03x02 - Poison Control

[bunniefuu]

[music playing]

NARRATOR A man is found dead and decomposing in his van.

And the body had been there for several days.

NARRATOR No one knows what happened to him.

But for his family, suspicions abound.

PERRY I thought that it had to be some sort of foul play.

My brother just wouldn't sit out and die.

NARRATOR Then a routine field investigation

takes a deadly turn and threatens the life of Dr.

G's medical investigator.

DR. G There is a risk to being in the health care profession.

There is a risk of doing this job.

NARRATOR And later, a mother with two heads off to work,

but never arrives.

The next day, her traumatized corpse

is discovered at the bottom of a drainage ditch

on the wrong side of town.

She'd been out there probably more than hours.

DR. G Didn't look good.

It looked like it's going to be a homicide.

[music playing]

NARRATOR Altered lives.

Baffling medical mysteries.

Shocking revelations.

These are the everyday cases of "Dr. G, Medical Examiner."

[music playing]

[laughing]

DR. G I got it.

And I'm like, I may be protesting.

They had two half-naked guys out on the front of the store.

Like, they were good looking.

With no-- real guys--

with no shirt on.

And you could pay a dollar--

I guess they gave the dollar to somebody--

and get your picture taken.

NARRATOR It's AM at the District Nine

Morgue in Orlando, Florida.

When Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jan Garavaglia arrives,

morgue technician Gene Conus is already preparing

Dr. G's first case of the day.

But this autopsy will not take place in the morgue's

usual exam room.

It will be performed in the decomp room,

a suite specially designed to handle

bodies that are decomposing.

The name of the man who Dr. G will examine

is Chris Schaffer, a -year-old construction foreman.

DR. G This morning we have a decomposed fella.

And he's years old.

He's in a van and he's sitting in his driveway.

NARRATOR According to Dr. G's investigators report,

Chris Schaffer's body was discovered yesterday

afternoon by two co-workers.

DR. G These buddies happened to notice the van

sitting in the dirt road.

And they say they find him decomposed in that van.

He's in the front of the vehicle leaning against the driver's

side window.

NARRATOR Orlando police are immediately

dispatched to the scene, as is medical investigator

Carol Crosby from the District Nine medical examiner's office.

CAROL CROSBY The body had been there for several days.

The front doors of the van, the drivers and the passenger

side of the van, were--

they were both locked.

And the sliding door on the passenger side,

the rear of the van, was unlocked.

Windows up.

Nothing-- no air getting in.

She noticed that the ignition was on in the car,

but the battery is dead.

And we don't know if it ran out of gas or what,

because you couldn't tell from the gauge.

Van's cluttered.

Lot of clothes, tools, papers.

NARRATOR Along with a detailed description of the scene,

Investigator Crosby also notes an important lead.

She learns that earlier in the week,

Chris had suffered a head injury at work.

DR. G They said he was throwing some xs

or xs up to a co-worker.

A co-worker missed it, and it came

back and hit him on the head.

NARRATOR Chris Schaffer's death might

simply be the tragic result of an injury

sustained days earlier.

While this could be a delayed--

delayed subdural hematoma from that board to the head.

That had to smart.

NARRATOR And yet as Dr. G reads on,

she discovers that a belated head injury isn't the only

possible culprit in this case.

Another may be foul play.

What else?

NARRATOR Investigator Crosby also

notes that Chris owed friends several hundred dollars.

DR. G You know, there's always a chance of foul play.

I don't know.

This whole story about him owing them money,
[ … ]

I mean, I really don't know how close he is with these friends.

But we'll see.

Always worried about foul play.

I had suspected somebody done something to him.

NARRATOR A work site injury, debt, suspicions of foul play.

And if that isn't enough, Dr. G learns of one

other troubling circumstance.

According to Chris's mother, Chris

was a methamphetamine addict.

DR. G We talked to the mom, and she gave me a totally different

kind of description of him being a really nice guy

and a good guy until he started getting involved in the dr*gs,

particularly methamphetamine.

NARRATOR Methamphetamine is a highly toxic, addictive,

illegal stimulant that often causes

devastating physical deterioration in those who

use it for even a short time.

Methamphetamine is considered an epidemic because it's

ruining the lives of not only of the users,

but of the families of the users,

and the neighbors of the users, and the environments

of the users.

The users aren't only poisoning themselves,

but they're poisoning their loved ones and their families.

And families are really destroyed by the drug.

NARRATOR Could Chris's death somehow be

related to his methamphetamine addiction?

Or was he the victim of foul play, as his family contends?

There is only one place to find answers.

Coming up next, Dr. G begins the arduous task of investigating

a possible m*rder.

DR. G I have X-rayed the body.

I certainly am looking for b*llet holes.

NARRATOR When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

Personally I don't want that splashing down on my legs.

NARRATOR -year-old construction foreman,

Chris Schaffer, was discovered dead in his vehicle yesterday.

Dr. G has a long list of possible culprits,

from a head injury at work to methamphetamine abuse.

But his family's singular fear is

that Chris was the victim of foul play, a concern

that Dr. G is taking very seriously.

DR. G I always have to be suspicious of foul play,

and that's why I'm here.

And you know, he is in a lifestyle

with the methamphetamine use that foul play

could have easily occurred.

NARRATOR If Chris was m*rder*d, his body

will reveal how through the autopsy,

beginning with the external exam.

T-shirt, pocketed t-shirt.

DR. G He is fairly decomposed in just two days.

But keep in mind, he's in a closed van,

outside, in very warm temperatures.

And we see that down here, that you can--

you can actually decompose that fast.

NARRATOR Because there is suspicion of foul play,

Dr. G and her morgue technician, Gene Conus,

must carefully document the body for any signs of trauma,

such as bruising.

But in this case, not much can be gleaned.

DR. G I can't--

you know, there is just some trauma I can't find,

because the skin is slipping off.

It's starting to get maroon to green in color.

NARRATOR But as they begin to remove the victim's clothing

and personal items, they do find a piece of evidence

that may be important.

DR. G He has $ in his front pocket.

You know, he certainly wasn't robbed.

NARRATOR At the end of the external exam,

Dr. G has the cash but few other hard findings.

The decomposed state of his body has obscured

any subtle signs of trauma.

DR. G The external isn't giving me any clues,

so I definitely still need to do that internal examination.

NARRATOR Dr. G opens Chris's body

with a Y-incision from the shoulder blades to the pelvis.

Then she draws toxicology samples

to send to the lab, which will be critical in determining

the level of methamphetamine in Chris's body fluids

at the time of his death.

DR. G All right.

Once toxicology samples are complete,

the internal search for what k*lled Chris Schaffer begins.

DR. G What we're going to be looking for is broken ribs,

broken bones, skull fractures, blood

in places that it shouldn't be.

NARRATOR And yet, as Dr. G carefully inspects Chris's

internal organs, she finds no signs of disease

and no signs of trauma.

DR. G He's not beaten around the chest.

No blows to the abdomen.

His heart looks good.

There's no natural disease process.

You know, he's not dying of--

no evidence of pneumonia in his lungs.

I have nothing that indicates why he d*ed.

NARRATOR Her last hope in determining a cause of death

during the exam is Chris Schaffer's brain.
[ … ]

[buzzing]

DR. G Well, I'm looking-- now I'm kind of concentrating--

OK, does he have a blow to the head?

Does he have a blow to the head from the x?

Does he have something internally on the head

from either the trauma or from his methamphetamine use,

like bleeding inside the brain?

First Dr. G inspects Chris's skull for any indication

of trauma, but finds none.

DR. G There's no blood on top.

There's no evidence of bleeding on the brain.

And when I take the brain out, I can quickly

kind of look internally and I don't

see any blood inside the brain.

I can see that there's no blood

in an epidural or subdural location.

And I'm going to cut it--

NARRATOR Two causes of death can

now be eliminated definitively.

Chris did not die from the accident at work,

and he was not the victim of foul play.

But what did k*ll him?

Dr. G must wait for toxicology to know for sure,

but she suspects his death was an accidental overdose

involving one of the most destructive dr*gs in the US,

methamphetamine.

DR. G You know, I see these people on dr*gs so often

and how it just lead you down a path.

It's no good.

And I wish they knew--

I wish people knew the end results that I see.

NARRATOR As she waits for the lab results,

Dr. G informs Chris's family of her preliminary findings

and assures them that he was not the victim of m*rder.

However, her initial report does not assuage their fears.

PERRY I thought that, you know, something had gone--

gone wrong.

You know, my brother just wouldn't sit out and die.

NARRATOR Coming up next, toxicology

results for Chris Schaffer arrive

and reveal a hidden k*ller.

DR. G Well, I am surprised by the toxicology when

I get it back because he truly has

two potential causes of death.

NARRATOR But will his family believe the findings?

PERRY How they came to the conclusions,

it just didn't seem right.

NARRATOR When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

Several weeks after the autopsy of Chris Schaffer,

the results of his toxicology tests

arrive at the District Nine Morgue.

The victim was found dead in his van,

but the autopsy has revealed no clear cause of death.

Because he was addicted to methamphetamine,

Dr. G believes Chris may have d*ed of a drug overdose,

even as his family continues to suspect foul play.

I felt pretty helpless at the time.

NARRATOR But the toxicology results

reveal something that neither of them were expecting.

DR. G Well, I am surprised by the toxicology when

I get it back because he truly has

two potential causes of death.

NARRATOR As Dr. G anticipated, lab tests

determined that Chris did have a high level of methamphetamine

in his body at the time of his death,

enough to possibly k*ll him.

But there is something else as well, something

that Dr. G was not prepared for.

Lab tests indicate that as Chris sat in his van,

he was exposed to a toxic amount of carbon monoxide, a colorless

and odorless gas that is the byproduct of combustion

and is present in fumes, such as vehicle exhaust.

For Dr. G, the lab results are conclusive.

Chris d*ed from carbon monoxide poisoning.

DR. G His carbon monoxide level is very high.

It's high enough that we would say

that it's incompatible life.

That is the level we typically see people dead at.

NARRATOR When inhaled, carbon monoxide

takes the place of oxygen in hemoglobin,

the red blood pigment that normally carries

oxygen throughout the body.

The result is critical oxygen deprivation.

Your hemoglobin actually likes the carbon monoxide better.

It basically starves your body of oxygen

because the hemoglobin is holding the carbon monoxide

instead of your oxygen.

NARRATOR But how did the accidental poisoning occur?

Sadly the explanation most likely

has to do with Chris' methamphetamine use.

DR. G We find out that he was actually

using methamphetamine for about six days

straight without any sleep.

And he's probably passed out from just lack of sleep

from that methamphetamine use with the car running.

NARRATOR Putting all the facts together,

Dr. G can now close the case on Chris Schaffer

and inform his family of exactly what

happened in his final hours.

The question is, will they accept her findings?
[ … ]

In the week before his death, Chris

binges on methamphetamine.

He uses the powerful drug daily for six days.

Due to the stimulating effects of methamphetamine,

he suffers from insomnia and does

not sleep for nearly a week.

Frequent users of methamphetamine

result in binges or tweaking, where they're

up for long periods of time.

And I've heard stories of up to days straight.

Exhausted from lack of sleep, on Friday morning to go to work

Chris gets into his van, an older vehicle

with neglected engine problems.

He turns on the ignition.

And then his lack of sleep abruptly takes its toll.

He just passes out.

And unfortunately, he passes out in a defective van

with the engine running.

NARRATOR The van's windows and doors are closed.

And due to the faulty engine, the toxic gas begins

to seep into the vehicle.

DR. G He's breathing in atmospheric carbon monoxide.

NARRATOR As the carbon monoxide enters Chris's lungs,

it quickly deprives his body of oxygen.

DR. G Putting it all together, he clearly

was high on methamphetamine, but he d*ed from the carbon

monoxide intoxication.

NARRATOR When the case is finally closed,

the complete autopsy findings are

delivered to Chris's family.

However Doctor G's forensic conclusions

fall short of comfort.

Despite her assurances that Chris death was accidental

and that there were no findings to suggest

he was a victim of v*olence, his family

continues to have doubts.

ROGER We don't really want to believe

what they're telling us.

We may not have any choice.

We'll always have doubts.

PERRY I might just be a brother that

refuses to accept the fact that my brother just

basically d*ed for nothing.

DR. G My job is to just get the answer for them.

Sometimes I make them feel better,

sometimes I make them feel worse.

But my job is to give them the truth.

NARRATOR Coming up next, a body is found dead and bloody

in the back of a car.

DR. G There's a lot of blood.

There's no question.

There's a lot of blood.

NARRATOR But this body harbors deadly secrets

that puts the life of Doctor G's investigator in danger.

FRANK TOVAR We're all very much aware

that we're about that far away from winding

up on one of these tables.

NARRATOR When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

OK.

I'm getting my finger out of there.

NARRATOR Over the past years,

Dr. G has performed thousands of autopsies in five

different cities, but only a handful

of the most dramatic cases remain vivid in her memory.

One such example is that of Edward Stanton.

This particular case stands out as a reminder

of just how dangerous working with the dead can be.

DR. G There is a risk to being in the health care profession.

There is a risk of doing this job.

FRANK TOVAR We're all very much aware that--

[snaps fingers]

We're about that far away from winding

up on one of these tables.

NARRATOR It's a hot August morning,

and a jogger stops to take a well-earned break.

Suddenly, she notices something odd,

a man slumped over in his car.

Concerned, the jogger calls .

Deputy Angela Lopez is first to arrive on the scene.

Sir?

[knocking]

ANGELA LOPEZ We went to look into the car.

He was laying in the back.

And you could see he had, like, a flannel blanket over him.

NARRATOR Upon closer inspection,

she makes a grisly discovery.

ANGELA LOPEZ I picked up the blanket

and I noticed there was a lot of blood all around his chest.

Then I noticed the blood all over the car.

So that's when I knew something wasn't right.

DR. G Police are worried it's a homicide.

NARRATOR Police quickly learned that the deceased man is Edward"], index ,…}

Stanton, a locally-known transient who

has been living out of his car.

I thought, you know, maybe he was m*rder*d.

Maybe somebody came and messed with him while he was sleeping.

NARRATOR Believing this is a homicide,

Deputy Lopez requests assistance from Dr. G's medical examiner's"], index ,…}

office.

Soon medical Investigator Frank Tovar arrives at the scene
[ … ]

to examine the body.

But as he pulls the body from the car,

his routine investigation suddenly

takes a harrowing turn.

FRANK TOVAR We wear protective gloves.

One of the gloves ripped.

DR. G Frank, as he brought the body in,

reported to me that his glove tore when

he was inspecting the body.

And unfortunately, got blood on his finger.

And there happened to be a cut on his finger.

If Edward Stanton is carrying an infectious disease,

Frank Tovar could be in grave danger of contracting it.

FRANK TOVAR Hepatitis C, HIV, these are major illnesses

that will concern you.

And unfortunately, that goes with the job.

NARRATOR Now it's up to Dr. G to determine

what k*lled Stanton and whether her medical investigator's

life could be at risk.

When the body of transient Edward Stanton

arrives at the morgue, Dr. G gets her first look

at the blood-drenched corpse.

Got a lot of blood on the front of him,

front of his pants, front of his shirt.

When you see that much blood, there must be an injury.

We're worried about some kind of as*ault.

NARRATOR Foul play is the number one suspect as Dr.

G begins the external exam.

But with so much dried bodily fluid covering the body,

she's unable to locate a wound.

Now, I still need him cleaned.

Is there a wash cloth or something?

Or are you going to hose him.

DR. G We scrub him down.

I don't see any wounds.

NARRATOR Finding no obvious signs of trauma,

Dr. G and her morgue staff wonder what might

have k*lled Edward Stanton.

DR. G I don't know where that blood is coming from.

So my hypothesis is that he's probably

coming from an internal source.

NARRATOR Dr. G hopes the internal exam will

solve this mystery and determine if Stanton is carrying

an infectious disease, which could put

Frank Tovar in serious danger.

Dr. G opens the body of transient Edward Stanton

with the standard Y-incision.

DR. G How's our tox situation?

As a first step, her staff removes blood and urine samples

from the body.

DR. G I tested the man for hepatitis

B, hepatitis C, and HIV.

We're just going to have to wait for that tox

and micro, tox and micro.

NARRATOR Now Dr. G looks for visible clues

to how Stanton might have d*ed.

So far, everything checks out.

But when she examines his liver, the mystery behind this death

begins to unravel.

DR. G I do see, right off, this just

gnarly, shrunken, fibrotic, yellow liver.

So he's got end-stage cirrhosis of the liver.

And we typically see that with chronic alcoholics.

NARRATOR Edward Stanton's liver is surely

disease enough to k*ll him.

But what Dr. G finds next rocks this theory.

When I get to his esophagus, there

were probably the worst case of esophageal varices

I'd ever seen.

Esophageal varices develop when

blood is unable to flow into a hardened, diseased liver.

Instead, it is diverted into tiny vessels

inside the esophagus.

As blood flow increases, the vessels stretch and eventually

tear under pressure.

When varices rupture, blood is expelled rapidly

up the esophagus and out of the mouth.

Dr. G now knows why there was no wound on Stanton's body.

The blood was flowing from his mouth.

You're bleeding out very fast.

You get a lot of red blood coming out fast.

And you die of exsanguination, loss of blood.

NARRATOR Dr. G rules blood loss due

to ruptured esophageal varices as the ultimate cause of death.

But she cannot file this case away yet.

Transients like Stanton often carry infectious diseases,

and there is still the question of whether Frank was exposed

when his glove tore open.

Until toxicology results come back,

this case remains pending.

Six agonizing weeks later, the reports

arrive with shocking results.

DR. G He was negative on the B and the HIV,

but he did have hepatitis C.

NARRATOR Those results could be dire for Frank Tovar.

Frank will not be a happy camper when he hears that we

find out he has hepatitis C.

NARRATOR Hepatitis C is a potentially fatal blood borne

virus that destroys the liver.

million Americans are infected with the hepatitis C virus,
[ … ]

and between , and , die from it every year.

DR. G Unfortunately, yes.

You can get hepatitis C If you do have an open wound.

There is always a possibility that this can happen to you.

NARRATOR Frank Tovar is immediately

tested for hepatitis C.

Gets a quick test, and we'll get the hepatitis

C, and HIV test results with--

back then, it would probably a day.

NARRATOR Though it's only a day,

it's the longest day of Frank Tovar's life.

Meanwhile, Dr. G pieces together the events leading

up to Edward Stanton's death.

It's a typical Sunday morning, and Edward Stanton

is having a drink in the back of his residence, a Buick.

But today will be like no other morning of Edward's Life.

Years of alcohol abuse compounded with hepatitis C

have ravaged his liver.

In order to keep him alive, blood has bypassed his liver

and begun flowing through vessels inside his esophagus.

DR. G Well, that's not a good place to have a vessel that's

bigger, and bigger, and bigger, because you got food going

down, you can have irritation.

And those things easily tear, and that's what happened.

As his varices tear, he begins to throw

up vast quantities of blood.

DR. G Well, it's coming out of that vein, up his esophagus,

and out his mouth, and all over him.

NARRATOR The massive loss of blood

slowly deprives his vital organs of oxygen. And one by one,

they shut down.

Within minutes, Edward Stanton is dead.

The case is wrapped up, but the fate of Frank Tovar,

Doctor G's medical investigator, still hangs in the balance.

agonizing hours later, Frank's blood test

finally comes back.

Everything came out OK.

Frank, luckily, didn't get hepatitis C.

NARRATOR He is one of the lucky ones.

Each year, one million health care workers in the US

alone suffer accidental needle sticks and injuries at work.

Thousands of them have contracted

HIV, hepatitis, and other blood-borne infections

from these exposures.

But for Frank and Dr. G, the risks at work

fail to deter them from the profession that they love.

We can be exposed to that type of a situation

anywhere, at any scene.

But this is what do we do.

Honestly, I feel more comfortable working

in a morgue then walking down the street

and having somebody cough on me.

At least the people in the morgue

aren't actively spreading it to me.

I can't control it.

You just have to be careful, and we just have

to use universal precautions.

NARRATOR Coming up next, a woman's bruised body is found

face down in a drainage ditch, putting Dr.

G on the alert for foul play.

DR. G Is it an overdose?

Was she beaten to death?

Was she strangled?

When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" returns.

Dr. G's final case of the day is a -year-old woman

named Nancy Luger.

DR. G Black knit pants, caked mud.

She's found face down in a drainage ditch

next to railroad tracks.

Dr. G learns from the investigators report that

the victim, Nancy Luger, is a -year-old

mother of two young children.

She was last seen alive by her husband two days earlier.

That morning, Nancy's husband, Michael,

drives her to her job as a waitress

at an Orlando restaurant.

The young mother is determined to support her two children.

Michael drops Nancy off.

But according to investigators, she never makes it to work.

STEVE HANSON We got a call from the police about ,

eight o'clock at night, saying that a bicyclist was riding

her bike along the road and she looked down

in a grassy ditch area near some railroad tracks

and she saw a body.

NARRATOR Nancy Luger's partially decomposed body

is found at the bottom of a -foot drainage

ditch in Orlando.

She was face down.

She was laying with her arms kind of bent at the elbows

and her legs were bent.

And she'd been out there probably more than hours.

DR. G She's kind of covered with mud, from what I can see.

Debris in her hair.

A lot of scratches on her.

One shoe is off, and the bottom and the top of the sock

is dirty.

Shoe is about feet away.

It didn't look good.

It looked like it's going to be a homicide.

Along with a description of the scene,
[ … ]

Doctor G's investigators report notes two other crucial pieces

of information.

First, the area where the body was found

is a favorite haunt for criminals and drug addicts.

Secondly, according to the victim's husband,

Nancy was a recovering heroin addict.

DR. G It was a really sad story.

He knew that she had a drug problem,

and he kind of wanted to save her.

He thought he could really help her.

NARRATOR Now it will be up to Dr. G

to determine if Nancy Luger was tempted back into her old life

and then found herself in a dangerous situation.

DR. G Well, I mean, honestly, these kind of cases

are why I exist.

You find somebody out in the middle of a field

and you don't know what it is.

Is it an overdose?

Was she beaten to death?

Was she strangled?

What's happened to her?

Well, she definitely has a lot of scratch abrasions on her,

a lot of mud on her too, just caked on her.

NARRATOR Dr. G begins the external exam

by collecting trace evidence and possibly

DNA that might have been left on the body by an attacker.

She pays particular attention to the victim's hands, which

were placed in bags at the scene to preserve

any evidence on them.

DR. G If you're a woman found in an open field

and with scratches all over, I'm going to look very

carefully under your nails.

I'm going to remove those nails.

I want to look for hairs that you might have grabbed onto.

Once evidence is collected, Dr. G

then methodically catalogs the cuts

and bruises on Nancy's body.

DR. G She's got one on her forearm.

She got an abrasion on her elbow.

Part of her forehand, kind of the left lateral aspect,

she's got an abrasion.

In the concentration of the scratch marks,

as if the weeds are scratching her,

are basically on the left side, chest and abdomen.

NARRATOR Moreover, Nancy's left foot, the one missing the shoe,"], index ,…}

is soiled.

For Dr. G, the findings all point

to an unsettling conclusion.

DR. G She's either somehow in a struggle in those weeds

or she's dragged through the weeds.

Arden, I think we're going to have to undress her now.

So I'm looking over the body.

And besides all the scratch abrasions, pinpoint abrasions,

I notice that she's got scars in her antecubital fossa.

The antecubital fossa is the--

the front of the elbow.

The elbow is in the back the arm.

So the part where your arm bends.

The part where they draw blood all the time.

NARRATOR It is also where heroin is commonly injected.

Some of the scars are old and confirm Nancy's known history

of intravenous drug abuse.

But Dr. G finds evidence of recent use as well.

And in her left arm, she's got a fresh needle mark.

What that gives me is that we have evidence to suggest

she's recently sh*t up.

And we have evidence to suggest she's a drug addict.

And is that just putting her in bad company

who then k*lled her?

NARRATOR And what Dr. G discovers on Nancy's body next

could explain how she was m*rder*d.

There are tiny pinpoint abrasions

ringing the victim's throat.

Of course when we see a woman dumped in a field,

I'm going to worry about strangulation, because she

does have a mark on her neck.

NARRATOR Dr. G now has several possible leads,

marks on the victim's neck, evidence of trauma,

and recent drug use.

But finding a clear cause of death remains elusive.

At this point, I'm not sure.

At the end of the external examination,

I'm really not sure still what's going on.

NARRATOR Coming up next, the hunt for a possible k*ller

continues as Dr. G searches internally

for answers to this young mother's tragic death.

I'm going to concentrate on the neck,

and I'm going to concentrate on the head,

because she could have some head trauma that you don't

necessarily see externally.

NARRATOR When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

Before Dr. G internally examines the body

of Nancy Luger, a morgue tech photographs

and fingerprints, the body.

Externally, Dr. G found signs that the victim was dragged,

signs of recent intravenous drug use,

and possible strangulation marks.

And I'd really like to determine if this girl was

m*rder*d or not.

NARRATOR Dr. G now focuses on the mysterious marks found
[ … ]

earlier during the external exam, marks that

could indicate strangulation.

At this point, we're just dissecting

the neck structures without trying to disturb it too much.

NARRATOR She opens Nancy's neck and exposes

the many layers of muscles beneath the skin,

known as the strap muscles.

I actually dissect layer by layer of the strap muscles

because I need to look on both sides of those strap muscles

to see if there's any discrete hemorrhage.

And then I carefully look over the thyroid bone

and thyroid cartilage, and then I

will look for breaks in those.

NARRATOR The hyoid bone is a small, horseshoe-shaped bone

in the neck that sits just under the jaw.

Because the structure can only be fractured by strangulation,

a broken hyoid bone is a crucial finding in a suspected

case of homicide.

Truly when I'm doing a case, time stands still for me.

I mean, I can spend six hours on that case

and look up at that clock and not

realize that I've spent six hours

because I am so focused on trying to get the answer.

And I know I'm not stopping with that autopsy until it's done.

NARRATOR But after a thorough dissection,

Dr. G finds no proof that Nancy was strangled.

She didn't have anything with her neck.

No way she strangled.

DR. G Nothing.

She has no subcutaneous hemorrhage,

meaning underneath the skin.

Her hyoid bone is intact.

Her thyroid cartilage is intact.

So she really has nothing to suggest strangulation.

NARRATOR What then are the odd marks around the victim's neck?

After ruling out strangulation, Dr. G

believes she knows the source of the unusual wounds.

DR. G Once you do the internal, it's quite clear

that that's a post-mortem artifact,

that it's from her necklace.

The necklace is the same width, even though it's

in a different area.

It does look like she's--

she's on top of that necklace.

NARRATOR Now, there's only one place left where Dr. G

might find evidence of m*rder.

That's my last hold out that she still could have trauma,

is the head.

NARRATOR And when she inspects Nancy's brain,

she finds nothing of consequence.

DR. G So far, I don't really see much.

Her brain looks normal.

She has no evidence of trauma to the brain.

No bleeding inside the brain or over the brain.

So my last hold out for a possible cause of death

and a possible mechanism for homicide is-- is gone.

She has absolutely trauma.

She has no trauma in her neck.

That's what I'd worry most about.

She has no trauma in her head.

NARRATOR The autopsy of Nancy Luger is over,

but the case is nowhere near to being solved.

DR. G We still don't know much about her at this point,

so all bets are off.

I can't really say what's happened to her.

And so we're just going to have to pin the case

until I get my toxicology back.

NARRATOR Several weeks later, the lab results are in.

The first findings come as no surprise to Dr. G. Nancy

injected heroin before her death.

High levels of morphine were present in her blood.

Well, morphine people think, well, that's, you know,

that's a pain medicine.

But in this case, a lot of people

don't understand that heroin breaks

down very quickly to morphine.

NARRATOR But surprisingly, the lab found another drug

at high levels in Nancy's blood as well,

the powerful stimulant cocaine.

DR. G Honestly, cocaine at pretty much any level

could k*ll you.

NARRATOR Given the elevated levels

of both dangerous dr*gs in her system,

Dr. G now knows how Nancy Luger d*ed.

She succumbed to a fatal drug overdose.

And yet dying from an OD provides

only part of the answers to Nancy Luger's death.

It does not account for two crucial circumstances,

the disheveled state of the victim's body

and where it was found.

But Dr. G has a theory as to what happened to Nancy

and how her body ended up at the bottom of a ditch.

On the morning of her death, Nancy's husband

drops her off at her job.

But instead of going to work, she goes

to a nearby sh**ting gallery.

DR. G She's either at a drug house or at a party.

And she injects herself with the cocaine

and heroin, probably mixture.

NARRATOR She gets the high she craves.
[ … ]

But then the powerful drug combination

begins to take a deadly toll.

DR. G And ends up going into a coma.

They think she's sleeping it off possibly.

They think-- and they hear some loud snoring.

We often hear that story.

We think she's just sleeping.

NARRATOR But Nancy is not sleeping one off.

Heroin, a central nervous system depressant,

is beginning to suppress her brain, heart,

and respiratory functions.

The cocaine further irritates her heart

and possibly triggers a deadly arrhythmia.

DR. G And then that loud snoring disappears.

They go back and check on her, and she's dead.

NARRATOR Nancy's fellow drug users now face a grim dilemma.

DR. G And then they're left with a dead woman

in their house with dr*gs, in a house that has a lot of dr*gs,

in a house that people use dr*gs,

in a location where we don't want to draw

the attention of the police.

What do we do with the body?

NARRATOR They then come up with a heartless solution.

And ultimately, when everything is finished,

it's a drug dump.

It's a drug overdose, an inconvenient death,

and they get rid of the body.

She shows no evidence of being beaten.

She shows evidence of being dragged and left

in a weeded area, just thrown there.

That's what we have.

NARRATOR With the case finally solved,

Dr. G informs Nancy's husband of the events

surrounding his wife's death.

DR. G His attitude with me is that he's very sad he

couldn't-- he didn't save her.

He didn't-- that she went back to what he knew she did.

He was very sad about that.

I mean, besides losing your spouse, he just married her

and he thought he'd get her out of that kind of life.

And he was sad.

[music playing]

DR. G The people you hang out with when you do dr*gs are not

the nicest people in the world.

They don't care about you.

They don't care about what happens to you after you die.

I've had them where they put them in a field

and set them on fire.

[music playing]

Yeah.

They'll just dump you like a piece of trash.

[music playing]