03x06 - On the Run

[bunniefuu]

[music playing]

JEFF COLT A mentally disabled man

dies mysteriously in a group home on Thanksgiving Day.

Did he succumb to a rare k*ller?

We do know that he has a history of seizures,

and that they're getting worse.

JEFF COLT Or could he have fallen victim

to some sort of foul play?

We are always looking for abuse

in any type of care home or institution

where somebody dies.

[sirens]

JEFF COLT Then a car goes up in flames on the roadside,

incinerating the driver.

Well, the body was b*rned beyond recognition.

JEFF COLT Will Dr. G be able to identify the body

and find the k*ller?

And I said, I'm not sure I'm going

to be able to help you here.

JEFF COLT Altered lives, baffling medical mysteries,

shocking revelations.

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

Thanksgiving, a day synonymous with bounty and family.

Thank you, God, for the good food and our good friends here.

Thank you for all the wonderful things that

have happened to us this year.

Come and get as much as you want, and then pass it on.

There's a lot more here.

JEFF COLT But Dr. G has learned that for a medical examiner,

the holidays are also a time to expect the unexpected.

Unfortunately, you know, you do

get a whole kind of different kind

of deaths around the holidays.

Families get together, special things occur.

I mean, there's always these little

bizarre holiday kind of deaths.

JEFF COLT When Dr. G gets to the morgue

the morning after Thanksgiving, she

encounters what just might be one of those strange deaths,

the case of Jimmy Sawyer, a developmentally disabled

-year-old.

According to the investigator's report,

Jimmy was a resident of Morningside House, a group

home for developmentally challenged

adults in Orlando, Florida.

He'd been living there for a little over a year

since the death of his mother.

He's mentally challenged.

He supposedly kind of has a little kid mentality,

and kind of developmentally very slow.

JEFF COLT But on the day of Jimmy's death,

staff at Morningside don't notice

much out of the ordinary.

It's Thanksgiving, and most folks are busy preparing

for the holiday meal.

According to one of the cooks, Jimmy

does enter the kitchen at one point,

and begins acting strangely.

She did say that he was kind of slinking around the kitchen.

JEFF COLT But he doesn't stay long,

and a few moments later, he returns to his room alone.

Then, as residents begin to gather for the big feast,

one of the staff members notices that Jimmy is missing.

Figuring he is just taking an afternoon nap,

she enters his room to wake him.

But to her horror, he isn't sleeping.

Jimmy is dead.

JAN GARAVAGLIA He d*ed at about ,

so he didn't get to celebrate.

He didn't get the Thanksgiving dinner.

JEFF COLT Investigators find nothing

that hints at a cause of death, no medications near Jimmy's

body, no signs of a struggle.

The initial scene suggested that nothing was disturbed.

But there's really not much in his room besides a chest

of drawers and a bed.

JEFF COLT With nothing to go on,

Dr. G hopes that Jimmy's medical records will hold some clues.

Now unfortunately, he does have

a long history of obviously mental developmental problems

since birth.

JEFF COLT According to his file,

Jimmy had the mental capacity of a five-year-old.

Through his adult life, he exhibited childlike behavior,

like throwing tantrums and putting inappropriate objects

in his mouth.

But he also had other serious health issues.

He also has a problem with seizures.

JEFF COLT Jimmy's medical records

indicate that he suffered from epilepsy,

a disorder marked by shaking and confusion

that often leaves victims unconscious for brief periods

of time.

These seizures occur when nerve cells in the brain

become overactive and fire off uncontrolled random signals

to the body.

We do know that his seizures-- they're getting worse.

That's usually a bad sign.

JEFF COLT While most people with epilepsy live full,

active lives, a small percentage-- less than %--
[ … ]

die each year directly as a result of seizures.

Determining death by seizure is extremely

difficult for a medical examiner,

because seizures rarely leave physical evidence.

But there is a second, more sinister possibility that would

leave clear physical evidence.

Could Jimmy be the victim of abuse

at the hands of his caretakers or housemates?

You know, we always worry when you're in a group home.

Tensions kind of flare.

We just make sure there's no abuse, there's no trauma.

You have a house full of mentally

handicapped, so we'll see that nothing

happened to him, no foul play.

JEFF COLT Ruling out foul play is the investigation's

top priority.

Because if Jimmy is being criminally

abused at Morningside, other developmentally disabled men

and women could be at risk.

SUE SWENSON Abuse happens for a lot of reasons.

And the point is to try to get to the bottom of that as much

as possible, and make sure that nobody is living in a situation

where they have to live with a thr*at of abuse in their life.

JEFF COLT If residents in Jimmy's home are being abused,

Dr. G may be their only chance to stop it.

[side conversation]

JEFF COLT As is often the case, Dr. G learns

much from first impressions.

Bottom of his feet are dirty.

Looks like he walks around barefoot.

And just a kind of unkept appearance,

dirt under his nails.

He didn't have any front teeth.

He is probably in control of his own hygiene, at least,

at that group home, and it wasn't that good.

JEFF COLT But was he possibly the victim

of outright physical abuse?

Dr. G looks for the telltale signs.

He's got a lot of chronic scars on him,

scars on his chest, some scars on his arm.

I don't know if he's into self-mutilation,

or if it was just a rough life.

Got a little abrasion on his back too,

right on his shoulder.

JEFF COLT But she quickly determines

that whatever caused these scars didn't

contribute to Jimmy's death.

They're all healed, nothing acute, and nothing that stands

out he's chronically abused.

JEFF COLT So far, Dr. G has found no signs of foul play

on Jimmy's body.

However, the internal exam could change everything.

We'll have to wait till we get inside to see

if there's any acute trauma.

JEFF COLT Coming up next, while looking for signs

of internal trauma, Dr. G discovers what may

be a rare and deadly condition.

The condition called status epilepticus

lasts for minutes, and that itself can k*ll you.

JEFF COLT When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

[music playing]

We can see-- did you see this wrist scar?

JEFF COLT Dr. G is hunting for signs of physical abuse

on the body of -year-old Jimmy Sawyer,

a developmentally disabled man found dead in a group home

on Thanksgiving Day.

You know, we are always looking

for abuse in any type of care home or institution

where somebody dies.

Is it something we typically see?

No, usually they're not from abuse

or from m*rder from the other people living there.

But is it something we could occasionally see?

Yes.

Have I seen it before?

Yes.

JEFF COLT It's also possible that Jimmy

may have d*ed as a result of a lifelong problem with seizures.

The only way to find answers will be in the internal exam.

OK.

JEFF COLT With a Y-incision, Dr. G

opens the chest of Jimmy Sawyer and begins the internal exam.

Everything looks normal so far.

And we're always looking for hemorrhages.

Is he punched in the chest?

You know, it could give us a telltale indication.

[inaudible] but it looks OK.

JEFF COLT As she examines the chest cavity,

she searches for bleeding in the layers of muscle and fat,

bleeding that may indicate an injury.

No evidence of hemorrhage as we pull the skin and muscles

and fat away from his chest cavity.

JEFF COLT At this stage of the autopsy,

Dr. G still has no answer about what k*lled Jimmy Sawyer.

But foul play is looking less likely.

There's no evidence of trauma.

It's looking to be natural.

JEFF COLT This conclusion also leads Dr. G back

to her initial theory, that Jimmy's

death may have been caused by one
[ … ]

of his past medical conditions.

We do know that he has a history of seizures.

We do know that they're getting worse.

That's usually a bad sign.

JEFF COLT A seizure disorder, more commonly known

as epilepsy, can be dangerous, and on

rare occasions prove fatal.

One danger has to do with when a seizure strikes.

The seizure itself is not usually as dangerous as what

the person is doing when the seizure occurs,

for example, standing on a ladder,

putting a roof on a building.

Driving a car, especially, is a very dangerous activity.

JEFF COLT But certain type of seizures can k*ll outright.

Seizures that go on for a very long period of time themselves

can be quite dangerous.

And a condition called status epilepticus is a seizure that

lasts for minutes or longer, or multiple seizures

within minutes, not waking up in between.

And that itself can k*ll you.

JEFF COLT If Jimmy suffered one of these prolonged

seizures on Thanksgiving Day, it could have caused his death.

But trying to determine whether someone d*ed

from any type of seizure is one of the most difficult

tasks for a medical examiner.

Most of the time, you see no physical signs of a seizure.

All we see is a dead body with normal organs.

JEFF COLT Now the only way to prove that Jimmy d*ed

from a seizure is to rule out every other possible cause

of death.

Can I close him up?

JEFF COLT The diagnosis is now a process of elimination.

Dr. G begins to go through Jimmy's organs one by one.

The heart is [inaudible]

TECH .

, great.

He has one kind of slight narrowing

to his coronary arteries.

It probably wouldn't caused him any trouble.

So far, I don't really see much.

JEFF COLT So far, all of Jimmy's organs appear normal.

For a seizure-related death, this is exactly what

she expects to find.

This is the right.

JEFF COLT But when she removes and weighs Jimmy's lungs,

she is surprised, because they don't

fit the profile of a slower death associated with seizures.

His lungs were very light, indicating he

probably d*ed fairly quickly.

Sometimes with the seizures, they get very heavy lungs.

A lot of fluid builds up in their lungs

as they slowly stop breathing.

JEFF COLT Suddenly, the evidence

is suggesting that an epileptic seizure may not

have k*lled Jimmy after all.

Well into the internal exam, Jimmy Sawyer's death

is becoming more mysterious by the minute.

Coming up next, Dr. G makes a disturbing discovery

that may finally explain Jimmy's strange and untimely demise.

There is something huge and meaty that has plunged

down on top of his vocal cords.

JEFF COLT When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

[music playing]

[side conversation]

JEFF COLT Dr. G examines Jimmy Sawyer's

stomach, one of the last remaining organs

to dissect in the autopsy.

If Jimmy ingested any dr*gs or toxins just before he d*ed,

evidence may appear there.

His stomach contained about cc's of partially

digested food, nothing--

you know, no capsules, no pills.

You know, maybe he went and got into some medication.

I didn't see that in there.

JEFF COLT The finding is yet another dead end in what

has become a perplexing case.

When Jimmy, a -year-old developmentally disabled man,

arrived at the morgue on the day after Thanksgiving,

Dr. G suspected that he d*ed either as a result

of his longstanding seizure disorder

or at the hands of an assailant.

So far, the autopsy has revealed evidence of neither.

So let's see.

Let me finish that neck to get that over with.

JEFF COLT Knowing that the answer to his death

may be anywhere, Dr. G moves on to the dissection

of Jimmy's throat.

The throat is divided into two passageways,

the trachea and the esophagus.

The trachea transports air to the lungs,

and the esophagus carries food to the stomach.

When a person swallows food, a flat piece of cartilage

called the epiglottis folds over the trachea to prevent the food

from entering the wrong tube and blocking off

the air supply to the lungs.

With her scalpel, Dr. G slices open Jimmy's throat,

and immediately she finds what may

be the key to Jimmy's death.

JAN GARAVAGLIA Quite to my surprise

is that as I'm taking the neck out,
[ … ]

there was something obstructing his airway.

There was something huge and meaty

that has plunged down on top of his vocal cords, totally

obstructing him getting any air at all

into his trachea and lungs.

JEFF COLT Having just prepared her own Thanksgiving

dinner yesterday, Dr. G instantly

recognizes the obstruction.

It's a turkey gizzard.

So he had a raw turkey gizzard plunged up

against his vocal cords, which is the only way

for his trachea to get air.

And your vocal cords are like this-- it just

plunged right in there, totally obstruct--

it was like a plunger.

I mean, it just-- no way any air could get through that.

So he choked to death by an obstruction of his airway

with a raw turkey gizzard.

JEFF COLT With this definitive piece of evidence in hand,

Dr. G can now replay the final moments

in Jimmy's It's just before noon on Thanksgiving

Day at Morningside House.

Caregivers are preparing the day's feast, including

two large fresh turkeys.

Jimmy Sawyer is excited, too excited.

According to the staff members cooking that day,

Jimmy was hanging around the kitchen, behaving strangely.

When we re-questioned the caregiver,

she did say that he was kind of slinking around the kitchen.

JEFF COLT Jimmy, who has a history of putting

inappropriate objects in his mouth,

spots something that suddenly captivates

his five-year-old mind.

Moments later, he is nowhere to be seen.

I don't know what he thought that turkey gizzard was,

but it looks like a piece of meat.

JEFF COLT Knowing that he is doing something

he shouldn't, Jimmy heads for his room

to enjoy his guilty pleasure.

And in this fellow, he didn't have any front teeth,

the upper teeth.

His incisors were all gone.

He's trying to swallow this quickly

so nobody knows he took it.

I mean, he knows he probably did something wrong.

He snuck and got that little special turkey gizzard.

And he's probably going on the run

while he's walking away as he's trying to eat it.

And he's mentally disabled.

He probably doesn't have that coordination.

JEFF COLT Inside Jimmy's throat,

the gizzard instantly interrupts one of the body's most

vital and delicate physical processes,

the movement of the epiglottis.

Your esophagus and your trachea

basically start out as the same tube, and then they split.

The air goes down one way, and the food goes the other.

And there's a little valve there, the epiglottis,

that kind of closes off your airway

when you swallow so the food goes down into your esophagus.

JEFF COLT Perhaps Jimmy inhales at just the wrong moment.

Perhaps he gasps.

But the epiglottis fails to cover

the entrance to his trachea.

In a split second, the wet and slick gizzard

slides down the wrong pipe, blocking off the air

supply to Jimmy's lungs.

Tragically, the same developmental disability

that inspired him to eat the gizzard

may have contributed to the slow response of his epiglottis.

We see it certainly with any kind of neurologic disease,

people have Alzheimer's or dementia,

Parkinson's disease, or even sometimes mental retardation.

That coordination of swallowing and breathing air

isn't probably as good as in a normal adult.

JEFF COLT With Jimmy's windpipe blocked,

air no longer reaches his lungs and he begins to suffocate.

Within a minute, he falls unconscious.

In less than three, he is dead.

[music playing]

Sometimes what Dr. G discovers in an autopsy reinforces

life's most elementary lessons.

In the case of Jimmy Sawyer, we're

all reminded, however tragically, to be very

careful how we chew our food.

Certainly, , to , people across the United States

die from obstruction of their airway because they choke.

[music playing]

(SINGING) Say you'll miss me when I'm gone.

JAN GARAVAGLIA We usually see it at like, banquets

and weddings, because you're eating and talking and drinking

all at the same time.

And something they've put in their mouth

obstructs their airway, and they get a lack of oxygen,

and you die.

JEFF COLT A sobering warning that everyone should

take to heart every holiday.

You know, we do see the darker side of the holidays

that some of you don't see.

And certainly-- and may I say the pun--
[ … ]

death doesn't take a holiday.

(SINGING) Will you miss me when I'm gone?

JEFF COLT Coming up next, a car bursts

into flames on a deserted road, incinerating the driver.

I knew my very first question is make sure who he is.

JEFF COLT When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

It's a Saturday morning in rural Florida,

and -year-old James Murphy is buying g*ns.

He is an immigrant from Ireland in danger of losing his visa,

and he's heavily in debt.

His next stop is a used car dealership

where he buys a pickup truck and pays in cash, wired earlier

that morning from a friend.

These are the final touches on a plan that James hopes will

solve all of his problems, a plan that will make

finding him next to impossible.

Two days later, not far from the used car dealership

where James Murphy just bought a car,

two teenagers happened upon a horrific sight.

So some young adults were in this area on this kind

of deserted road, and they did see this car burning

on the side of the road.

JEFF COLT Frantic, they dialed --.

[sirens]

Police and firefighters respond immediately,

extinguishing the raging fire.

But when the smoke clears, investigator Daniel Ortiz

makes a grim discovery, a human torso.

The body was b*rned beyond recognition.

JEFF COLT And he finds more than just

charred human remains.

What I found was, again, a -gauge

shotgun on a vertical position.

I also found a handgun on the floor of the driver's side.

JEFF COLT Investigator Ortiz officially

declares this a crime scene.

To solve the case, investigators must first determine who

this person is and how he d*ed.

For that they turn to Chief Medical

Examiner Dr. Jan Garavaglia.

The next morning, Investigator Ortiz personally delivers

the human remains to Dr. G.

He brings the body in a body bag and says,

you know, this is what we've got.

JEFF COLT But before Dr. G begins her examination

of the remains, Investigator Ortiz

provides some important background on the case.

Here's the pictures we got from the scene.

JEFF COLT So far, investigators have learned that the vehicle

is registered to a man named James Murphy,

a man with a troubled past.

Turns out he is having a lot of problems.

He's having problems with his visa.

He came in with a visa to Canada.

Now he's in the United States.

Think he's afraid he's going to lose his visa.

Things were not going well for him.

He started a job, started a business that went sour.

His wife has left him.

His kids have left him.

He was having problems back home.

JEFF COLT Now investigators want to know,

is the charred torso found in the truck

the body of James Murphy?

I knew my very first question is make sure who he is.

JEFF COLT Since the car is registered to him,

it would appear that the b*rned body is Murphy's.

But a medical examiner cannot ID a body using

circumstantial evidence alone.

Police are counting on Dr. G to find ironclad forensic proof.

But we still had to make sure that this is the same fellow

that the car was registered to.

JEFF COLT This is all the more important

given Murphy's troubled past.

JAN GARAVAGLIA This could all be staged.

Could it be that he wanted a new start,

and he's going to just state that he's no longer living?

JEFF COLT On average, more than , Americans

are reported missing each year.

Over % disappear on purpose, and a small number of those

attempt to stage their own deaths.

If Murphy did try to pull off such a plan,

one thing is clear.

To succeed, he would have needed a substitute

for his own body, which would mean one of two things.

Either he secured a cadaver and put it in the truck,

or he k*lled someone else to fake his own death.

You know, that's one possibility.

That's what makes the identification so vital.

JEFF COLT To solve this first mystery,

Dr. G turns to what's left of the body.

[interposing voices]

JEFF COLT But when she unzips the body bag,

she discovers a gruesome sight.

Oh, boy, he is really burnt!

I look at the body, and it's, you know, inches in length,

and completely charred.

No extremities, a lot of you know,

just charred down into the internal organs,

which are all charred.
[ … ]

JEFF COLT The horrendous state of the body

will make the identification process

anything but straightforward.

JAN GARAVAGLIA Our routine methods aren't going to work.

Because, you know, the first thing we do

is a visual ID by somebody who knows him.

Nobody's going to be able to visually ID him.

JEFF COLT And since the corpse has no hands, Dr. G cannot rely

on another basic forensic tool.

Fingerprints-- he doesn't even have any extremities anymore,

they're burnt away.

You can tell that it's a male, though.

JEFF COLT The body is also missing

another part, one that only the most intense

fire could destroy, its head.

It's pretty bizarre that he's burnt so badly

that he doesn't have a head.

I mean, some of the teeth and the jaw--

I mean, they're very resilient to burning.

So this must have been a really intense

fire for a long period of time.

JEFF COLT The lack of a head and mouth

create another challenge.

Now usually, with our charred bodies,

we can identify them by dental, comparing the fillings

and your teeth on the dead body to your pre-mortem dental

charting from your dentist.

We couldn't do that with this fellow,

because he didn't have a head.

We just didn't have anything.

Such a big conflagration, such a fast fire, that they may--

JEFF COLT During the course of her career,

Dr. G has encountered very few unsolvable cases.

Could this be one of them?

So can't-- I feel like I'm not going

to be able to tell you much.

And I said, I'm not sure I'm going

to be able to help you here.

JEFF COLT Coming up next, Dr. G struggles

to ID the b*rned remains.

This guy had to have b*rned at least an hour or two.

We're going to have to do some more unorthodox methods

of identification.

JEFF COLT When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

[music playing]

This guy had to have b*rned at least an hour or two.

JEFF COLT Dr. G begins her day with a challenging and bizarre

task, identifying a completely charred human torso.

hours ago, a burning pickup truck belonging to James Murphy

was found in flames on the side of the road.

Inside, investigators found only a charred human torso.

And Dr. G must rule out the possibility

that Murphy put someone else's body in his place

in order to fake his own death.

When we have a burnt torso, there's

a couple things we're going to have to do, one of which

is identify who he was.

I hope we're going to be able to tell anything from this.

And I've got no abdominal muscle,

but I do have an exposed liver.

JEFF COLT While Dr. G works to identify the charred remains,

police discover additional information about Murphy

from the friend who wired him money to buy the truck.

He informs Investigator Ortiz that Murphy possesses

one unique physical characteristic

that could help determine whether the b*rned remains

are his.

He walked with a limp.

And I said, which leg was it?

He said he had a leg brace on his right leg.

JEFF COLT The information immediately draws attention

to an item that Investigator Ortiz

found in Murphy's b*rned car.

While recovering the weapons, we found what appeared

to be at a time a leg brace.

JEFF COLT However, the presence of a leg brace next to the body"], index ,…}

is not enough for Dr. G.

If you were going to try to hide your death,

the first thing I'd do is make sure my leg

brace is in there with him.

So we have to make sure that that leg

brace somehow relates to him.

But without legs, that will be nearly impossible.

So you start looking and searching for things

that we can identify him with.

Fortunately, one small portion of Murphy's body

appears to have escaped the worst of the flames.

And I was actually very lucky in this case.

Because he's seated in the chair when it's burning,

the back of him gets the least amount of oxygen.

So he's not going to burn as much on the back as the front.

But he still had tissue remaining,

and particularly in the buttocks region.

JEFF COLT Dr. G carefully dissects

the back portion of the torso, and there

she finds a potential clue.

Oh my, yeah!

He definitely had something wrong with his right leg.

And it just so happens that they were

asymmetric, the right buttocks and the left buttocks.
[ … ]

And when I looked into it, and cut them and looked

at the muscle, he had a lot of atrophy,

meaning a shrunken muscle that hadn't been used,

and fat infiltration.

And that goes along with having a problem neurologically

with his muscles of his leg.

JEFF COLT Since the leg brace and atrophied muscle match,

Dr. G concludes that the body is indeed James Murphy's.

He didn't use that leg as much,

which goes along with the leg brace on the right.

It was a stroke of luck that his buttocks wasn't b*rned.

But I guess if you're not looking for it,

you're not going to find it, either.

JEFF COLT Against all odds, Dr. G

has answered the first question, the identity of the deceased.

Now investigators are counting on her to figure

out how James Murphy d*ed.

But with so little to work with, she

isn't sure she'll be able to determine

Murphy's cause of death.

We'll have to see, but you know, things look bleak.

JEFF COLT By scrutinizing the crime scene photos,

Dr. G confirms right away that this is

not a case of accidental death.

There appears to be no trauma to the car,

and it's on a flat surface.

It's not like we're seeing it flipped

over on the side of the road.

We're not seeing it in the ditch.

JEFF COLT The fire appears to have been set deliberately.

Now two possibilities remain.

Did some foul play come to him, or did he commit su1c1de?

JEFF COLT Determined to solve this mystery,

Dr. G first X-rays the charred torso,

looking for clues that point either to m*rder or su1c1de.

We're looking for b*ll*ts.

We've X-rayed the whole body.

I'm looking for a wound track.

[interposing voices]

There is nothing on the X-ray that helps.

As a next step, she carefully inspects what's left of James

Murphy's remains inch by inch.

But without a head, arms, or legs,

identifying signs of trauma is no easy task.

Now if I'd have had the whole body--

if he was completely charred, but I'd had the whole body,

I'd probably have been able to tell.

But I didn't have that.

He was charred down to inches with no head and no neck

structures.

JEFF COLT By the end of the external exam,

Dr. G still has no solid leads, and she

must now look inside James Murphy's

blackened body for answers.

Even though Dr. G has only scant remains to work with,

she performs the standard Y incision,

cutting the charred torso from the shoulder blades

to the sternum.

She then removes the burnt organs,

looking for any signs of trauma, such as s*ab

wounds or b*llet defects.

--find out more than we thought.

Lo and behold, I actually found some heart disease.

JEFF COLT Although this is typically

a vital finding in an autopsy, in this case,

it proves nothing.

It surely doesn't explain why a g*n is there.

It surely doesn't explain why there was a fire there.

JEFF COLT Dr. G is not keen to admit defeat.

But with nothing left to examine,

she has no choice but to rule Murphy's cause of death

undetermined.

I wasn't going to be able to tell with that

inches of burnt torso.

I just didn't have enough.

JEFF COLT But just as Dr. G is about to close the case,

Investigator Ortiz offers up a piece of information that

could turn the case around.

He said, by the way, I have a bag of debris

that I picked up in the car.

Do you want it?

And I said, of course!

Got that bag of debris for you.

JAN GARAVAGLIA Ah, good!

Well, when I opened up the bag, it was a bag of ash.

It had a lot of debris in it.

It had pieces of glass.

It had pieces of just ash, pieces

of burnt metal, some shotgun shells that were un-sh*t.

JEFF COLT But something hidden among the debris

catches Dr. G's eye.

JAN GARAVAGLIA But it also, lo and behold,

had three fragments of bone.

Each one was probably about three or four inches apiece.

And they had a curvature to the bones that

told me where they came from.

And I can tell from this bone-- where the suture is

and the curve-- that's the top of his head.

JEFF COLT To Dr. G's trained eye,

these small and charred bone fragments provide the evidence
[ … ]

she's been hoping for.

As soon as I looked at these bones,

I could find the cause of death.

Each one of them had a g*nsh*t wound defect.

JEFF COLT Three skull fragments,

three b*llet hole defects.

It looks like possibly this is a m*rder, with three

g*nsh*t wounds to the head.

That certainly wouldn't be odd from where that body was found.

It's a rough county down there.

JEFF COLT Coming up next, the m*rder investigation begins.

I am there to find the truth.

And that's why we're there, to find out what really happened.

JEFF COLT When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

Dr. G is carefully examining fragments

from James Murphy's skull, searching for clues

that might explain how he d*ed.

Each one of them had a g*nsh*t wound defect.

JEFF COLT Murphy, a debt-ridden immigrant,

went up in flames in his car the day before.

And because Dr. G has found several b*llet hole

wounds in his head, she has reason

to believe he was m*rder*d.

That certainly wouldn't be odd from where that body was found.

JEFF COLT But as Dr. G inspects the contours

of the skull fragments more closely,

m*rder begins to look less likely.

From the way they were curved, you

could see that they were from the top

of the skull, the calvariam.

It's like a jigsaw puzzle.

JEFF COLT At first glance, it appears that Murphy was sh*t

at least three times through the top of his skull,

an uncommon but not impossible angle for a k*ller

to execute his victim.

However, upon closer examination,

Dr. G notices something telling about the shape

of the b*llet holes.

The pieces of bone are kind of chipped

off around the central hole.

JEFF COLT This chipping is referred to as beveling.

It can indicate the direction in which the b*llet is traveling.

If someone had fired a b*llet at James's skull,

it would have left a round hole on the outer surface,

and a chipped out defect on the inside of the skull

next to the brain.

The opposite is true when the b*llet exits the skull.

When a b*llet is exiting the skull,

it would make a clean hole on the inner aspect of the bone,

and a chipped out defect on the outer table of the bone.

JEFF COLT And it is this type of exit wound

that Dr. G recognizes on Murphy's skull fragments.

On this case, we can see that the beveling

was on the outside.

So those indicated they were clearly

exit wounds, exit wounds from the top of the head.

And I can tell from this bone--

where the suture is and the curve-- that's

the top of his head.

JEFF COLT These exit wounds can mean only one thing.

Somebody didn't sh**t him on the top of the head.

JEFF COLT Instead, Murphy was sh*t from below.

The b*ll*ts are traveling up and out the top of the head.

They entered either in the mouth, or under the chin

and going straight up.

JEFF COLT This is a method of execution

consistent with su1c1de.

To Dr. G, the trajectory of the b*ll*ts

indicates that James Murphy took his own life.

But if Murphy committed su1c1de, what

explains the three separate b*llet holes in his skull?

How could Murphy have kept f*ring rounds into his own head

after the first sh*t?

The explanation lies in the type of g*n he used, a shotgun.

Unlike handguns, which fire one b*llet at a time,

shotguns discharge a cluster of metal

pellets known as buckshot.

Those are pretty big holes.

They're about a centimeter in length.

JEFF COLT This explains the multiple holes

in Murphy's skull fragments.

It's a shotgun defect with buckshot that's going upward

and out the top of his head.

JEFF COLT Buckshot is designed to inflict maximum damage

on its target at close range, which answers one of the case's

most grisly mysteries.

This is why he didn't have a head.

This is why I didn't see that.

Because that was shattered with that shotgun wound.

I'm going to go ahead and just keep this.

Because you brought it, we'll consider that part of the body

but--

JEFF COLT Dr. G has seemingly proven that Murphy was not

k*lled by an assailant, but rather

took his own life with a single shotgun blast to the head.

Still, one mystery remains.

Now the question is how the fire started.

JEFF COLT If Murphy did sh**t himself,

he couldn't have started the fire afterwards.

There is, however, one possible explanation.
[ … ]

I don't think we'll ever have the answer.

But it appears he started that fire prior to sh**ting himself.

He may have started the fire to try to cover up what he did,

possibly for insurance purposes, possibly

because he didn't want anybody to know

that he committed su1c1de.

JEFF COLT Based on the forensic evidence and Murphy's

troubled personal history, Dr. G can now

piece together the events that led to his death

on that lonely Florida road.

James Murphy is down on his luck.

He's having financial problems.

His business has failed.

He's having personal problems, relationship problems.

So it must seem his whole world is caving in on him.

JEFF COLT But he has a plan to change all

that by disappearing for good.

He convinces a friend to wire him

money, which he uses to buy a p*stol, a shotgun,

and a used pickup truck.

He places the g*ns in the car, and drives

to a desolate roadway.

It's not a high traffic area.

There's mostly ranch heads and what have you.

JEFF COLT With no witnesses in sight,

Murphy takes the next step in his plan.

He lights a fire, most likely in the front seat of the car.

As the fire begins to engulf his body,

Murphy takes out his new shotgun and carries

out the final step of his plan.

Loads it with buckshot, and puts

it right in the place that we typically see suicidal shotgun

wounds, under the chance.

JEFF COLT Then he pulls the trigger.

This single sh*t forces a dozen pellets into Murphy's head,

blowing his skull apart and k*lling him instantly.

I mean, a shotgun wound to the head is devastating.

JEFF COLT The fire consumes the car and most

of Murphy's lifeless body.

James Murphy ex*cuted a complex plan with one goal,

to vanish without a trace.

If not for the expertise of a medical examiner,

he might have succeeded.

JAN GARAVAGLIA If you do try to cover up your death,

we'll do everything we can do in our power to uncover it.

JEFF COLT Unfortunately for Murphy, his plan to disappear

had one critical flaw.

He chose to die in Dr. G's jurisdiction.

I am there to find the truth.

I mean, you know, you might say why don't

you just leave the guy alone?

But other people would like to know what happened.

Are we supposed to look for a m*rder*r?

Or maybe the people who owed him money would

like to know where he went.

Or maybe the people who pay his insurance would like

to know what really happened.

So there's always-- you know, we don't live in this world alone."], index ,…}

We always have connections to other people.

And just because you leave, doesn't mean that nobody

else has a question about it.

And that's why we're there, to find out what really happened

[music playing]

ANNOUNCER (WHISPERING) Atlas.