Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - HEAR IT: Exactly HOW did George Floyd die? Expert Death Investigator EXPLAINS

Episode Date: April 10, 2021

Two forensic pathologists testified Friday in the Dereck Chauvin trial. The first was Dr. Lindsey C. Thomas, who has performed more than 5,000 autopsies. She told the court that she agreed with Hennepin County medical examiner Dr. Andrew Baker’s finding that Floyd died from “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement’s subdual restraint and neck compression.” What does that mean? Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor of Forensics at Jacksonville State University, breaks it down in this BONUS episode of Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I'm Jackie Howard, joined today by Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert. He is professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University and has been covering the Derek Chauvin trial since it began two weeks ago. Joe Scott, what do you make of it? I have, I don't know in my recollection that I have seen so many technical witnesses in one case and you know we're not even through with the prosecution's presentation

yet. So far this week alone, we've heard from a toxicologist, a PhD toxicologist, not to mention graduate level crime scene investigators. And just the other day, Dr. Tobin, who was kind of an entertaining, interesting little slice of life inside of a world that we don't get much view of. He's a pulmonologist by trade, originally from Ireland. And he had some interesting insights into the death of George Floyd from the perspective of, believe it or not, someone that is air deprived. As you would think of, say, for instance, in a case, he treats people with sleep apnea, of all things. So he really had an interesting take on how human ventilation works, that is to inspire and respire air and process it out of our lungs.

He addressed that and talked about kind of the function and how Mr. Floyd may have been inhibited by the presence of the weight of Derek Chauvin on his back as he's pressed into the concrete. Then we had a forensic toxicologist, a PhD level forensic toxicologist from Pennsylvania, who by the way is with a lab called NMS, who handles all of the forensic toxicology for Hennepin County in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The guy has got a very impressive background. And of course, he went in specifically to this interesting mixture of drugs that they found not only in George Floyd's system per the toxicological samples, but also what may have been at the scene. Remember, one of the things that came to light this week was the tablets that were found chewed up and spit out in the back of the patrol unit. Now, one interesting

thing that came to light relative to this was the fact that this vehicle, this patrol unit, had been in the possession of the Minneapolis Police Department, the state police department for Minnesota for eight months, and no one had found these tablets. It actually took the defense representatives to go out there to examine the car. They were not allowed to touch the car when they cut the tape that kind of seals the car shut to protect chain of custody. Immediately, the defense attorney looked and said, hey, what's that? And it was striking. You could see these actually very, very luminescent white tablets or particulate pieces of tablets

up against this black background of the floor mat. And all of us are sitting there thinking, how in the world could you possibly miss this? And under cross-examination, when the crime scene tech was asked about this missing of the tablets upon initial search, she actually said, I didn't know I was supposed to be looking for pills. And so that kind of took us all back there for a moment. And of course, one of the threads that runs through this entire trial is this idea that the defense is saying that George Floyd had been ingesting what are referred to as speed balls, which are a mixture of methamphetamine and of course, fentanyl.

And, you know, all we have to do is reflect back in time. How many people do we know that have actually died of Speedball? Well, let me name three. We've got Philip Seymour Hoffman. We've got River Phoenix, of course, and John Belushi. So we've got three individuals, high-profile individuals, in not too distant past that we all know of that have actually died from using speedball. So that has been kind of on the minds of everybody that studies

things like this and studies this case in particular from a forensic toxicology standpoint. So that was fascinating. And I think kind of to round things off today, we had a surprise witness that we didn't see coming, who is a forensic pathologist, but this individual was not the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office and is now retired and has over 30 years plus experience as a forensic pathologist. She actually got on stand and had been summoned not by the defense, but by the prosecution and was a witness for the prosecution. And as it turned out, at the end of the day, she was actually on the stand longer than the pathologist, Dr. Baker, who actually did the autopsy. We were all kind of scratching our heads and wondering where in the world is this going? And essentially, in a fascinating move, she sat on stand and actually interpreted Dr. Baxter's autopsy report.

And they were asking her very specific questions. We were kind of amazed at the amount of latitude that the court had afforded the prosecution in this, because one attorney actually mentioned that it seemed almost as if they were trying to drown the jury in scientific witnesses. And I'd have to concur because at the end of the day, our heads were Baker, who actually did the autopsy. He's the chief medical examiner for Hennepin County. Very composed, very professional. But, you know, there had been some questions along the way about his examination because he had actually stated in a separate hearing where he had gone in and testified and offered testimony, not only just to the grand jury, but he actually had a meeting with the county attorney up in Hennepin County where he said, I can't say definitively that George Floyd didn't die of an OD relative to fentanyl. And he even remarked that

he had worked cases that he had ruled as a lethal overdose of fentanyl at three nanograms. Keep in mind, George Floyd actually had 11 nanograms of fentanyl in his system at the time of death. So there's still a lot to uncover. I suspect that going into next week with the prosecution, they're going to start to wrap up their case. We expect to see possibly a cardiologist. We've already had a pulmonologist. We're going to talk about, we're going to have a cardiologist because Mr. Floyd had extensive heart disease. As a matter of fact, he has one coronary artery that was almost, I think, 90% blocked or occluded, as they say. He had stenosis, which is kind of hardening of arteries. A couple other vessels had close to 70, 75 percent. Of course, the defense is trying to say that the combination of the drugs and the heart disease, and he also had an enlarged heart as a result of hypertension, that all of these played into his death.

But at the end of the day, a lot of people are saying that had George Floyd and Derek Chauvin not crossed paths that day, would George Floyd still be alive? So there's a lot more to come starting next week, particularly as it applies to the prosecution kind of wrapping up their end of the case. We'll see what the defense has on board. There's even people saying that there's a chance that Derek Chauvin might testify. I'll believe that when I see it. I think that the defense is going to come full board with their own set of experts, and we'll see who triumphs in the end, because this case, as has been said by many other people, not just me, this case is, it comes down to a battle of the experts because there's so much science involved in this case. There's so much clinical

medicine that's involved in this case that you truly do need experts to kind of try to explain what was going on with George Floyd in the, uh, in the anti-mortem state, which means before death, and then the perimortem state, which means during the throes of death, and of course, what they found in the post-mortem state after death. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Let's talk about what you just said, Joe Scott, about the battle of the experts. Obviously, we've seen that with two medical examiners taking the stand, even the medical examiner who did not do the autopsy taking the stand first. Is this going to be over the head of the jury? I mean, is there going to be so much technical information that they're either going to get lost or confused by what they're hearing?

You know, the fact that they had two separate forensic pathologists in this particular case is, it's of note. And first off, let me say as a medical legal forensic professional, and I've done this now for over 35 years myself, I don't ever, and I don't ever remember ever seeing a prosecution place two forensic pathologists on the stand consecutively, and one of them not being the, as they say, pro sector of record. This person had nothing to do with the autopsy, had never come in contact with George Floyd's body and was simply left with the notes of Dr. Baker, the chief medical examiner, to review. She also obviously got to see a lot of the videography and that sort of thing, because a lot of this is hinging on George Floyd's reactions during the videotaping from the various angles. But you know, I got to tell you, at the end of the day, it was kind of muddled and confusing.

And I think that Dr. Thomas had presented information that was kind of contrary to what Dr. Baker had actually alluded to the fact that she in no way believes that this compression event on George Floyd's back was that his death was related to nothing other than specifically that compression. Yeah, the drugs and the heart disease might have might have contributed. But for Dr. Baker, the actual medical examiner slash forensic pathologist of record, he stated that he didn't know. He didn't know. And so I think that the prosecution probably, when they began to analyze this case, they said, we might have a problem here, so we're going to have to go full bore. What impact does it have on the jury? I don't know. It's almost as though they are just awash in data right now. The interesting narrative I think that it's going to develop out of this is going to be the fact that the defense's forensic pathologist, who we don't know who this is going to be yet, we do know that there is probably going to be one, they're going to have the last say in this, unless they call back the chief medical examiner, or maybe even Dr. Thomas as a rebuttal witness at some point in time. But if this case kind of runs the course, the defense forensic pathologists will have the last say. And that's kind of what the jury will be left with in their mind. Remember,

you've got two forensic pathologists that are working for the prosecution, but they're giving different data sets, and I would imagine they're kind of confused. The defense presents theirs, and there will be a succinct nature to it, and it will provide quite a bit of clarity. Forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, thanks for being with us today. You can follow this trial at CrimeOnline.com. This is Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is an iHeart Podcast.