police for a welfare check. Police notice blood pooling under the refrigerator in the new apartment, and the body of the 31-year-old model is inside. She's been bound with electrical cords and clothing. A gag made from clothing was stuffed in her mouth, and other items were covering her head. Blunt force injuries, as well as lacerations abrasions and contusions were found on her face head back and upper left arm according to the coroner's report the report found the injuries by themselves were not severe enough to have caused her death on their own but suggest she was likely involved in a violent physical altercation. Her cause of death was determined homicidal violence,

and the report suggests she may have been asphyxiated, although no direct marks from strangulation were observed. We picked Melissa's case for a very important reason. The reason is, number one, people looked into the freezer because they saw blood pooling outside the freezer. So to you, Daniel Horowitz, high-profile lawyer joining us out of California, this jurisdiction, there are any number of reasons that the relatives may have looked in the freezer. How did they even get in the house? Did they have a key? Was the door open?

Oh, dear Lord, now you're on the front door. First, I give you an answer about the freezer, and now you want to know why they came through the door. It never ends with you, does it? You haven't answered the key question. They show up unannounced. They show up not having spoken to the person for weeks. The door's open. They just walk in, and they go, oh, there's a nice freezer. Let's open it up and see if she's there. It's ridiculous. How do I know there wasn't blood pooling outside the freezer? I don't know why they looked in the freezer.

Why did Melissa's mother want to look in the freezer? Why did the neighbor who was storing a freezer that was padlocked decide to look in the freezer? She said she was looking for meat to make spaghetti. Do I believe that? H-E-L-L-N-O. She looked in the freezer because she thought something weird was going on and she checked in the freezer. I don't know if that's a natural, logical course of thinking, but it's happening. We are finding bodies in freezers just like this woman's body was found in the freezer. And she's not the only one. Take a listen to our cut 21 regarding Inman. Brandon Sanders is arrested and charged in the murder, robbery and burglary of a 69 year old Bosnian war refugee, Rasim Katanik. While Sanders is in court on that murder charge, police serve a search warrant at

his apartment and find the body of a young woman stuffed in his freezer. The family of 18-year-old Imam Al-Saraa tell ABC7 News she is beaten to death. Sanders faces murder charges in the killing of Rasim Katanik, but police have not said when or if they will charge him with the death of Imam al-Sara. And that's not the only one. What about Brian Hemmert? Listen to 22. In Florida, the Lee County Sheriff's Office tells Fox 4 they have been able to end one investigation as they begin a new one. The case that is solved? The missing person case involving a 60-year-old man, Brian Hemmert. His body has been found stuffed in a freezer in his house. Investigators have yet to determine the cause of death, but they have taken Hemmert's 31-year-old son, Jake Hemmert, into custody

and charged him with second-degree murder, credit card fraud, and grand theft. Police were called to Brian Hemmert's house about a missing persons report and took Jake Hemmert into custody on an unrelated out-of-state warrant. Ten days after placing Jake Hemmert in jail on the warrant, Brian Hemmert's body was found in a freezer with a defect in the home the two men shared. Okay, and that's not all. What about not just a body, but to make it even more difficult to solve, a hand? Take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com.

A family moves out of an Alabama rental property and the owner decided to sell. The new owners are cleaning up around the property when they find a freezer in the backyard that is too heavy to load on a trailer. They decide to clean it out before hauling it away. When they open the freezer, the new owners see what looks like a human hand and immediately call 911. And following up on Daniel Horowitz's theory that these relatives killed her. Or at least, Nancy, they knew. At least they knew who did it. They knew something was wrong. Look, Nancy, it's a big chest freezer in a small residence. What's it doing there? What was in it before? It doesn't make sense if there's just a freezer sitting there. If somebody took the things out of that freezer and put a body in, where are the things that were taken out? Oh my goodness. You go from why they're looking to the freezer to why they

went in the front door to what did they do with the leftovers? Okay, guys, earlier, and he's a renowned defense attorney, and he wins cases because of crazy theories just like this one that he's coming up with right now. But notice he's always got a backup argument. But listen to this. Earlier, he mentioned that these poor relatives who show up at Christmas and find the dead body, that they killed her. And for sentimental reasons, put her in the freezer and then call 9-1-1. Take a listen to our cut 19. Does the name Eva Bratcher ring a bell? 38-year-old Sabrina Watson is worried about her grandmother. It's been a long time since the two have talked. She calls police and asks for a well-being check on Regina Michalski. At the home,

police find Watson's mother, Eva Bratcher. She gives the police an ID with Bratcher's picture and Regina Michalski's name. Police investigate further and found the body of Michalski in a freezer. The body had to be thawed out to determine the cause of death. Eva Bratcher is now accused of keeping her mother's dead body in the freezer for two years and stealing her identity. You know, Dr. Angela Arnold, we have discussed on several occasions Long Island serial killer, who I believe to be Rex Heuermann, and how every day he would drive that route to work to catch the train or to drive into Manhattan, and he would pass his victims lined up along Gilgo Beach like trophies.

How do you go buy a freezer and park your car in front of it and pass it for all I know, store your leftover spaghetti in? I don't know. When you know there is a dead body in it. Well, Nancy, it sounds like some people have a reason for that. And the reason is, like in this last case that you just discussed, to steal someone's identity. Nancy, if you steal someone's identity, then that means you could be getting a check from that person. You could possibly be making some financial gain from

stealing someone's identity. So I imagine once the checks start coming in and the person is frozen down in the bottom of the freezer, you just lose your attachment with them. And the monetary gain that you're getting from that becomes much more important than worrying about if there's a dead body in your freezer. So somehow going from the psychological issue of how you compartmentalize the dead body in the freezer and go about your business. You have somehow taken us into the territory of a pecuniary or monetary motive in a murder. Yes. Okay.

Alexis Tereschuk, where does the case stand right now? The police have yet to release the identity of the woman whose body was found, and the family has not spoken out about their missing relative. We are waiting for the results from the medical examiner. Nancy, jump in. We've just got word that the body has been identified as Mary Margaret Haxby Jones. And at the time that her body was found, if she had been living, she would have been 81 years old. It's believed she lived at the home at some point. We still don't know how or when Haxby Jones died, but she may have been missing or dead for up to nine years. SDPD says no missing person report was ever filed for her. Now, the out-of-town visitors were not related to Haxby

Jones. Instead, they're related to someone currently living at the residence. The medical examiner's office is still working to determine the cause of death. And again, the body did not have any obvious traumatic injuries. However, the police are still investigating this as a suspicious death. If you know or think you know anything about the body in the freezer, please dial 888-580-8477, toll free, 888-580-8477. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.