08x01 - Body Burn

[bunniefuu]

[heavy music]

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR A son is devastated when he finds his mother

b*rned beyond recognition.

VICTOR Mom!

This is a bizarre case.

What really is going on?

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

out who set her on fire.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) What a tragedy.

I think it's incredibly sad.

NARRATOR Then a young man dies tragically

under mysterious circumstances.

Is it su1c1de?

Is it a natural?

Is it something else?

NARRATOR But at autopsy, Dr. G makes a shocking discovery.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) I'm pretty sure I

may have the smoking g*n.

[theme music]

NARRATOR Altered lives, baffling medical mysteries,

shocking revelations--

these are the everyday cases of Dr. G, medical examiner.

[suspenseful music]

Inside central Florida's District Nine morgue,

sudden death often starts out as a mystery.

I don't know what that's all about.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) When you have a case that you're not

sure which direction it's going to go,

you just want to get the answer, and you hope

it's not something too weird.

DR. G What is going on with this guy?

On the other hand, sometimes you really like those cases

and you wonder where is this going to lead.

DR. G Oh, wait a minute.

This is interesting.

NARRATOR But very few are as shocking as Dr. G's next case.

[inaudible] case, I think.

No matter how this turns out, this is a horrific case.

The whole scene, from what they're telling me, is bizarre.

And the police clearly think this

is suspicious at this point.

[heavy music]

NARRATOR It's PM on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

And Victor Petrova is checking his email

when he hears a strange noise coming from his mother's room.

[olga groaning]

VICTOR Mom?

DR. G Her son finds her moaning in her bedroom on the floor.

VICTOR Mom?

NARRATOR She is barely conscious

and in agonizing pain.

What's disturbing is that she's burnt.

Her hair is completely burnt off.

And her clothes are completely charred off of her body.

The son is baffled of what happened.

And it was just kind of a bizarre, surreal

scene for that poor kid.

I love you.

At that moment, the paramedics burst onto the scene

because someone called .

But the son didn't call .

And it's really a complete mystery who did.

They assess her, but she cannot speak at this point,

doesn't really react to anything they say.

They whisk her to the hospital.

NARRATOR Olga is immediately admitted to the ICU

where doctors furiously work to save her life.

DR. G But she's got about % total body

surface burns all over.

They felt she had no chance of making it.

And they were right.

About hours later, she d*ed.

[soft music]

Clearly, families do not have time

to prepare for these sudden, unexpected death,

whether it be natural or this horrific kind of death.

And I think they're in shock.

Like, how could this happen?

NARRATOR Olga's body is transported to the District

Nine morgue, and police immediately launch

a full scale investigation.

Just out of the gate, this is a bizarre case.

Is this a homicide?

What really is going on?

It's very rare to get somebody m*rder*d

by setting them on fire.

This is like literally setting someone on fire,

torching them on purpose.

That's unusual.

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR As investigators examine Olga's home,

a gruesome scenario begins to emerge.

DR. G Detectives, they are baffled because they see pieces

of burnt skin on the ground and even drops of blood,

but really, nothing that looks like she b*rned or caught

on fire in that bedroom.

So then they follow the trail of blood and burnt skin,

and it goes back out to the garage

right to the driver's side of the car.
[ … ]

And there's drops of blood and charred

material on the driver's seat and on the steering wheel.

There's nothing else in the car burnt.

So she must have been b*rned somewhere else.

But where'd she get b*rned?

NARRATOR Police conduct a thorough search

of the neighborhood, and it's not

long before they strike gold.

The crime scene investigators were

able to find a field where there is a patch of dirt that was

burnt, and a burnt cigarette lighter was found

and blood and skin that had fallen off.

So she clearly was burnt about half a mile

away from the house.

It's bizarre to think that she then got into the car

and drove.

You wonder if she was trying to escape from someone,

and he ran off, and she still had her car.

NARRATOR With few clues to go on,

detectives turn to Olga's -year-old son, Victor,

in hopes of learning anything they possibly can about

what happened.

DR. G Now, the son says they immigrated here from Bulgaria.

She owns a clothing store.

But it started going under.

She's been very upset because her fiance

didn't have a steady job.

And she was very anxious about their financial situation.

NARRATOR Apparently on the day of her death,

the tension between the couple reaches a boiling point.

According to the son, they were arguing a lot.

Who were you texting?

None of your business.

DR. G And they left together in the car, still arguing.

He didn't really hear her come back.

And the next thing he knows, he hears a moaning in the bedroom

while paramedics are knocking on the door.

Immediately, they're suspecting-- guess who--

the fiance.

[ominous music]

Keep in mind that % of the women that are m*rder*d

are k*lled by an intimate partner.

It's certainly not uncommon here in the morgue to see that.

NARRATOR Police are determined to track down

Olga's fiance, Boris Ivanoff.

But there's one problem.

At this point, nobody knows where he is.

They're trying to find him, but he appears to have disappeared.

And they're worried he may have gone back to Bulgaria.

NARRATOR In the meantime, it's up to Dr. G and her team

to help get to the bottom of this horrific death

and find justice Olga.

DR. G So I'll see what the body tells me.

But we're going to treat it like a homicide

until proven otherwise.

[heavy music]

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR Dr. G braces herself for what

promises to be a disturbing and grisly autopsy, that

of -year-old Olga Petrova, whose body

was mysteriously set on fire.

This is going to be a tough one.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) Unfortunately, I

have to see burn victims.

It is a horrendous sight.

I don't like it.

I don't like these cases.

NARRATOR And police immediately suspect

Olga's fiance, Boris Ivanoff, had

something to do with her death.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) The son says they were arguing over money.

And he thought that the fiance and the mom left together.

And then he didn't come back, and yet she came back burnt.

It's just very suspicious.

Did he do anything to her?

Did he try to choke her?

Did he hit her and then is trying

to hide that with burning her?

DR. G Law enforcement's trying to track him down.

They're worried he's mysteriously disappeared.

The police have a lot of investigation to do.

Meanwhile, I'll do the autopsy and see what I find.

[ominous music]

Oh, boy.

Overall, when you look at her, it just looks painful.

Her hair is completely burnt off.

She's got pieces of burnt, charred clothing still present

on her.

Some of her skin is black.

Some of it's kind of tan and bubbly and almost leathery.

And that's all over.

She also has terrible burns on her mouth

and her airway, inside of her nose.

NARRATOR But despite the gruesome condition of the body,

Dr. G smells no trace of an accelerant

used to start the fire.

Ugh, now I got it on my hand.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) I was able to recover several pieces

of partially charred clothing that were

still kind of stuck to her.
[ … ]

These will be handed over to law enforcement,

and they can test it for accelerant.

NARRATOR But for now, she must stay

focused to find more clues.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) Certainly, we're

going to look at the pattern of burn

and really document that carefully.

NARRATOR And it's not long before something odd catches

her eye.

Although they described from the hospital

that she has % total body surface burns,

that actually wasn't true.

The bottom of her feet were completely spared.

And the entire palm of the right hand was spared.

This is bizarre.

I don't know, Sandy.

NARRATOR Dr. G is puzzled but pushes

on with the autopsy, Eyes peeled for any signs

of suspicious trauma.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) We were going to look for evidence

that an altercation occurred.

Maybe it got out of control.

So we look at the body very carefully.

And I just don't see anything except these severe burns.

NARRATOR But Dr. G must continue her search

for signs of foul play inside the body,

starting with the head.

You never know what you're going to find internally.

And oftentimes, there's surprises.

[ominous music]

What I'm looking for is evidence of trauma, pure and simple.

Blow to the back of the head's a possibility.

So we go ahead and do the incision behind the ears,

from ear to ear.

It's a little harder to reflect that scalp

because it's so burnt.

But there is no evidence of any contusions,

and we don't see skull fracture.

DR. G There's nothing.

Not a thing.

All right.

Let's look at her brain.

[suspenseful music]

[saw whirring]

OK.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) I remove her calvarium to look at the brain.

DR. G Ah, nothing much in her brain.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) And it looks fine.

So no trauma, not in the head.

DR. G OK, let me open her.

I'll go ahead and do that.

Now we've got to look very closely at the entire body.

[ominous music]

NARRATOR Dr. G makes the standard Y

incision across Olga's chest.

But I really don't see anything-- no

rib fractures and no injuries.

DR. G She looks pretty normal.

But where I think the money might be is the neck.

Did you get it?

DR. G (VOICEOVER) I would look for strangulation.

We know that didn't k*ll her because she's alive

when paramedics got there.

But that'll help us determine if maybe

there was a fight going on.

So I, layer by layer, dissect off the muscles

to look for any kind of subtle areas of hemorrhage

to indicate somebody holding her neck or something on her neck.

I look at the hyoid bone, that kind of U-shaped bone

that these neck muscles are attached to.

We often see that broken in strangulation.

[suspenseful music]

DR. G Oh, boy.

Her vocal cords are just burnt white and hard.

She had insurvivable injuries.

But there is no hemorrhage.

There's nothing in her neck.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) She had no evidence of strangulation.

She wasn't strangled.

So she was not burnt to try to hide some other trauma.

She clearly d*ed from the burns.

But at the end of the autopsy, we still don't know

if he set her on fire or not.

And there's also a mystery here that we can't figure out.

She's totally burnt except for the palm of your hand

and the bottom her feet.

And then there's that whole, who call ?

I mean, was it her?

Was it a neighbor?

Was it the fiance?

I'm not so sure what's going on.

And on this case, I'm not so sure the autopsy's

going to tell the story of what happened.

NARRATOR But just as Dr. G is wrapping up the autopsy,

she gets a call from police, and what

they tell her about Boris Ivanoff

turns the case upside down.

Oh my gosh.

I'm like, take a deep breath.

I just can't believe this.
[ … ]

It paints a whole different.

Picture.

[heavy music]

NARRATOR Dr. G has just received a phone call

from police who have finally tracked down Olga's

fiance, Boris Ivanoff.

I hate to be prejudicial.

But I can't imagine anybody doing this

to her besides her fiancee.

NARRATOR And what authorities reveal

stops everyone dead in their tracks.

I was really shocked.

Fiance was totally exonerated.

According to the detectives, he had a clear-cut alibi

that he wasn't involved.

And he had a story that could be substantiated.

NARRATOR And in a stunning twist,

Boris makes an astonishing revelation.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) Honestly, for me, it's out of the blue.

It's not what I expected.

I can finally put the pieces of the puzzle together.

[ominous music]

NARRATOR According to Boris, in the days leading up

to her death, Olga Petrova's life was rapidly

spiraling out of control.

Creditors are repeatedly calling her,

and her business is failing.

DR. G She owns a clothing store,

and it looks like she was going to have to close it.

And she was very anxious about the fact

that her fiance didn't have a steady job.

This was weighing heavily on her.

They were arguing a lot.

And it sounded like she was--

really, the stress was getting to her.

NARRATOR That's when Olga suddenly

makes a chilling and shocking proposal.

DR. G According to the fiance, she actually wanted

the two of them to commit su1c1de together,

wanted him to go in on a su1c1de pact with her,

and was quite angry when he didn't want any part of it.

He didn't think she was serious.

So he leaves the house, and she takes off in the car.

NARRATOR Despite what the son said,

they don't leave together.

Boris goes to his mother's house while Olga

drives to a nearby field.

And Dr. G recalls two clues from the external exam.

DR. G The bottom of her feet and the palm of her right hand

was not burnt.

NARRATOR Based on these clues, Dr. G

thinks she has the answer.

DR. G For what we can tell, she sets

herself on fire with a lighter.

[tense music]

We were never able to find accelerant.

NARRATOR Investigators didn't find

any accelerant at the scene.

They also tested her clothing.

But the results were negative.

The reason her feet and hands aren't burnt

is because she's standing, and her hand

is clasped around the lighter.

So those areas are not exposed to the flame.

It appears she went up very quickly.

Her hair is completely burnt off.

Her clothes are singed off of her.

[heavy music]

For whatever reason, she decides to drive

herself back to her house.

Maybe she's surprised that she didn't die as

fast as she thought she would.

She pulls in the driveway, makes her way

into her house with burning clothes falling off of her,

burnt skin falling off of her.

And while she's in the bedroom, she tries

to call from her phone.

[olga sobbing]

NARRATOR Olga's vocal cords are severely b*rned.

But she is able to whisper her address.

She probably changed her mind.

I don't think it's that unusual in some su1c1de cases.

They do send paramedics there immediately.

PARAMEDIC Hurry.

DR. G But by the time they get there, she couldn't survive.

And within about hours, she d*ed.

It's shocking that somebody would set themselves on fire.

I find that a horrendous way to commit su1c1de.

And it is very rare in the United States.

This is way down on the radar.

NARRATOR For Olga's son, Victor,

the truth about his mother's tragic death is cold comfort.

DR. G Well, the son has got emotional trauma.

I mean, not only did his mom commit su1c1de.

He had to see this horrific sight of his mom completely

burnt, moaning on the ground.

Just an incredible sadness.

[soft music]

This is a case you don't readily forget.

She clearly, at the end, wanted help.
[ … ]

But she was too far gone.

No one could help her.

The hardest cases to me are suicides.

I mean, none of my cases are joyful by far.

But at least with homicides, you're

giving them a voice so justice can be done for them.

With su1c1de, you just documenting their sadness

and their desperation.

[somber music]

NARRATOR In addition to being a memorable case,

Dr. G believes it teaches an important lesson.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) Never underestimate people's feelings

and their desperation and their hopelessness.

Reach out to your fellow man and talk to them.

And if they are suffering, try to convince 'em to get help.

[ominous music]

[soft music]

NARRATOR Dr. G is all too familiar

with senseless tragedy.

But her next case threatens to take an even darker turn.

DR. G Today's case is a -year-old African American

gentleman.

The police are worried that he met foul play.

And hopefully with this case, I'll come up with an answer.

[ominous music]

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR It's a chilly spring morning in St. Cloud, Florida.

And Latisha Johnson is waiting for her ex-husband, Tyrell

Daniels, to pick up their son.

DR. G The ex-wife got really worried

because he didn't pick up their child for his visit, which

he's usually pretty good about.

And she couldn't get in contact with him pretty much all day.

So the next morning, She goes over there.

The door was ajar.

And she finds him face down in his apartment.

NARRATOR And as Latisha gets closer,

she makes a horrible realization.

Tyrell isn't breathing.

Ma'am--

DR. G She immediately calls .

[siren wailing]

[radio chatter]

NARRATOR Emergency personnel are by his side within minutes,

but it's too late.

Tyrell is pronounced dead on the scene.

DR. G No signs of life.

He's clearly been there for a while.

[ominous music]

DISPATCHER (ON RADIO) , stand by.

[radio chatter]

NARRATOR Police immediately secure the area

while they wait for Dr. G's medical investigator,

Bill Stratton, to arrive.

BILL STRATTON (VOICEOVER) My main responsibility

as a medical investigator is to respond to the scenes,

collect the information from the police agency,

from the witnesses, provide photographic documentation

of the scene, and then build a report

that the medical examiner can look at and review.

[soft suspenseful music]

When I first walked into the apartment,

one of the windows in the apartment was broken.

The place was very messy.

There is liquor bottles laying on their sides, empty beer

bottles, clothing scattered.

Some of the furniture was out of place.

Very unkempt in a disarray fashion.

So right away, that leads you to suspect there may have

been some type of a struggle.

So initially, we're looking at the possibility

of this gentleman's death being a homicide.

DR. G The police get very anxious on those cases.

They like it when I do those cases quickly

and give them some answers.

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR Is it a homicide?

Or could there be another explanation?

For Dr. G, there's only one way to find out.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) We're just not going to know until we

get him into the morgue.

[heavy music]

[gentle guitar music]

NARRATOR By the time the body of -year-old Tyrell Daniels

arrives at the District Nine morgue,

Dr. G's day is already in full swing.

Well, we're doing the first--

Dr. Stephanie and I are doing the first autopsies.

And it's a little tough.

But, you know, we're hours, seven days a week.

We can't not shut down to stop work.

So we'll get it done.

These guys are really industrious.

Sandy's a barrel of energy in spite of her age.

And--

[laughter]

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR But suspected homicides

are always a high priority.

All right, let me go start this guy
[ … ]

while you're doing that.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) The police are

worried that he met foul play.

He was found dead in his apartment, which

is in a terrible disarray.

The door was open.

The window was broken, which is why the police

are highly suspicious.

All right, let's see here.

Let's see here.

NARRATOR Dr. G turns to the investigator's report,

hoping it will shed some light on Tyrell's sudden death.

But instead, it provides a tragic glimpse into his life.

DR. G We know from the wife that this poor fellow

wasn't on a good trajectory.

He's got bipolar disease.

That's a shame.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) Bipolar disorder

is a psychiatric disorder in people

that suffer from both depression and these manic episodes.

The sad part about this is that he wasn't being treated

for his bipolar disease.

And that's not that uncommon.

A lot of times, people don't want to be treated.

And that's a shame.

NARRATOR Unfortunately, Dr. G knows all too well

that there is a more troubling side

to this psychiatric disorder.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) With bipolar disorder,

you have an increased risk of substance abuse.

Almost % of bipolars have a problem with dr*gs and alcohol.

So it's a disease that can really ruin your life.

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR And according to his ex-wife, Latisha,

Tyrell Daniels was no exception.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) He clearly is in a downward spiral.

DR. G We know he is a drinker.

Alcohol kills you in more ways than you know.

We know that he abuses prescription meds.

And we know he abuses cocaine, which is one of the reasons she

ended up leaving him.

DR. G 'Cause he had dr*gs all over the place.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) So I can't rule out overdose.

This guy is just really walking the tightrope

with this lifestyle.

NARRATOR But there is another, more disturbing scenario.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) We know that bipolars have

a very high rate of su1c1de.

In fact, about % to % of bipolars

will actually commit su1c1de.

It's a huge problem.

Is it su1c1de?

At this point, we don't know.

It's just one possibility.

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR But the bottom line is that foul play

is still high on Dr. G's list.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) When you're buying cocaine and just

hanging out with the local drunks,

you can run into a bad element.

And, you know, the nicest people in the world

aren't the guys that sell your cocaine.

So there's a lot of possibilities, everything

from homicide to su1c1de to accidental death

either from trauma or alcohol or drug abuse.

Maybe it's not so sudden.

[ominous music]

Doesn't look so bad to me.

Hmm.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) When I see him for the first time,

he doesn't look that bad.

He's got jeans that are moderately dirty.

His fingernails, you can--

a little bit getting long.

There's dirt under the nails.

But I've seen worse.

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR Next, she checks with the telltale signs

of drug abuse.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) But I don't see

any evidence of illicit drug use from either injection

or snorting cocaine.

Doesn't mean he doesn't do it, though.

So I can't rule out accidental overdose or su1c1de.

OK, I guess you can undress him.

NARRATOR With a careful eye, Dr. G

inspects Tyrell's body for any bruises

or contusions consistent with an as*ault.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) I don't really see any clear evidence

that he was in a struggle.

But he does have somewhat dark skin,

and it would be difficult to see some subtle bruising.

ASSISTANT He's got a lot of hair.

Yeah.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) I try to palpate his head.

It looks like he may have a contusion.

But he's got a pretty thick head of hair.

So we can't say for sure what's going on.

I don't feel anything on that head.

NARRATOR To completely rule out trauma to the head,
[ … ]

Dr. G will have to wait for the cranial exam.

In the meantime, she's determined

to leave no stone unturned in her search for clues.

DR. G Yeah, I think he needs an X-ray.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) Since we were worried about a g*nsh*t wound,

we did do an X-ray of his head and just

X-rayed his whole body.

DR. G Yeah, take him into X-ray and do

the head 'cause I still-- there's

a chance it's in the brain.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) I'm just not sure what we're going to find.

[somber music]

NARRATOR But no one is more anxious to close

this case than to Will's ex-wife, Latisha.

She felt terrible that he had d*ed.

They had a child together.

She obviously still cared for him.

She's very worried that somebody k*lled him.

And I'm hoping I'll be able to give her an answer.

[heavy music]

DR. G Did we ever get this up?

Yeah, there he is.

NARRATOR Dr. G believes that -year-old Tyrell

Daniels may have been the victim of a brutal homicide.

DR. G He clearly hangs out with not a great crowd.

If there was an intruder, possibly

it was one of his drinking buddies, his cocaine buddies.

And maybe they just got into a fight.

Could be a g*nsh*t to the back of his head.

Hey, Tom.

I thought I just clicked on the magnifying glass.

TOM HEMPHILL Click on it once.

DR. G Click on it once.

OK.

Maybe I'm clicking too much.

Yeah, I'm clicking too much.

OK.

NARRATOR Now she is eager to see what the X-rays reveal.

But unfortunately, it's a dead end.

DR. G All right.

There's nothing.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) There are no projectiles in him.

But just 'cause I don't see b*ll*ts on the X-ray doesn't

mean I can rule out foul play.

We can't say for sure what's going on in his head.

A blow to the back of the head's a possibility.

I'm not going to be able tell till I get inside.

[suspenseful music]

[ominous music]

Did you take a picture of his neck?

I took--

I got the straight on, and I got both sides.

DR. G That's good.

[suspenseful music]

DR. G (VOICEOVER) We reflect the scalp, looking for bruises.

And I don't see any.

He certainly doesn't have any skull fractures.

We remove the calvarium.

DR. G No trauma.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) And he doesn't

have any subdural blood, which is blood

over the surface of the brain.

DR. G OK, his head looks good.

NARRATOR But despite the absence of any head trauma,

homicide is still on Dr. G's list of possibilities.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) There's always that question

about strangulation.

I won't be able to tell for sure till I get in there.

DR. G All right, see what else is going on.

[ominous music]

NARRATOR Dr. G makes the standard Y incision, eyes

peeled for anything suspicious.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) I'm looking for subtle signs of hemorrhage

under the skin.

I'm looking for rib fractures.

I'm seeing if there's blood collected

in any of the body cavities.

And I don't see any of that.

So I can at least rule out trauma.

[tense music]

NARRATOR Her next step is to collect blood

samples for forensic analysis.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) This is a guy that we know has used cocaine.

We know he abuses his prescription meds.

And we know he's a drinker.

So you bet my main focus is going to be getting

enough blood for toxicology.

NARRATOR But even a rush job at the lab will take several days."], index ,…}

So for now, Dr. G focuses her attention on Tyrell's heart.

DR. G His heart don't look that bad.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) The heart looks relatively normal.

It doesn't look particularly big.

And there was no abnormality to the valves

or to the coronary arteries.

So I don't see a clear smoking g*n that his heart

was his cause of death.

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR But it's not long before Dr. G

does uncover an abnormality in Tyrell's lungs.

It's very congested and heavy.
[ … ]

He's congested everywhere.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) He's got fluid buildup in his lungs.

But that's a nonspecific finding.

So we don't know why that is occurring.

NARRATOR However, his lungs do help confirm

Tyrell's unsavory lifestyle.

DR. G This guy's lungs are really bad.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) When I look at his lungs,

I clearly know how he uses cocaine.

He smoked cr*ck cocaine.

But nothing that would have k*lled him that day.

NARRATOR Next, with Tyrell's history of drinking in mind,

Dr. G heads to the organ most likely to be

damaged by alcohol abuse--

the liver.

Oh, that's gonna be heavy, too.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) I see a fatty liver,

kind of an enlarged liver.

And it has kind of a yellowish, almost greasy appearance to it.

So he is in that spectrum of alcoholic liver disease.

But it's certainly not to the point

where we often see sudden death or complications from it.

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR With no evidence of trauma or natural disease,

Dr. G is still no closer to a cause of death.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) But I still want to look at the neck

because I'm a little bit worried that maybe he was strangled.

So I do the dissection layer by layer, looking

for subtle signs of hemorrhage.

He doesn't have any.

I don't have any evidence of strangulation.

So we're going to check that one off the list.

I can at least rule out foul play.

At this point, I'm frustrated because I

still don't know why he d*ed.

NARRATOR But before Dr. G can wrap up the autopsy,

she has one more organ to go.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) The only thing I still

have to do is the stomach.

I often will wait to the end to do that because it

can be a messy procedure.

[tense music]

NARRATOR And at that moment, Dr. G

spots something so alarming she can hardly believe her eyes.

Wow.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) What I found in the stomach

was actually quite surprising.

Oh my god.

Look at that.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) It's a piece of chewed kind

of cellophane plastic.

I was really shocked.

This is bizarre.

What could be going on with this fellow?

[heavy music]

[suspenseful music]

Oh my gosh.

NARRATOR Dr. G has just made the astonishing discovery

that -year-old Tyrell Daniels has a piece

of plastic in his stomach.

Oh, look at that.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) It's exciting to see

something you don't expect in an autopsy,

as morbid as that sounds.

You know, that's exciting for me.

ASSISTANT Oh, send it to tox.

Yeah.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) I'm pretty sure I

may have the smoking g*n.

I think I know what this is.

But I can't say for sure till I confirm it with the toxicology.

So I send that off to test to see

if my suspicions are correct.

And when I get the toxicology report, I've got my answer.

I know what kills him now.

And my hunch is right.

[ominous music]

[gentle piano music]

NARRATOR From the start, Tyrell Daniels life

has been a heartbreaking struggle with mental illness.

DR. G His bipolar disease was diagnosed at a young age,

and it clearly got worse over the years.

Unfortunately, the combination of the depression

and the mania with the alcoholism, with the drug abuse

drove his wife away.

It made him lose the ability to see his child frequently.

[tense music]

NARRATOR But despite his long history of addiction,

Dr. G is stunned when she receives Tyrell's lab report.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) When I get his toxicology back,

he surprisingly has a very low level of alcohol and cocaine.

But there is a drug in his system that is at a level

that I know can k*ll him.

He had a lethal level of fentanyl in his blood.

NARRATOR Fentanyl is a strong prescription

painkiller typically used by cancer patients.

DR. G One of the ways that people take fentanyl for pain

is by fentanyl patches.

The drug is inside a piece of plastic, which has

a reservoir of fentanyl in it.
[ … ]

And the patch is supposed to be put on the skin

so you have kind of a chronic, slow distribution

to your body of that drug.

For whatever reason, that's what this guy

decided to abuse that day.

And he somehow got a hold of a fentanyl patch.

I don't even know if he's ever been prescribed this drug.

People actually steal these fentanyl patches from trash

cans of health facilities.

So I don't know how he got his fentanyl patch.

[ominous music]

NARRATOR But Dr. G speculates that when Tyrell first

put the patch on his skin, he wasn't feeling

the rush he anticipated.

Fentanyl is very potent.

But it actually doesn't give you as sharp a high

as some of the other dr*gs.

NARRATOR So he comes up with a new and dangerous way

to increase the drug's effect.

DR. G He liked that feeling of being up, of being high.

So he chews the patch and swallows it.

What he had in his stomach was a fentanyl patch.

But fentanyl's not made to be chewed and swallowed.

And it was too strong.

The amount that he got in his system was too much for him.

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR As the powerful narcotic

enters his bloodstream, the effect on Terrell's body

is devastating.

DR. G Fentanyl is a central nervous system depressant.

So it is slowly causing your brain

to be depressed to the point where your breathing slows.

NARRATOR This causes Tyrell's oxygen levels to drop.

And as a result, the lungs start to fill up with fluid.

This is not a painful death.

You slowly slip into a coma, and you stop breathing.

And eventually, you die.

[dramatic music]

[soft music]

DR. G (VOICEOVER) He probably didn't

have the knowledge that there was

enough fentanyl in that patch to k*ll him.

I don't think he meant to k*ll himself.

For me, this is an accidental drug death.

NARRATOR Dr. G immediately contacts the authorities

to share her findings.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) Police are always

happy when it's not a homicide.

It's clearly less work for them.

I never, though, figured out why his window was broken.

Although that was highly suspicious for foul play,

it probably broke at some point, and he just

didn't have the wherewithal to even fix his window.

This is Dr. Garavaglia at medical examiner's office.

NARRATOR All that remains is to reach out to Tyrell's family.

DR. G I think the ex-wife was saddened by the fact

that it was really a stupid death.

But I think she was relieved that I

didn't call it a su1c1de.

She also knew the road he was on.

You're not going to live long with that lifestyle.

All right, you take care, OK?

NARRATOR But Dr. G believes that Tyrell's death

may hold a valuable message for the living.

People need to know the risk and benefits

of these very powerful dr*gs.

MAN (SINGING) I doubt that I, though hard I try,

could still remember all--

DR. G If you don't use the drug as prescribed to a T,

you run a risk.

They lead you down a path of addiction,

and they can cause death.

They are not to be played around with.

I've seen those shattered lives many times in this morgue.

[soft music]