Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Introducing ‘Body Bags’! Episode 1: Death in the Tetons

Episode Date: September 29, 2021

Introducing the new podcast 'Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan'! Gabby Petito went missing during a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie. On Sept. 19, the FBI announced that a body had been found in Wyoming. An autopsy confirmed the remains belonged to Petito. Her cause of death has not been revealed yet, but it has been ruled a homicide. Death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan weighs in on why the cause of death has not been revealed.Subscribe to 'Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan':Apple PodcastsSpotifyiHeart Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan, Death Investigator, Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University. Joe Scott Morgan has been on over 10,000 death scenes, and now he takes apart, in a way that only he can, The homicides that we are all investigating, whether you're in the thick of it with the police department or the FBI, or you're an armchair sleuth, Joe Scott Morgan will give you answers. Body bags, Joe Scott Morgan. Follow and subscribe now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan.

I don't know in recent memory if there's been a case that has captivated America like the Gabby Petito case. This young, beautiful woman just kind of vanishes initially off of the face of the planet. You have no idea where she is. The family, they didn't even know she was gone for almost 10 days.

They were frantically trying to get in contact with her, and she had left on this odyssey with her boyfriend, traveling across the nation on the trip of a lifetime. Unfortunately, in Gabby's case, this turned out to be, I don't know of a lifetime. Unfortunately, in Gabby's case, this turned out to be, I don't know, a nightmare. This is Body Bags. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan. The Gabby Petito case.

When she is finally found, when the questions are finally answered as to where she is finally found, when the questions are finally answered as to where she is, mom and dad and her stepfather are told that she's been found deceased in the rugged terrain of the Grand Teton Mountains. I don't know if any of us can actually fathom the horror that's involved in that. Joining me is Jackie Howard, executive producer of Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Jackie, what do we know about the case so far? Joe, Gabby Petito, 22 years old, went missing August 24th. At least that's when we believe she went missing.

That was the last time she was seen. Her parents reported her missing on september the 11th during that time we know that brian laundry was home in florida at his parents house but would not answer the family's request for where was gabby gabby's body was found september the 19th in the grand tetons in the meantime brian laundry has gone missing. There is a $30,000 reward out for his whereabouts. The search for Brian Laundrie has been going on now. They have searched the Carleton Reserve, which is more than 75% underwater, looking for him. Now we have information that he could be hiding in Fort DeSoto. Also with camping sites and trails and keys that you could travel to by boat.

The FBI has now taken over the search. Again, they are looking for Brian Laundrie. In the meantime, we go back to the body being found. You know, Jackie, a lot of time's been spent talking about Brian Laundrie over these past few days. And I got to tell you, it's as badly as I want him found. You know, something happens in the media. Lots of times you lose sight of the victim.

And in this case, I'm going to say her name. Her name is Gabby Petito. She's been found. She's been found and she's a homicide victim. For me, we have to keep her in the forefront moving forward because without her, without her, there's not going to be a case to prosecute him with. And the evidence, the clues that Abby and her body have left behind. And I think that that's critical for us to examine. As you said that, Joe, that is critical for us to examine.

The coroner has released his report, a preliminary report. We're still waiting on toxicology, but the preliminary report did say and classify Gabby's death as a homicide. But why have they released just the manner of death and no cause as yet? What could they still be looking for? You know, in Gabby's case, they have released a manner, as you mentioned. And I got to tell you, one of the most glaring things here is the fact that they released it so quickly. You know, they did her autopsy on a Tuesday morning. And by that afternoon, they held a press conference and did it well.

They did a press release and stated that they had, in fact, a manner of death, but they weren't releasing the cause. And what's so striking about the fact that they released this manner so quickly gives me an indication that they saw something glaring in that autopsy suite. And folks might not understand what it's like to be present at an autopsy. When you reach this level of focus, you know, all bets are off at that point in time. The authorities are going to call in every possible expert that they have. And just kind of let me paint a picture for you. Within this autopsy suite, obviously, we're going to have a forensic pathologist. That's a board-certified forensic pathologist that's going to be doing and is actually in charge of the examination of Gabby's remains.

I hate to say this, but by virtue of the fact that Gabby's remains are probably partially skeletonized, You're going to have a forensic anthropologist. And for those that don't know, if you know the name, the body farm up at the University of Tennessee, this is the kind of thing that they train for. This is the reality of what they do. All of that training, all those things you hear about, they examine skeletal remains and their biggest claim to fame is trying to pin down not just what brought about a death, but how long an individual has been dead. And then more than likely, they also had a forensic odontologist there because, you know, at the time there was a question about ID and they wanted to specifically do that. So they're going to do a dental examination. And moreover, and this goes to how big this case is, the FBI was present. They were present at the scene where Gabby was found.

But in addition to that, they were probably present at the autopsy. I've actually worked cases during my career where we had members of the FBI evidence team that were present in the morgue, and they're there to actually collect any kind of trace evidence in particular. Let's talk about that just a little bit more, because we do know that Gabby's body was found in the rugged terrain of the Grand Tetons. Her body had been there for several days. So what are we looking at? How difficult did that make it to come up with a cause of death or a manner of death? And where does it go from here? You know, that's the key is where do we go from here? Because right now we're still pending the actual cause of death. Remember, there's five manners of death. They could choose from

anything. You know, obviously in her case, they ruled it as a homicide, but we've got suicide, natural and undetermined, accidental. But they chose homicide. And when they walked out of that door that day of that morgue and they affirmatively stated, we got a homicide here. And I can tell you the term that was floating around inside of that autopsy suite was the term evidence of homicidal violence and let that kind of sink in. Now, they're not putting enough of a fine point on it yet. And when we get to that point, they will have accumulated all of the evidence that they needed to affirmatively say that this is the actual causal effect that brought about her death. Now, that could be any number of things.

You know, we're talking about two individuals that had been out. Her and Laundrie had been out camping. Now, I don't know if either one of these folks possessed a firearm, but I do know what they had. They had camping tools. You know, we begin to think about, you know, what do you need? You know, we saw that little tent that they were living in. In addition to the van, they had this little tent that they would set up.

What do you need to camp with? Well, you need probably a hammer or mallet to drive tent stakes. Most campers carry a saw with them. You know, some people cut down brush. I think that more than likely you need a shovel. All right. And certainly everybody that goes camping has some type of sharp instrument, don't they? And, you know, when you look at the scene where her body is found, one of the things that really jumped out to me, Jackie, was the fact that she's adjacent to kind of a creek bed.

And there are these beautiful, very smooth smooth round stones out there and they're in all manner of shapes well guess what those stones could be used for they could be used for the specific purpose of bludgeoning and bludgeoning is actually where there is an impact related injury like you pick up a stone and you actually drive it into the skull and it creates like a depressed skull fracture and you can bludgeon the skull and it creates like a depressed skull fracture and you can bludgeon the rest of the body as well it's blunt force trauma at the end of the day so they're trying to weed through all of these things and this is disrupted as a result of decomposition this is what we call in forensics decompositional artifact that that's those little

things you hear that term artifact and you think about ancient Egypt and, you know, what, you know, what archaeologists do. But artifact for us in forensics are those little things that are left behind. And one of the things I'm very happy about is that the FBI response team, evidence response team, were actually there. They were there at the scene. And not only were they at the scene, my money's on the fact that they were present at the autopsy. And guess what they're looking for? They're looking for all these little artifacts, anything that might be a tieback to her actual cause of death, not the manner, but the actual cause of death. It could be anything from a broken knife blade. It could be an impression that's left behind. If you'll think about, for instance,

like a hammer, if you look at the leading edge of a hammer, it's kind of shaped like a coin, almost like a quarter in size. Well, that leaves behind a very distinctive mark on the body. When the body is struck, you've got hemorrhage, and then you've got an underlying fracture. And do you know that actually many times with a fracture, the fracture takes on the outline of a coin. Isn't that amazing? And if the leading surface of the hammer has kind of a dimpled texture to it, those dimples, the negative, if you will, impression of that surface will be left behind on the skin. But the trick is here is the fact that we know that because she'd been down so long, she's decomposing. And that kind of creates a problem when you're moving forward and you're

trying to analyze this evidence. That means that it's obscure. So you have to take more time. It's not just going to be very, very obvious. Like, you know, someone, you hear a gunshot, you run upstairs, you find somebody has taken their life with a gun. All right, the gun's laying there, you got a bullet hole, and you can kind of move forward from there very quickly. That's not the case here with Gabby. Gabby is in an isolated area, Jackie. She's in an area that I would imagine the lion's share of people in the United States have not even come close to visiting. I know I haven't. I'd love to. I've always wanted to go to the Tetons, but it is isolated.

There's reasons why people go to these locations. It's to get away, to get away so that you don't have cell service, so that you're not around a computer to really drink in nature. And it's absolutely beautiful, but it is deadly. And another thing that they're contending with up there is what happened as she laid there. Well, she's subjected to weather, heat, the drop of temperature, that's going to have an impact on how her body reacts. Also, and people, many people don't want to talk about this, but this is the reality, what you're faced with as a medical legal death investigator, is animal activity. Anything that happens post-mortem, you know, and, you know, people automatically, the default position

for most people, and I've heard this in the news over and over again, you know, people say, oh, well, yeah, you got coyotes and you got wolves and you got bear and all these sorts of things. And that's not what I'm worried about. Some of the most seemingly innocuous animals on the face of the planet, things like raccoons, possums, those types of animals, those animals are scavengers. And yes, they're not, you know, people have this idea that they're vegetarian, I guess, or herbivores. They're not. They're omnivores. They will actually feast on bodies and then you have insect activity so everything that comes in contact with a body any kind of animal like this is going to take something away but the animal is going to leave something it's going to leave its mark upon the body and it can kind of give you an

idea and most of these animals are not going to be present at the same time these scavengers and so when we look at this this is one of the things that the forensic pathologist and all of the other evidence people that are collecting evidence have to take into consideration. And, you know, the investigation of her death does not just simply end with removing her from the scene, taking her to the autopsy room and examining her body there, once you get her body removed from the scene, that area, and I want to make this perfectly clear, the area that was underlying her body, that's significant. You have no idea when you're looking at a body at a scene, what might be hidden beneath that lower surface, that underlying surface that supported the body all that time? It could be an evidence-rich environment. Again, if you're talking about gunshot wounds, for instance, you could have a projectile down there.

I've actually had cases where perpetrators have killed someone and have actually taken the weapon and obscured it beneath the body. I remember quite distinctly, I had a guy that stabbed a fellow to death and then scratched the ground out below the body and buried the knife beneath the body. And we're looking everywhere for this knife. We're thinking that the perpetrator has moved on. And then suddenly, after we had the body removed, one other investigator looked down and saw just the tip of the handle hanging out. You never know what's going to be out of sight. It's not necessarily those things that are in plain sight. So once they removed the body, my suspicion is they probably took a metal detector and waved it over that area where her body was

found because you you get one shot at it you want to collect everything and that's that's kind of where they stand right now the only other thing regarding her body that people need to understand is that when you do a post-mortem examination, that is an autopsy. It's not just physically looking at the body and doing a dissection or in the case of humans, a prosection. You're also having to go down to a molecular level. You have to think about, well, what's contained in their system? You know, and that's why we draw blood. That's why we draw urine. That's why we draw vitreous from the eyes. Many people don't know that we draw fluid out of the eyes. We take all of these samples and we send them to the lab and these things will be run for

toxicological examination. And what you're looking for is any kind of substance that's in the system. It might be a prescription drug that people might be on. It could be an illicit drug, an illicit substance, any number of things that are illegal to possess. It could be poisons. Those are some of the things that toxicologists look for. So it's a real broad spectrum. I like to say forensic science is not microwave science. It takes time. And many people don't understand that. It's not television.

It's not wrapped up in an incident. And I know that's kind of cliched, but that's reality of it. It takes time. So, Joe, the one thing that you're talking about is the evidence that is there. The evidence can be found, the evidence that might be under the body, the evidence that you can detect. But being out in the elements as she was, one thing that you have to consider is the evidence that's not there. The evidence that has been washed away, corroded by the weather, corroded by the temperature, destroyed by the animals. How do investigators proceed from here? What can you do about it?

You know, one of the biggest things that was kind of left out in that list, and it was a great list, you know, one of the biggest enemies of an investigator relative to a death scene outdoors, something very common. It's something very benignign seemingly. What's that? Let me guess. The wind. The wind is a big one, but even bigger than that, rain, rain, rain, rain, because rain washes away. It, it cleanses things. It's the, it's, it's nature. It's what nature does. You know go outside after it's rained many times in the summertime. It's got that clean smell to it.

Well, yeah, but there's also a downside to that if you're a forensic investigator. It means that things have been cleansed to a certain degree, particularly outside in all of this organic material. And, you know, let's not forget that all of the images that we've kind of seen have been adjacent to this kind of riverbed looking area. Well, if they had some kind of torrential downpour, which can come and go, ground can dry out pretty quickly. But if it became torrential, you figure that water's flowing over the rocks. If she is suspended between a log and some of these rocks, the water could actually, can you imagine what effect that if you had white water that suddenly appeared, it could actually bathe the body and bathe away anything that might be contained therein.

And so at the end of the day, you can't sit back and say, oh, woe is me. You know, boo-hoo, I don't have the evidence. No, you have to drive on with what you have and take what nature leaves for you to examine. That's why it's so critical to be as thorough as you possibly can. And also, you know, as an investigator, it's incumbent upon you, as crazy as it sounds, to go back and look at weather reports. I've done this any number of times. Things like dam releases, downpours, anything that's associated with weather.

Also, you know, Jackie, you mentioned wind. Wind has a huge impact. When you think about things like touch DNA, it's so fragile. When you think about touch DNA, we think about losing skin cells, and that's essentially what it comes down to. Think about how delicate baby powder is, talc. If you just take a little bit of talc, put it in your hand, and gently blow on it, that gives you an idea. It'll put you in the ballpark with touch DNA, but touch DNA is even more fragile than that. It can be gone in an instant. If the perpetrator put their hands on her, like around her neck,

and you had a strong wind that came by, yeah, it could compromise that DNA evidence that's present there. you were talking about being thorough and you did a great job in in describing that to us so then we have to apply that to the van that gabby and brianundrie, Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie were living in. That van is going to tell us, in my mind, and I'm not a death investigator so much, it's going to tell us about what went on before Gabby died. Did she die in the van? Did she die outside the van? It's going to tell us whether she had been hurt

before it's going to tell us what was there when brian if he was in that van alone which we do believe he was because the van ended back up in florida in his parents driveway so obviously at some point he was in that van alone pick it up from there joe what do we do where we go and what did the authorities do when they took that van away and processed it? Everybody, in the sound of my voice, I want you to look at a picture of the van that Gabby owned, not Brian Laundrie, that Gabby owned. Look at that van. One of the things that absolutely stands out to me about that van, other than the fact that it was outfitted to go on a journey, you know, it had the external ladder and I guess the luggage racks and all that stuff.

One of the things that stands out to me relative to that van is the fact that that van, other than the windshield and the driver's window and the passenger's window, had no windows. There were no windows whatsoever. So anything that you wanted to do within that van could be done in total concealment. Think about that just for a second. If you wanted to make yourself a ham sandwich in there, you could do it. No one would see you. You know, if you wanted to play dominoes, no one would see you. If you wanted to commit murder. No one would see you. You want to commit murder? No one would see you.

It would be done in obscura. No one would be able to witness any kind of violence that was going in there. Now you might hear, if you're close enough, you might hear screams. You might even see the van rock back and forth. But my estimation is that whatever horror befell Gabby more than likely took place within the walls of that van, within those walls that she and Brian Laundrie had actually ripped out, reconfigured, and put together for this trip that they were planning on doing. And that's the heartbreaking part of this. This van was emblematic of everything that they wanted to do, everything she wanted to do, this grand adventure.

But from an evidentiary standpoint, this thing is what we call a target rich environment. Besides the Petito van, Joe, federal authorities also took Brian Laundrie's silver Mustang in for processing. It had been left at the Carlton Reserve. The mother and father had gone to the reserve and brought it back home to their family house and brought it back home when Brian Laundrie disappeared. So what were the authorities looking for anything different in the car? And since it was not out there where Gabby Petito died. So what were they looking for here? Yeah, holy smokes. That Mustang got returned really quick.

You can actually see it in videography. The most recent videography of the Laundrie's home is sitting right there in the driveway. But what's not there in that driveway is that van that was taken on a cross-country trip. And it had been completely tricked out. I mean, it contained all of these appointments inside of it, which is fantastic. But from a forensic standpoint, every item, and we've seen interior shots of the van, every item, every surface within that van's interior has potential to yield a harvest of forensic evidence. And I'm talking everything from at a molecular level with DNA to a visible level with things like, you know, blood staining.

And secondly, anything that's out of sorts, like dents, things being broken, things that look like that might indicate that there was a struggle within that van. That's all critical. Now, as you begin to peel away the interior, and I can tell you that's what the authorities are doing. They're taking this thing apart piece by piece by piece, and they are examining all of the underside, the backside, every item that's in there. I'm looking at a little desk that they actually created that's on one of the doors, the side doors of this thing,

they would actually take that little portable desk off and look at it and photograph it and be very careful with it. They will have stripped the entire inside of that vehicle out, enumerated each thing that they took out because each thing is potential evidence. And they're going to get down into the nooks and the crannies of this van all the little holes where they drop screws into to support areas all the little crevices that might have overlying you know floor work that's been done that stuff's coming up they're going to get down into those nooks and crevices and look for anything like blood the disturbing part to all of this is that laundry had possession of this van for days for absolute days and you know just this quick turnaround trip that he made from wyoming back to northport there's a number of places he has stopped in that over that thousand plus mile

trip to pull over to a car wash for instance you know the ones with the high pressure wands dropped a bunch of quarters in there and he begins spraying the entire interior out maybe he thought that it was a great idea to go somewhere and buy some bleach and dump it all over the place there's gonna be evidence of that because i can tell you what they're going to be doing they're still going to be looking for trace evidence, but they're also going to be doing things like luminol or blue star, trying to get any kind of left behind blood to luminesce. And even if he's made an attempt to clean that area up, the cool thing about it, you can eradicate that very easily.

And I don't, you know, everybody talks about what an outdoorsman he is. You know, he's hiked up and down the Appalachian Trail. He lives on the land. You know what he ain't? He's not a crime scene investigator. He's not a forensics expert. He's not going to fool any of us. I mean, any of us in forensics, because he couldn't get the van clean enough. And, you know, whatever he brought home with him is also critical. Because if he emptied out that van, brought it into the house, any of her possessions, any of their, quote unquote, their possessions, things that they had jointly, anything that went into that house that the FBI may have found,

there may be evidence on there of a life lived by Gabby. That is bloodstain, any kind of body fluid, tufts of hair, maybe her touch DNA. Nothing is off the table in this case. So, Joe, as the investigation continues, the one thing that we're still waiting on is the toxicology and the cause of death. What are they looking for in that toxicology? Well, they're going to look for all manner of agents that could be contained in there. And it's going to be anything from prescription medication. There's been a lot of talk, some of it non-verified, but anything to

maintenance your life with, like antidepressant drugs, anything like anti-anxiety medication. They're also going to look for, let's say, signs of alcohol. What we do, a blood alcohol level, a BA as we refer to it, or blood ethanol level, they're going to check for that. Additionally, they'll look for things as innocuous as aspirin. I don't know if folks at home understand that, but you look for what are called salicylates, and those are actually evidence that you're taking aspirin. They'll even probably find acetaminophen perhaps

if she was taking any other kind of anti-inflammatory drug. But they're going to look for poisons as well. Anything that could have harmed her. And one other thing that's really critical here. They're also, in addition to toxicology, they're going to do what's called histology. And histology is at autopsy, we take little slivers of tissue. We fix them, put them on a slide. And you look at the body literally in a microscopic setting. You look at how that tissue looks, how it appears, and anything that has adversely affect that tissue or change that tissue is going to be noted. And there'll be an entire

histological report as well. And everything, nothing is off the table here, all right? Because one of the things that you have to consider is what is the motivation for a grown man to be in an open street in public slapping a 95 pound young lady well i mean they're in a intimate relationship together and one of the things as an investigator i'm going to want to ask is was she pregnant i want to know that and that's something that will be examined at autopsy. Had she been sexually assaulted anyway, that will have been examined at autopsy. Rape kit will have been performed. So those test results are pending as well.

And we'll see what they reveal. Until next time, this is Body Bags. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan. until next time this is body bags i'm joseph scott morgan you're listening to an iheart podcast