Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - MAYHEM IN THE MORGUE | PET FOOD

Episode Date: November 30, 2025

Listen to Mayhem in the Morgue on all podcast platforms: https://link.podtrac.com/MayhemMorgue Content Warning: This episode contains disturbing descriptions of the death of an individual. If you’re sensitive to this topic, this episode may not be for you. It started with a song lyric: “She was a winner that became a doggie’s dinner.” But behind that darkly humorous line lies a story stranger (and sadder) than the myth it inspired. In this episode of Mayhem in the Morgue, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kendall Crowns investigates the real story behind the tragic death of silent film star Marie Prevost, separating rumor from forensic reality. Through real cases and forensic insight, Dr. Crowns shows how devotion, biology, and the harsh realities of animal scavenging can collide in the aftermath of death. Highlights • (0:00) Welcome to Mayhem in the Morgue with Dr. Kendall Crowns • (0:30) A song lyric leads Dr. Crowns down an unexpected rabbit hole • (1:00) The real story of Marie Prevost, her silent film fame, heartbreak, and decline • (2:15) The 1937 discovery, the truth behind the rumor, and how the book Hollywood Babylon distorted the facts • (4:30) From myth to morgue: the forensic reality of postmortem pet scavenging • (6:00) How hunger, instinct, and biology drive behavior in dogs, cats, and even rodents • (7:45) The Chihuahua pack case and the nightmare scene investigators walked into • (9:15) When pet hoarding turns horrific: 20 cats, one body, and the survival instinct at work • (11:15) Displacement behavior and the Memphis case involving a loyal dog, a group of raccoons, and the forensic clue that revealed the truthAbout 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. 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, Guaranteed Human. Today's episode includes the discussion of deaths of individuals and animal scavenging. So if this sort of thing upsets you, I suggest you check out some other category other than the true crime section. Welcome to Mayhem in the morning with your host, Dr. Kendall Crowns. Today's episode, pet food. I was listening to the radio driving somewhere when a song came on that had the following lyric in it. She was a winner that became a doggy's dinner. The song goes on to tell a story of a movie star found dead and eaten by her dog. This type of thing fascinates me. I had to find out who

wrote it and what the song was about. So when I got home, I did an internet search. And I found out the song was by an artist by the name of Nick Lowe and it was entitled Mary Provost. Now the question became, was she an actual person? Did she actually get eaten by a dog? And what I found out was the song was loosely based on the life of a real person by the name of Mary Prevost. And I might be mispronouncing her name, I don't know. But I found out all about her from different websites, articles, and even a book.

Yes, an actual book, which I still like to read. And now I will share a brief summary of what I found out, just so you can know, too. She was a major star of the silent movies that had a tragedy. downfall and untimely death. She had a career that spent 20 years and had been in 121 movies. Her box office successes brought in large sums of money that helped build studios like Universal and Warner Brothers. In the mid to late 1920s, she experienced several tragedies. Her mother died in a car accident. She was let go from her contract from Warner Brothers, and she got a divorce from her husband. She became depressed and started drinking heavily and binge eating to

try and cope. And in 1927, one more thing happened. Sound was introduced to the movies. Her star power was waning, partially because she had gained so much weight and the drinking. But some sources say she also didn't have a good voice for the new form of movies. She was getting smaller and smaller and smaller roles. And in the late 1930s, she attempted to make a comeback by starving herself to lose weight. On January 23rd, 1937, she was fed. found on a well-being check in her locked apartment after complaints of her dog incessantly barking for two days. A crime scene photograph that is attributed to her shows her face down in bed, wearing a robe. There's a blanket across the middle portion of her body, which was probably

put there by law enforcement for modesty. Her legs are exposed, and there appears to be abrasions on them. The scene description from an article from the Los Angeles Times dated January 24th, 1937 describes the crime scene as follows. She was apparently dead two days. Her body was found closed and faced down on a folding bed. In her tiny kitchen, two gas heaters were burning under an open window. Several empty whiskey bottles lay in the sink. The apartment was disarranged, but there was no indication of violence or foul play. This description is typical of an alcoholic's disheveled apartment, empty bottles, a mess, etc. Often they don't have have anything in their refrigerator, but more alcohol, no food. The article further states,

whining at the bedside was her pet dog, Maxie. And teeth marks on the actress's body indicated the animal had tugged at his mistress in an attempt to arouse her. Maxie was her prized dachshund that she owned at the time. But unlike the Nick Lowe song and other stories about her, Maxie had not actually eaten her. The Nick Lowe song was a propagation of a rumor from a book called Hollywood Babylon by an author by the name of Kenneth Anger. In that book, it said Maxie had made mincemeat of his mistress, and the caption for the crime scene picture states, Doggy's Dinner. These facts were actually wrong, but they make for a great story. The reality was Maxie was loyal and stood by his owner, waiting for her to get up and never tried to eat her. All he did was scratch at her and

tugged, trying to wake her up. And we would all like to think that our pets would be like this, But the reality is much different. And so today, we'll be going over facts surrounding post-morum pet scavenging and discussing a few of the cases I've had in my career. So let's get started. Pets are a big part of our lives. Most of us have a pet of some type. Whether it's a dog or a cat or a fish or a hamster, we all truly love our pets.

But what happens when you die and your pet is trapped with your slowly decomposing corpse? With little to no food or water. Nobody's feeding your pet, and your pet gets hungry. So very hungry. What will they do? They can't operate a can opener because they don't have thumbs. They can't call 911 or DoorDash, and they eventually get to a point where they have to eat something to survive, and all they have is you. I know you would like to think your pet would never eat you and would stand loyal at your side like Maxi did until it starved to death and died. But unfortunately, your pet has different ideas.

Occasionally, some pets do die waiting for their owners to wake up. They're usually the older ones, that the mild disrupt. in their routine ends up being too much for them, and they die. But these are the exception. Most pets will scavenge their owners at some point. Exactly how long it takes or what triggers this is always the question. There isn't a lot of data out there that exactly answers the question, though. And this is because, like most things in forensics, you can't easily recreate the situation in a lab. I mean, you can't get 100 pet owners and then have them die at a known time and then watch what their pet does. It's just not possible.

But there is a lot of research that has been done evaluating cases after the fact, looking at patterns and trends after scavenging has occurred. In the medical literature, there's a great discussion of post-morme scavenging by domesticated animals. The main focus is on dogs and cats, which are the most common pets, but there are also articles in which pet birds and even hamsters have been found to have consumed their owners. The reality is, though, I've probably seen more people consumed by their dogs than any other pet, probably because dogs just don't discriminate. From some of the theories I've read, it has felt that cats were more likely to eat you quicker than dogs, but dogs are

more likely to eat their owners than cats. Cats usually wait a day or so before they start consuming their owners, whereas dogs usually have a slightly longer waiting period of about three to seven days. And after seven days, the body is so decomposed that most pets won't touch it anymore. The reason why cats are quicker to eat their owners is because they have a higher metabolism than dogs do, and so they need to eat faster. Also, cats have a specific need in their diet for the amino acid tallyene, which is only found in meat, so they have to find a source of meat to survive. And that is all they're trying to do, nothing personal, but with cats, you have to wonder if it is personal. Cats might eat their owners faster, but ultimately, the pet that eats their owner the fastest

is reportedly pet hamsters or rodents. They will eat the dead owner in less than a day. They will not only eat you, but they will make a nest in your body cavity, formed out of bits and pieces of your skin, soft tissue, and bones, and evidently they'll even sharpen their teeth on your bones. So watch out for rodents. Another interesting fact is, if there's more than one pet involved,

they're more likely to eat you, partially because there's less food available, but also because the alpha of the group will signal to the others that it's time to eat. And then it becomes a free-for-all, and they will all join in and eat you together. I have a couple examples of this. One was with a group of dogs, chihuahuas to be specific. There was five of them. And when police made a well-being check, because people had not seen the owner for weeks,

and the mail was building up, they forced open the door, and when the light from the outside shined into the darkened foyer, There was a deceit, laying dead on the tile floor. There were several chihuahuas eating in his face and neck, and one standing on his chest. The one standing on his chest reportedly looked into the light, blood covering his face and muzzle, and started snarling and barking. Then all the other chihuahuas looked up, their tiny little heads soaked in blood, and they scattered, like cockroaches. The police officers were freaked out by this and deeply disturbed. The chihuahuas had partially consumed the head and neck, and were worried.

working their way down the body. Police called the medical examiner's office and body's transport arrived and picked the body up. There was enough left to the owner that we were able to actually determine that he had died from a heart attack. What happened to the Chihuahuas? No one actually knows.

The police didn't know. They didn't ever find him. They didn't look for him. Animal control was evidently called, but they never followed up with it. So I don't know what happened to him. They probably went back through a portal to hell, which is probably where they came from originally anyway.

Who knows? The guy probably didn't even own Chihuahuas. This is not unique to dogs either. The pack mentality takes over with cats as well. One case I had was an elderly lady. She was 85 years old, a hoarder. She had about 20 cats when she died, and she was not found for several weeks. And when a well-being check was finally made, they found her body secured in her home.

She was nearly skeletonized by the cats, head, neck, chest, abdomen, even the extremities, had very little tissue left. They had even completely eaten her hands. Now, dogs will eat the bones, but usually cats don't. They're a little more discriminating. And often, if they eat bones, they'll just eat the bones of the hands, because they're small. This group of cats, on the other hand, actually chewed up the bones on the forearm, the radius in Alma, and broke away the bone and eaten about half of those bones on each side. What little tissue was left of her was mummified, and there wasn't enough left of her,

for us to even make a determination of what her cause of manner of death was. Her case was closed out as the cause of death and manner of death were undetermined. The scene also had another odd finding at it. There were several dead, mummified cats that had also been scavenged by the living. It had truly become a survival of the fittest in this house. Over the years, I have only seen a handful of cases in which there was a group of pets. usually what I see is a singular pet scavenging on their own. Again, it's usually just a lonely dog. And without the pack, what pushes the dog to finally eat you? There are a number of theories about this.

Of course, hunger is a prime reason for some pets to eat. But it doesn't make sense if food is available. One of the other theories is when you begin to decompose your smell changes to a more food-like odor to the dog. And they begin to eat you because they don't recognize you as you anymore. but they recognize you as food. But after you decompose enough, they'll usually stop because the smell just becomes so bad. The other theory is

dogs are exhibiting a displacement behavior. And what is displacement behavior? It's a defense mechanism where unconscious actions are used to cope with stress and anxiety. This is something seen in humans as well. It's when you're upset about a situation or frustrated and you start clicking your pen,

chewing your fingernails, cleaning the house, anything that distract you, or help you cope with a situation instead of outright dealing with the issue. Dogs cope the same way we do. And when there's a situation that they can't deal with, they can't click pens, they can chew pens or shoes or scratch or wine,

lick their lips or yawn. And when their owner dies, they have anxiety, they have grief, they mourn the loss. And some people theorize, that's when this displacement behavior arises. And that's because you aren't acting normally because you're dead

and you're not talking to them, you're not taking care of them. It is theorized that your dog will initially try to revive you, and they'll start by licking your face. And when they aren't getting a response, that's when the displacement behavior kicks in, and they start biting, and they escalate the biting, nipping at your nose and your mouth or something along those lines. And that's when it's believed that a little blood might come out,

and when the blood comes out, that's when the dog's instincts take over. Because after all, their DNA is predatory wolf. They start eating. And they can't stop themselves. And they might be hungry or they might just be mindlessly eating because they can't think of anything else at that point. And you taste so good. The majority of cases in which an individual is found dead indoors,

the head and neck are the main things consumed, which makes sense if they're trying to wake you up. This information is, of course, all about indoor domesticated pets. Now, if you're outdoors and there's feral animals or feral dogs or cats about, they'll usually eat the chest and abdomen, first because they're trying to get to the protein-rich organs. But again, that's not what happens with domesticated animals. And those are the theories. I'm sure there are more out there that I haven't read yet.

And maybe I'll read them one day and maybe we'll have this discussion again. But those are the ones that I know of right at this moment. Really, your pet wants you around. They love you. They don't want to lose you. And losing you does create stress and anxiety for them. And it may result in them eating you. So it only eats you if it has to.

and as I have said I have had a lot of these types of cases over the years probably about one every few months I have one case of pet scavenging where it became a life or death issue for the dog the case was in Memphis it was a hot summer day in July

a 70-year-old male who was overweight decided to go out in mow's lawn took his shirt off started mown his lawn and he collapsed and that's where he stayed for several days sitting out in the hot sun And his fenced-in yard was his dog.

It was a small to medium-sized, mixed-breed dog, just a mutt. And he was a really good dog. The family loved him. Now, this elderly gentleman had lived alone. His wife had died several years prior, and his kids would come by and visit him periodically. His son had not heard from him for a few days, so he went to go check on him. When he arrived at the house, the gate was shut. He opened up the gate, and the dog greeted him.

But the dog's behavior was off. He wasn't his usual happy self. And the dog kept running towards the back of the house, so that his seed and son followed him. And that's where he saw his dad, laying by the lawnmower unresponsive. The son ran over to him, and he was greeted with a horrific scene. His dad was skeletonized from the neck up. There was a little tissue left on the back of the scalp, but the rest of it the tissue was gone. No eyes, no mouth, no ears, none of it.

The rest of the body showed moderate decompositional changes. There was bloating, skin slippage, green discoloration, but it was horror. And the dog sat down next to the owner and just kind of cried. The son called the police. The police arrived. The dog was taken by animal control. And the body was brought to the medical examiner's office. And we did an autopsy.

We had found that the dad had died from a heart attack. He had hypertensive cardiovascular disease and coronary atherosclerosis. So he really shouldn't have been outside mowing. But this happens a lot in the summer. people that are out of shape and shouldn't be doing yard work, love to get out there and work in their yard, and end up dead. So just make sure if you're going to do that, that you're healthy enough to be outside working in your yard.

And that goes for shoveling snow as well. But the issue became, did the dog eat him? And the family called me and said, Did the dog eat him? Because if he did, we're going to have him put down. And we want to know. And I had to make a decision. Did the dog eat him?

I wasn't sure. and I wasn't sure how I was going to figure this out. In Memphis, at the time I worked there, they had anthropologists on staff. And what they told me is they could figure out if an animal had eaten them by patterns on the skull. But to do this, they would need to boil the skull. So what I had to do was go in there and remove the skull from what was left of the tissue, which wasn't very hard. All I did was cut away the remaining musculature of the neck

and cut through the intervertebral space of the cervical spine, and op comes the head and neck. And I took that to the anthropologist. They placed it in a large steel pot, something like you'd use at a restaurant, filled it with a fluid, which I don't know what it was, and they boiled it. After a few days, they had the skull completely cleaned up,

and we looked at it, and what we saw was incredibly interesting. The skull actually had little parallel scratches all over it, especially in the ocular cavities, and what these little scratches look like, were little claws, and what the anthropologist told me, that it was most consistent with raccoons. At the scene, it was noticed there was raccoons around the house. When I called the family, and I told them what I had found,

and they told me that their dad had actually had constant problems with raccoons, they felt the guilty party was the raccoons. They must have eaten their dad, so the dog was acquitted of all charges. Now, did the dog actually consume part of him? It's hard to say. But we're going to go with the happy story that the dog did nothing and lose all the evil raccoons. What happened to the dog in this one?

Well, the son took him in, and the dog lived out the rest of his life with that family. Case closed. And that brings us to the end of the episode. I hope you learned something, like never trust a raccoon. And I hope you were entertained. Until the next stop. This is an I-Heart podcast, Guaranteed Human.