Sword and Scale - Episode 100

Episode Date: October 2, 2017

For our landmark hundredth episode we cover a story that has all the elements our listeners love to hear. A graphic and gory case of body parts being foundscattered across a roadway, and the unbelievable tale of how the case then unfolds from there will leave you scratching your head.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We are very happy to announce that on the eve of our 100th episode, we have won the 2017 podcast award in the category of society and culture. Since the four years since we've launched this podcast, this is our very first award. And it's especially exciting that it is from podcastawards.com, the longest running podcast award ceremony. We want to thank everyone who voted and everyone who listens. Thank you to all of you for this honor and we hope you enjoy our hundredth episode. Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Tell me again how this case is affected you. It's affected me.

Right. I see a stubborn head every day of my life, and I would like to hopefully close-but put it on a shelf and leave it on the bed. Welcome to season 4, episode 100 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. We put everything we can into every single episode of this show. We do our best to make every episode your new favorite episode. But this is our hundredth. It's an important milestone. A testament to the incredible amount of support we've received over the past three and a half years. If you're caught up,

then that means you've listened to over a hundred hours of this program. On behalf of our whole team, we are humbled and thankful for your presence. You are the reason we do this. So for our hundredth episode, we have something very special for you. It's a story that I think manages to combine just about everything our fans love about sword and scale. And it's a story that will haunt you and have you asking questions about your surroundings, about your relationships, about your very state of mind, and about what we have the potential to become. What evil can lie deep inside of us, hidden and waiting. Thursday, January 30th, 2014. Two women are driving around before heading to pick up their

kids from elementary school, in St. Clair County, Michigan, when they spot some garbage bags starting the side of the road. For some reason, it didn't seem like a careless driver had just tossed trash out of a car. The bags didn't seem to be full of garbage. In fact, they appeared to contain deer parts, and the women assumed that a poacher had butcher to deer and tossed the carcass. But when they pulled up alongside some of the trash bags, the woman in the passenger seat could hardly believe what lay in front of her. The driver exited the vehicle and walked around to see it for herself.

Resting in the snow on the side of the road,oking out of a bag was a decapitated human head. The women called 911 and say Claire County officers responded shortly thereafter. There was a call that came in yesterday, around 430. And the report was that somebody was fly dumping or dumping trash along the side of the road. When investigators came out to check it out, that's when they found body parts in several different garbage bags.

Detective Stephen Rickard pulled up, greeted one of the deputies in charge of securing the area and approached one of the trash bags. As he got closer, he saw what appeared to be a human foot. This item that you see that you indicate is a human foot? Yes. Would you describe based on the roadway itself, where is it? It is here, the West Shoulder of Hamilton. I'm still in the pub portion of the movie.

Visible? Yes. Covered up at all? No. Is it in a bag? Yes. Covered up at all. No. Is it in a bag? Partially. Would you describe the bag? Black, curved bag.

Are you able to, I know it's a stupid question, but I mean, does it really look like a human foot to you? Is it clear to you? Very clear. No doubt my mind would have come. Do you look any further into the bag at this point? No, we do not. At this point, I asked him if anybody had checked out

what I could see and point up. Because like I said, it just looked like something bloody. I wasn't sure if it was a deer struck by a car or what it was. He indicated me no. I didn't see it. So then we walked over and discovered it was a five-portion buttocks of human. Going back to the foot. The foot is in a bag at this laying in the roadway at the northwest corner of the intersection of the Fredmore highway and Allington Road in St. Clair County, Michigan.

Lying about 150 yards away on the southeast corner of that intersection were human buttocks, and this sick human puzzle was still missing pieces. At the moment in that general area, are any other body parts discovered? Yes, as we continue northbound up and into the road, we began discovering more. Would you take the court through each one as you found them? The next area was north, this on the east side of the roadway, was another garbage bag and what appeared to be the torso, including the human ribs or ribs that had been cut in several directions. They were outside of Baglan on top of the snow.

Where's the bag still there? The bag for the ribs, no I do not believe it was. The next item up from that one then? Next item up would have been a bag partially outside the bag was a human head. Several other bags containing some paperwork and I could see a port for some sort of a power tool. In this general area than any other parts any other scenes found. North of the head in the power tool was a pilot of organs and blood. I don't know, a garbage bag.

Were they in a bag or were they protruding from the bag? Both. At about 4.30 the next morning, a retired police sergeant found another garbage bag, not far from the intersection where the body parts were located. There was an item found that distance away would Would you just try it to the court? How that came about and who it was and what was in it. Early morning, I was, I believe, was approximately 4'30 in the morning.

A retired state police sergeant was traveling on the freeway. It heard about the crime scene in the free-to-state. Notice the bag on the on-ramp to I-94 got up and investigated. Found that there was some chartered items in it. I'm I-94 in what? Fred Martin. Fred Martin. Okay.

And you indicated that he stopped to take a look at? Stopped to take a look. Thought it could be related to our scene and me in the contact. What officers were sent from your office then to pick it up? Yes, first road officers and then they called in the detective's turn to collect it. And eventually, we always discovered inside that bag. Part of the packaging for a still saw, some clothing, all that appear to be burned in these parts of it. Those items were all then collected and brought back to the station

Yes, they were bag by bag Part by part then what was in tag 36012 White garbage bag which in a place the body Bang number three continue the chest and ribs of the victim What was then and pay on tag 36013? Garbage bags are moved from the scene, placed in bag number two, which did contain a leg and arm and a thigh. What was in property tag 36014?

A black garbage bag from the scene that came from body bag number four, containing the head. And finally, what was in property tags, 36015. The black garbage bag removed from the scene and placed it in bag number seven, which contained miscellaneous eye and blood. Five jigsaw blades, nine unused matchsticks, two towels, a jigsaw, an abdomen, a right leg from the knee down, buttocks, a left thigh, a left arm, a left leg from the knee down, a right thigh, internal organs, a bisected chest, and a decapitated

head. Officers discovered all of the components of a human body, with the exception of a right arm scattered along the snow-covered rural roads on the border between Chinatownship and St. Clare Township. And how the body parts ended up there is a shocking as the discovery itself. Lake St. Claire in Macomb County, Michigan is a picturesque freshwater lake that lies between the Canadian province of Ontario and the state of Michigan.

It's bordered by the quaint middle-class community of St. Clair shores, predominantly white. The tallest building in the whole city is just 28 stories. There's a Miss St. Clair's beauty pageant every year at South Lake High School, and let's not forget the very popular memorial day parade, in which local sports teams and marching bands stroll up and down the street. If you're bored, there's also hockey. This town loves hockey. There also used to be an amusement park here named Jefferson Beach. It was built in 1927 and had the longest roller coaster in the United States.

But it closed in 1955 after a fire and never reopened. In 2013, a different fire was responsible for damaging the home of 59-year-old Donna Scrivo. That's when she moved in with her 32-year-old son, Ramsey. Donna was a registered nurse and had previously worked part-time at St. John Hospital in Detroit. Ramsey Scrivo had graduated high school in 1999. After bouncing around a few different colleges, he earned a degree in accounting from Wayne State University. He worked a few different jobs, including Stince and an insurance agency and a construction company.

At one point, he started a law maintenance business. He was a bit all over the place, you could say. But it was understandable, because Ramsay had a problem. It was his mental health. It often made it difficult to hold a job. Ramsay suffered from paranoia, depression, and anxiety, and would later be diagnosed with psychosis. My name is Sarah Demmeray.

I'm a professor of psychology at NC State University, and I'm a forensic psychologist, which means I study factors at the intersection of psychology and law. My main area of work is around violence and mental illness. Because we're always seeking to gain a better understanding of the subject, we spoke to Dr. Sarah Demare, to learn more about the intersection of mental illness and violence. To begin our conversation, I asked her whether or not mental illness can cause violent behavior. So the research does suggest that there is an increased risk associated with mental illness can cause violent behavior. So the research does suggest that there is an increased risk associated with mental illness for violence, but that risk is relatively small.

And so what that means is that there is some level of violence in society that may be attributable to mental illness, but they think that it's really only about 3 to 5% of the violence that we see. Although exceedingly rare, in some cases violence can be attributed to a symptom of certain mental illnesses, Dr. Demaree referred to as thought control override. And this is the type of symptom that really they hear voices and have hallucinations that are directing them to engage in violence. But that really is so rare.

Although certain types of untreated mental illness can increase the likelihood of violence, it is but one of many risk factors. More substantial risk factors include having a troubled childhood, substance abuse, and simply being male. That is true. So there's been a lot of work looking at what's called the central eight risk factors or the big four. And those are the risk factors that are sort of most prominent and most robust in terms of their prediction of violent behavior and what's interesting is that mental illness is not one of them. The central eight risk factors are anti-social behavior, anti-social personality pattern, anti-social cognition, anti-social peers, family, school or work, leisure or recreation, and substance abuse, all of which have been

deemed more predictive of criminal behavior than mental illness. We often tell stories involving mentally ill perpetrators because we find them fascinating and because they highlight instances in which our mental health system has failed. That's not something we shy away from, but we also recognize that our country's problem with violence is much, much bigger than that. I also think, personally, that one of the things that I want to keep doing is talking about how small proportion of all the violence that exists in the world is associated with that mental illness and talk about real reasons or real

strategies we could use to stop those things from happening. And you mentioned, you know, the importance of treatment and things that we could do that would actually reduce this risk. So I think that's something that would be really valuable to keep letting people know that, you know, only 3 to 5% of the violence in the United States is really about people with mental illness. So there's 95% of the violence out there that we would need another solution to address. According to Ramsey's Scrivaux family members, on top of his mental diagnosis, Ramsey also

battled with addiction. According to Dr. Demare, this co-occurrence of substance abuse and mental illness is not uncommon. Yeah, there are high rates of what we call self-medication amongst individuals with mental illnesses. And it's not uncommon, actually. It is very common to see a co-occurrence of a serious mental disorder and also a serious substance use problem. And what's really dangerous about that is that substance use actually exacerbates symptoms of mental illness. So it can be cyclical that they're using drugs or alcohol to try to deal with the symptoms

of their mental illness, but it's actually making it worse. And the substance use also serves to really increase their violence risk, but also their victimization risk. When someone who's suffering from mental illness begins to abuse drugs or alcohol, the results can be disastrous. The two combined produce a much higher risk factor for violence and criminal behavior.

Ramsey's screvo would often self-medicate. He would drink in an attempt to ease the stress-inducing symptoms of his mental disorders. What were his regular drinking habits? I was aware he had a drinking issue with drinking from his teenage years on in that when the anxiety was particularly bad, he would self-medicate. Does that mean of use drugs? Well, I don't think you ever use drugs. More alcohol was his drug of choice.

He would self-medicate with the alcohol? Right. You know, a lot of people have mental health issues when they're not taking their meds or it's a particularly stressful time, they'll resort to that. It makes them feel better temporarily. Over the years, he would call me if he was having an issue. And I would do what I could for him, including, you know, writing a lot of form that's the thing, trying to help him get on probation. So I guess we were to ask talking about his drinking habits.

Would he drink every day? I don't know. So maybe you're not so familiar with his drinking habits. I know he drank on occasion and he would call me if he had an issue. So I knew drinking was a problem for him as to how many drinks a day or if, you know, I didn't live with him. Ramsey's mental state worsened after the death of his father, Dan Scrivo. Shortly before Donna moved in with Ramsey, her husband Dan passed away after a long

battle with Hepatitis C. On the day after his father's death, Ramsey's grivo was checked into a hospital by his family members who were concerned that he might be suicidal and may have ingested one of his father's bottles of morphine. No morphine was found in Ramsey's system and he was released. In the months after Ramsey's father's death, one of his neighbors noticed that Ramsay's behavior was becoming more erratic. He just really declined. He just getting in fights.

He's been keeping your voice. He was getting in fights. He just... You say he was getting in fights? Are we talking about straight fights? Bar fights. He was drinking more, drinking a lot more. I need to know the difference between a yes-what he was drinking more, drinking a lot more. I think the difference between I guess what he was drinking after his father's death and before then.

He was getting more fights and he was telling me that he was just drinking more. I just saw the decline in his behavior. It just wasn't as rational. So you did see some slipping you did see some increased drinking? Were you ever I guess afraid of him? No. And Donna was apparently concerned about how Ramsey was handling the death of his father. I first met Donna in her home.

I had scheduled an interview with her son Ramsey. That is the voice of Sheila Miller, who met Donna and Ramsey while interviewing to become Ramsey's legal guardian. She was very concerned about her son Ramsey because he had a history of mental illness, and there was a recent death. Her husband and Ramsey's father had died. And when that happened, it seemed to really exacerbate his symptoms of mental illness. He was more depressed.

He had apparently said something that made her concern that he might harm himself. He was, she thought that he was suicidal and she felt that he really needed protection, you know, just to stay safe and to stabilize his mood, that the, the grief was just too much for him. Donna herself petitioned for guardianship of Ramsey during the spring of 2013, despite Ramsey's insistence that he did not need a legal guardian. According to Donna's sister-in-law, this might not have been the best idea. At some point in May of 2013, after your brother died, did you become aware that Donna had filed a petition through the court system and received guardian

ship over Ramsey. Yes. Did you think anything positive or negative about that? Again, I just didn't think it was a good idea. I thought maybe someone left close to the situation would be a better guardian myself, his brother Jay. Donald loved Ramsey very much, but they had a difficult relationship. You know, sometimes there would be arguments and she was having a lot of trouble

coping with my brother's death. So I just thought maybe someone less close to the situation would be a better fifth. A volatile situation, a 235-pound man suffering from various mental impairments and abusing alcohol, having his 110-pound mother, who he often didn't get along with, move in with him and petition for guardianship of him. The entire situation exacerbated by grief due to the loss of Ramsay's father and Donna's husband. In July we've learned there was a fire at Donna's house and Donna moved in with Ramsay. Did you have any sense about how that was going to work out when you heard about that? I thought it was not a good idea.

I offered Ramsay to stay at my house. He was working on my house. I thought, Don, it was having a lot of trouble coping with my brother's death. She and Ramsay, they loved each other, but it was a difficult relationship. And my brother was always the person running in her parents. So it just didn't seem like a good idea. She was very distraught over my brother. And I didn't think that it was a good idea.

I'm going to go to the next one. In September of 2013, Ramsey was hospitalized again. He had taken a crown out of one of his teeth in an attempt to remove a speaker which he thought had been implanted. At this point, Ramsey's doctors diagnosed him with psychosis. During this time, Ramsey was also on probation for assault. Donna told St. Clair Shores police about the incident that led to Ramsey's probation. Donna explained to me that it was approximately a year ago, so it would have been in 2013 some time. Ramsey had a friend, Frank Warner, that Ramsey and Frank Warner and a couple of other people had been out for the evening that they were drinking, and that Frank Warner either hit

or pushed Ramsey, causing Ram Ramsay to fall and subsequently Ramsay hit his head on the concrete which created a closed-pad injury. Did she then indicate why Ramsay was now on probation? Yes. She had stated that Ramsay apparently found out that Frank Warner was at Fishbone's restaurant that he went up there and with out provocation punched Frank Warner in the face while he was seated at the bar at Fishbone's. Ramsey then left. I believe that he got in his car and that there was an accident, one car vehicle accident at Shore Club, which

is located within a thousand yards of fish, founts, rice, rice. Donna also claimed that this incident had a negative impact on Ramsey's mental health and behavior. She indicated to you, and he changes in behavior in Ramsey from the time that he was injured by Frank Werner several years ago, up to the time that he was placed on probation and up to the time he went missing. Yes. Donna had told me that after Ramsey had suffered this close-head injury that his behavior became

very erratic. He would yell for no reason. He would just have, in general, erratic behavior, and that he would obsess about the evening of the initial fight that he had between Frank Warner and himself. This fight he continuously obsessed over and now the head injury and increasingly erratic behavior were signs that things were not right with 32-year-old Ramsay's screvo. Nonetheless, his family took solace in the fact that it appeared that Ramsay was taking his probation seriously. There was an incident where Ramsay had a fight with a guy who went to high school with and I think the whole family was very supportive of Ramsay being

on probation and the opponent of that probation was no drinking which he really followed. Ramsay was doing everything he could to get off probation. He stopped drinking. That Christmas when when the family got together, Ramsay asked for a coke instead of a beer. He was taking his medication, and he was diligent about making all his required appointments. He talked to one of his neighbors about wanting to go back to school. Ramsay seemed like he was in control of his symptoms, and things were starting to look up. According to a neighbor, Ramsey's behavior was fairly normal, if not just a bit socially

awkward. I mean, this guy, I mean, he's been out for my birthday. He's come over into my home for New Year's Eve. Really? So he's been around a few times, I mean, he's hung out with you. Yeah, he's hung out with me and my friends. You know, my friends used to think that he was just weird because he didn't know how to talk to women or something. You know what I mean?

Other than that. So we should really go to the airport. Yeah, socially awkward, but he was a completely normal dude. You know, he wasn't like a psycho. That's what I don't like that they say that, you know. What was going on in that home? What was going on in that home? What was going on with Ramsey? I knew he wasn't taking any meds because of his probation, but he should probably talk

to somebody. And I think he did chuck himself in and took time for it. The meds, let's talk about meds, did you? I guess how close were you in Ramsey? Very close. Were you aware that he'd been placed on probation or in assault? Yeah. Were you aware that he had been prescribed medication for the anxiety disorder?

Yeah. Were you aware what medication he was prescribed? I don't know exactly what medication. He told me the name of it. It was an anti-anxiety medication. It wasn't that. It was one that did not have addictive properties. So you know, they have antidepressants and anti-exited medication like

esophysiitis that don't have an addictive property to them like Xanax. And he indicated, you know, we talked about that, that he and Y think he could become addicted to. Would you talk, I guess, during the time that he was on probation about his probation? Yes. Were the times that he called to ask you questions about his probation? Yes.

Were you the one he called when there were violations when he was in the potential for being violated? He worried, he would talk to me or call me that he'd missed one and I just told him go in and do a blood test. He would follow my advice usually, because you know, that's what I do. Prior to his being placed on probation, I guess, were you aware of his drinking habits? Yes. What would they like? You know, my brother and I were very close.

So he worried about Ramsey drinking. There was an incident where Ramsey had a fight. The guy went to high school with... And you obviously knew Ramsey? Yeah. I mean, I never knew his last name. I've seen him with spoken. We spoke more when he got that insurance job because I worked for an insurance company. And at that time, he was trying to sell me insurance.

I mean, he was always struggling. I was saying, hi. Did you see him all back or up front of the house? Both. Both. Both. You saw Ramsey on Wednesday, the 22nd, and Thursday, 23rd, trying to start his escort character. Are you pretty popular with me?

Yes, that's because they didn't go to work those two days because of the weather. You know what time it was? The first day Wednesday, I want to say when I was out there in the afternoon. He was out there a couple hours trying to get the jump. I was great that he had been sitting there for three months. It was like four degrees out. He went back and added again on the 23rd. What time was it? I was very earlier. What time of all was that?

I want to say, I was pretty earlier in the day, because I was not born today, because it's snow or it was icy. I want to say like two-ish, and again, he probably put a good hour into it, and then it was six degrees, four degrees, whatever it was. But it's not like I made that assumption after I read all this stuff because obviously everyone is saying there was mental illness, it's a frenzy, blah, blah, blah. Ramsey's friends had started to distance themselves.

Now my cousin, Edelman, she was Facebook friends with them. She was friends with them, just friends with them in high school. But only the last year, so, if propose friends were keeping their distance from because of behavior, it was so erratic. Do you ever see a behavior to be erratic? You know, my reader was really my reader strained, but hidden behind closed doors. The mother and son no stranger to detectives, we've learned police have received calls from help from the family in the past. Most related to the son's behavior were told he has a variety of mental health issues and is also at prior run-ins with the law. This all unfolding after remains of the victim were found in garbage bags on the side of the road Thursday in China Township.

As it turns out, as is almost always, give her a day the most. I felt something strange, like late in the morning, maybe about 10-30. And I thought, God, what is that? Mal. And it's... I have to go to the house with my friends, I think, others. You know, they had a work room, they had farms, they had a dark room.

That's no all kind of chemical, but I've never felt anything like that. It's not like something was burning, but not necessarily on fire. And then, like, mixed with maybe some sort of chemical. And I wondered what it was. I thought, well, it's not a gas smell. I can't call consumers energy. And I thought, well, it doesn't smell like a house

was burning down, so who would I call? If I call the police, they'd probably say, well, I didn't think they would do anything, but a strange smell. But ultimately, I just, I think my friends, they would probably do a sort of a project where it's used from chemicals and burnouts. Um, is there any thing that you can try to with white-backed chemical smell too?

Like, could have it smell like an ethanol smell, definitely type smell, plastic type smell. Well, you know, I have a lot of windows in my apartment room. I thought, look, I looked out the window. She said, maybe there was a utility truck or something. I didn't see anything. You know, I tried to, you know, I went and looked at all my block of lines or just in case. And I think carbon mon at all my plot headlines, or just in case, Marie. And I think I'm in an accident and read on there, there's supposed to be, you can't smell those things.

I'm worried. But I told myself, if the smell doesn't go away after a while, I'll have to call someone, right, I don't know who, or I tell myself, well, I'll just go, not go and re-entry store to see, if she's's doing trouble. Yeah, just to eliminate that. And that's what I assume was happening.

Apart from the strange burning chemical smell, there was also the sound of power tools described as being used sneakily. When you say you can act in a equipment, it would kind of look like you think you're referring to. Well, like a lot of equipment, you know, like, scrap being and pounding and falling, and is that what you were hearing during the two-year-old show was scraping and pounding. Now, there are two different things. Now, when you say... Because that week,

that week I did hear noises like that. And the reason I know that is because there was something off with the sounds. They were like, thinkier. Like the sound was being covered up or something. Even though for the most part it was in the day. So it's not like he would have to cover anything up, right? Now I know that his other neighbors. He would have to cover anything of, right?

Now I know that his other neighbors, I'm sure that I don't know if they'd work during the day, maybe it was done during the day because there's my walls, a fire wall, and I'm less likely to care and see things. Of course, to mediate neighbors on the other side. I'm sure that they would. If they were older, they would have... Because I remember thinking that to myself. And that the noise sneaky. Yeah. You know. When it would start and stop, but it would be continuous.

Like start, start, start, start, or would it be like, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, and then like maybe not cut for a while, a couple minutes. And then like a little too, little bit later, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. Yeah. Both of those. Both of those things. I just wish I, I just wish I could keep more attention. But I do know that during that week, that's when I did hear it, that's when I was allowed to sleep in the heat.

I can't tell exactly which day, but it was definitely during that week. Sometimes between Monday and Wednesday or Monday Tuesday and Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday. I don't think I'm very stiffy. But sometimes between you preach or sometimes between Monday and Wednesday. That you would heard what you did. And it was pretty much during the daytime only. I can't say only. I do think that I saw, I think in the early evening, I can't tell you which day,

but I think I saw up in the back of lack of garbage bags. In the back, like on the back of black garbage bin. In the back of the black part? On the back of the window under the kitchen window there. Would that be just a couple of ran-get-it-first-carves like that? Not black bags. This is a black bag.

Yeah, sometimes I did see the tall, the white one. I just know a little bit of the black one, one of the larger black ones. Like a garbage, like you do, like if you, like three or whatever, like the heavier duty black ones. Yes, the larger ones. Yeah, the, I don't know what to say.

But, you know, the classic, the larger, the dress string. Right. With the red, I think, I don't know. Maybe it was a red dress string. But then again, I don't know how I didn't remember I wanted to wear. I didn't know. But you remember seeing it there between my name Wednesday or I think it looked closer to the beginning of the week.

Did it look like there was garbage in the bag like did it look like it was fall or did it look like it was partially fall or maybe partially fall. Pursuit fall? Yeah, it wasn't ball-gain or anything. Ramsey would frequently chat with another neighbor, Patricia Batanzas, who took care of his dog when he was unable to do so. When she left to walk her dogs in the morning,

Ramsey would pop out of the apartment and say hi. When Ramsey left home to walk down the street to buy his cigarettes, Patricia would check in, but all of a sudden, on Wednesday, January 22, 2014, that all stopped. Whenever I would take my dogs out and particularly if I took Reslin out, he would always come to the door and ask about her. Or if he didn't ask about her, he would ask me how I was doing. And he would also come outside to smoke on his porch in the back area

there and also see him coming and going, you're driving in and out or walking by and we waved to each other and that just all stopped. Well, the story that we broke here at 5 o'clock yesterday has now become the talk of Metro Detroit. This involves the discovery of several bags of human body parts in rural St. Clair County. Our will Jones is live in Chinatown ship now with the latest on the investigation this afternoon. Will Rufus investigation is moving forward at full speed.

Detectives have a lot of evidence and they're going through that evidence right now. Hoping that will provide some clues to help give a family in this area some closure. As deputies await the results of the autopsy, they're following several leads in their investigation of the human remains found scattered across a rural stretch of road in and out of garbage bags Just about a mile away from i 94 in China township. We're tracking our leads at this point of missing people and trying to do identification

They're not ruling out if there could be more remains scattered in the area They're relying on the public's help to solve this mystery. This isn't the first time human remains have been dumped in this county But nothing quite like this. I'm not gonna say it's common but it has happened in the past. Not usually the extent where it's multiple bags and then this type of you know dismemberment. The St. Clair County Sheriff's Department is treating this case as a homicide. Their investigation began after a neighbor reported garbage bags scattered on the side of the road and called police. In those bags, deputies found body parts.

Around 5 this morning, a tip led investigators just minutes from yesterday's scene to the entrance ramp to Westbound I-94, off Fred Moore Highway, where they found clothing and charred paperwork in a garbage bag. They're trying to determine the bag's connection to the human remains found yesterday. Our detectives went on and seen close to 5 a.m. It appears to be evidence related to the incident. Sorting through that and again it's gonna go through the morgue and we're going to check everything out but it appears to be just related and I'll just leave that. This afternoon, so many questions remain.

Investigators are hoping an autopsy will provide them with some clues to solve this case. The head that we had in this case, what condition was this in, I guess? It was decapitated, cut off at the shoulders of the neck and partially burned. Any bruising on the face that would have prevented an identification? It was difficult, yes. The brutality of what had been done to this victim is astounding. Who could not only kill someone, but then spend days attempting to dispose of the body of a human being, attempting to use chemicals to presumably dissolve parts, failing at it, and then using power tools instead.

Sneakily, sawing through tissue and bone, through muscle and cartilage, taking piece by piece, part by part, placing them into black garbage bags, and moving them outside into a vehicle, without being seen, to later dump them by the side of the road. What kind of person could do this, and what kind of ailment could cause them to do it? Clearly, something is wrong with someone who could do a deed of this nature. I mean, after all, whenever we hear of horrible violent crimes like this, the natural first instinct is to assign and associate some sort of severe mental illness to it. Psychological labels are great at naming and describing things after the fact, and we as

human beings like to give things names so that we feel that we understand them better. But some actions are simply inexplicable. Some things just cannot be explained with a label. By now, you've probably started to put the pieces together of this human jigsaw puzzle. A mother and a son riddled with guilt. A son already suffering from addiction and mental illness. 32 years of being trapped in a prison of your own mind. A mind that doesn't work the way it should. That doesn't do what you need it to. By now, you're probably thinking that Ramsay had had enough and that his illness may have

gotten the better of him. You may be thinking that he snapped and murdered his mother, but that's not at all what happened here. I'm going to do it. The police are now saying the remains are that of a white male. We're tracking down missing people and we are hoping for tips to come in. On Thursday afternoon, along Fred Moore Highway in Allenton Road, a middle-age, heavy-set white woman was seen dumping the bags out of her mid-90s SUV, possibly a GMC Jimmy or Chevrolet trailblazer. Investors want to track that woman down. On January 31, 2014 at approximately 8.30 pm, the St. Ferture's Police Department working with the St. Claire County Sheriff's Department took down a case-screvo white female, into custody in connection with dismemberment and removal of the body of Ramsey

Scrivo, a 32-year-old male in the city of St. Clair Shore. St. Clair Shore's Police Department and St. Clair County Sheriff's investigators later executed two search warrants within the city of St. Clair Shore's. The Michigan State Police Crime Lab assisted investigators processing the residences for evidence associated with the suspected homicide and dismemberment of Ramsey's three-wheel. Evidence was obtained to take into the Michigan State Police Crime Lab and Sterling Heights for process.

A warrant request was presented to McComb County Prosecutor's Office for review and the following charges were authorized. Dead bodies, disememberment, disinterment, and mutilation, a 10-year felony, and count two removing a dead body without medical examiner permission, a one-year misdemeanor. The screvo was reigned on February 3rd, 2014, before 40th District Court Judge Mark Craticanjali bond was set at $100,000 cash or shurdy. Donna screvo was transferred to McComb County jail after a rainman.

The preliminary exam is set for February 14, 2014 at 830 in the morning. These charges that were brought are not the end of the case. We are still working diligently on a murder investigation at this time and the investigation is ongoing. Next time, on Sword and Scale. You know, basically that was it. He had gone to buy cigarettes, walked up to buy cigarettes, and had never come home. Donna indicated at that time, know that she's a very private person, that she wanted to

keep this as a private matter. Hi, this is Thomas Creeville. I'm missing a report on my son Ramsey Creeville. Yes, I'm familiar with the case. Hi, and I just found out on the news about the body parts in China Township. Can I go see if this works? That does it for this episode of Sword and Scale, and surprise, it's a two-parter. If you want to find out what happens and just exactly what kind of a mother could dismember her own son, then you're going to have to come back and listen to episode 101.

It'll be available early on Patreon October 1st, so if you want to find out what happens before anyone else does, head on over to patreon.com slash sword and scale. For everyone else, part 2 will be available on October 15th on the regular feed. So thank you so much for all of your support over the last 100 episodes, and here's to yet another 100. Until next time, stay safe. Thank you.