Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Mayhem in The Morgue: Fame, Fourth Graders, and Darth Vader

Episode Date: October 19, 2025

Follow Mayhem in the Morgue on all podcast platforms: https://link.podtrac.com/MayhemMorgue What happens when a classroom of fourth graders learns that their guest speaker once autopsied a Star Wars actor? In this episode of Mayhem in the Morgue, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kendall Crowns recounts his career day presentations, the bizarre questions kids love to ask, and the one time he was derailed by a child named Monty. From explaining forensic pathology to grade schoolers to calming a room full of kids convinced that Darth Vader actually killed someone, this story shows that sometimes the toughest crowd is not in a courtroom, but a classroom.   Highlights (0:00) Welcome to Mayhem in the Morgue with Dr. Kendall Crowns (0:15) Career days and the mission to spread forensic pathology (1:00) How to make autopsy talk school friendly (2:15) Spielberg, Jaws, and the art of showing just enough (4:00) The bizarre questions kids ask (5:00) "Who is the most famous person you have autopsied?” (5:30) The Star Wars actor autopsy story (6:45) Chaos breaks out in the classroom (8:00) Monty vs. logic, round one (8:15) “Darth Vader gave him cancer,” Monty strikes again (9:00) Teacher to the rescue (9:45) Lessons learned about grade schoolers   About the Host: Dr. Kendall Crowns Dr. Crowns is the Chief Medical Examiner for Travis County, Texas, and a nationally recognized forensic pathologist. He las led death investigations in Travis County, Fort Worth, Chicago, and Kansas. Over his career, he has performed thousands of autopsies and testified in court hundreds of times as an expert witness. A frequent contributor to Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, Dr. Crowns brings unparalleled insight into the strange, grisly, and sometimes absurd realities of forensic pathology.   About the Show Mayhem in the Morgue takes listeners inside the bloody, bizarre, and often unbelievable world of forensic pathology. Hosted by Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kendall Crowns, each episode delivers real-life cases from the morgue, the crime scene, and the courtroom. Expect gallows humor, hard truths, and unforgettable investigations, ranging from courtroom drama to deaths that even seasoned pathologists struggle to explain.   Connect and Learn More Learn more about Dr. Kendall Crowns on Linkedin, catch him regularly on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace and follow Mayhem in the Morgue where you get your podcasts.   📣 If you liked this episode, don’t keep it to yourself—follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave us a review.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Today's episode discusses the death of an individual. If this type of information upsets you, this is not the show for you. Welcome to Mayhem in the morning with your host, Dr. Kendall Crowns. Over a decade ago, I started doing career days at my children's schools. I did this in part to hang out with my kids and see them at school and maybe go out to lunch with them. But my other reason was to tell people about the field of forensic pathology. Not a lot of people even fully realize what forensic pathologists do beyond what they've seen on TV,

and they really don't know much about medical examiners. When I tell people I'm a medical examiner, a lot of people think I work in the meat industry, expecting meat, like for the FDA. Other people think I work for funeral homes, as an embalmer. People also think I'm a coroner, and a lot of people don't even realize I have a medical degree. I've had numerous career days where students were shocked to find out how much education they needed to become a forensic pathologist. I've even had medical students tell me in their last year of medical school that they had no idea of forensic pathology existed and wished they had known about it when they got into medical school because they would have taken steps to go into forensic pathology instead of the career that they had chose to go into.

The thing about it is is there is a shortage, nationwide of forensic pathologists. There are only 400 to 500 board-certified pathologists in the United States, and every year more and more are retiring, and not enough new forensic pathologists are graduating to keep up with the loss. After four years of med school, it is another three to four years of residency and a year of subspecialization to become a forensic pathologist. It takes longer to create a forensic pathologist than it does a baby elephant. My intention with the career days was not to just hang out with my kids, but to spread the word about how wonderful a job forensic pathology really is. And I figured by getting involved in career days, I can inform kids

about my job and get them interested in it. And maybe someone would find it interesting enough to pursue, like I did, way back when I was in ninth grade and was introduced to the field of forensic pathology. My career day presentation is a PowerPoint presentation full of pictures. So I have different versions of it depending on what grade level I'm teaching. I have one for grade schoolers, one for middle schoolers, one for high schools, and finally one for college. Basically, as the grade level goes up, the talk becomes increasingly more graphic, and it is the most graphic once they get into the college age range. Now, with grade schoolers, the most graphic thing they see is an x-ray of a head with a bullet in it. How I went about deciding which

pictures to use was partially based on an interview I saw was Steven Spielberg. He was discussing the movie Jaws in this interview, and he stated that it built more tension and made the movie more scary to give the perception of the monster. In this case, of course, the shark than it was to show the shark right from the beginning. The actual buildup is more frightening than the actual reveal of the monster. So I incorporated this concept into my talk. I show an x-ray that shows a bullet. I show close-ups of wounds. I show the actual bullets that are removed from the bodies. But I never show the whole body, faces, or any identifying features. So in a way, They give the perception of the injuries and the gore that people associate with this career,

but they actually never see the whole thing. By doing this, it makes my talk less frightening or horrifying, and the students think they have seen something crazy, but in reality it was very tame. In the years, I've done these presentations, I've never received one complaint from teachers, parents, or children. So, it must have not been too frightening, right? I have been asked back every year since I started doing this, and the teachers would tell their friends,

so I was going to numerous different school districts. and I only recently stopped doing these talks because my kids are all in college now and it just isn't the same for me. Fortunately, I have colleagues that have taken it over now, so the information does continue to get out there, but for me, I've kind of moved on. There's one other thing that I always enjoyed, which was the bizarre questions that children would ask. And that's what we'll be talking about for the rest of the episode, is one of the children's bizarre questions, my answer, and the ensuing hijinks that my answer created. So on this particular day, I was talking to a group of fourth graders. The talk went reasonably well. I got my standard ooes and ahs, and ooh, that's gross statements and kids covering their faces.

I got my standard questions like, what does it smell like? My answer always is rotting trash mixed with blood. How much do you get paid? My answer to that is I would tell them my salary. And some would be impressed and some would say lame. Weirdest thing ever found in his stomach, ballpoint pins. was actually probably over 50. Weirdest weapon used to kill someone, a mini safe, like crushed in his head.

Have you ever autopsied a baby? My answer to this is, I've autopsied a wide age range of people from fetuses to people over 106 years of age. Finally, when I got to the end of my presentation, I asked if there was any more questions, and one of the children asked, who is the most famous person you have ever autopsied? This is a question I get asked on almost every presentation, and the answer, often depends on who I am talking to. With a group of fourth graders, I felt it would be best to discuss a movie star from a popular movie. It would probably be someone they would know. So I chose Richard La Palmatier. If you don't know who he is, he was an actor in many movies, including

Who Frame Roger Rabbit, and Star Wars, the original one, not the prequels, not the sequels, not the TV shows, but the very first Star Wars movie from 1977 that's now been rebranded is, I think, the new Hope or Episode 4, or something like that. He played a moment. my character in the Star Wars movie, but in a very memorable scene. And when he died years after being in Star Wars, he was 66 years old. He was in town visiting family, and I believe he was going to a comic con to sign autograph. His cause of death was from an intestinal cancer that eroded into a blood vessel that caused him to actually bleed out. So his cause of death was complications of cancer and his manner death was natural. He was the famous person I chose to tell the

group. I told the group of children that I autopsied Richard La Palmatier, and they said, who's that? And my reply, of course, was, have you ever seen Star Wars? The original Star Wars? And most of them said, oh, I've seen that movie. I've seen that movie. And I said, you know the guy who Darth Vader chokes with the force on the Death Star and says, I find your lack of faith in the force disturbing? And then one of the children screamed, wait, you mean Admiral Maddie? At that moment I thought in my head, wow, I didn't know the character's actual name, but I responded with, sure, at that moment, one of the children gas, and he said, you mean Darth Vader really killed him? A wave of shock and realization spread through the room faster than lice with

kindergartners. Several kids excitedly exclaimed, what, really? And more and more kids were becoming excitable. While this was occurring, I was standing there, not responding. Granted, it was only a few seconds, but long enough for chaos to ensue. The thing is, I have five children who are now all adults. But when they were little, occasionally they would say something absurd that I would get tripped up by. Logically, it made no sense. But they were sure it was real, and they were sure they were right, and there was no convincing them otherwise. You can't counter a young child with a logical argument, because they just wouldn't understand. And this was one of those moments. I thought, in my head, no, no, he didn't kill him. It was a movie. Plus it was 1977, which was like over 35 years ago,

and I was in grade school. So I would not have done it. his autopsy if he had died in 1977. But I thought that in my head. I didn't come up with a good response. I was standing there dumbfounded, just, uh, well, and the chaos had taken over the classroom. The children were all talking about the murder committed by Darth Vader, and they couldn't believe that he had actually killed that person. Thankfully, the fourth grade teacher stepped in, and she calmed them down and got them to listen to reason. She explained how Star Wars was just a movie, and the more logical children agreed with her, with a resounding Yeah, I chimed in and I said,

That's right, your teacher's right. It's just a movie, and he actually died of cancer. Then that same child, whose name was Monty, by the way, started the chaos again, when he said, Darth Vader gave him cancer? And again, that same wave of chaos spread across the room. This time I said, no, no, Darth Vader had nothing to do with it. And Monty again exclaimed,

then it must have been something in the Death Star. Something made him get cancer in the Death Star. And I thought, this was a reasonable assumption, if the Death Star was a real working environment that did not follow OSHA's safety guidelines. I mean, yeah, potentially he could have gotten cancer. But again, it was indeed false. And the teacher said, Monty, that's enough. To which, of course, the girls said, yeah, Monty, enough. Thing about it is, is I have testified in court for years. I've testified in massive courtrooms in front of legislators, you name it. And I've never been derailed like I was by that statement from a fourth grader.

After the teacher got the class calmed down again, she said, Well, I think we're done asking Dr. Crown's questions. So let's all thank Dr. Crowns with a round of applause, and all the kids dutifully clapped and thanked me, and that ended it. I was a little relieved that it was finally over because Monty really had my number that day. So that incident happened probably well over a decade ago now. I don't really know what happened to little Monty. He'd be in his early 20s.

Who knows what he's up to? He's probably getting ready to become a lawyer. and getting ready to derail medical examiners across the country with this crazy logic. The one thing I'd have to say, though, is thank goodness for grade school teachers, because they actually understand the logic of children somehow. And that teacher that day really saved me. That brings us to the end of the story. And I learned never to take too long to answer a group of grade schoolers,

because they are like sharks with chum in the water, and they will swarm in a feeding frenzy with any opportunity. I hope you'll learn something like Star Wars is just a movie. I know that's difficult to believe. And I hope you were entertained. Until the next time.