Pike County massacre; Wife of doomsday prepper autopsied; Atlanta killer at large - TCD Sidebar
In this episode of True Crime Daily The Sidebar Podcast
Forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan joins host Joshua Ritter to discuss the crime scene investigations surrounding some of the most notorious cases across the country. They break down the complicated analysis of the Pike County Murders, the autopsy of Chad Daybell’s first wife, Tammy, as he and new wife Lori Vallow face murder charges, and the brutal murder of Katherine Janness, who was stabbed more than 50 times with no arrests made in the case.
Tweet your questions for future episodes to Joshua Ritter using the hashtag #TCDSidebar.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:00:11]
Hello and welcome to True Crime Daily’s, The Sidebar, taking you inside the courtrooms of high profile and notorious cases from across the country. I'm your host, Joshua Ritter. I'm a criminal defense lawyer based here in Los Angeles and previously in LA County Prosecutor for nearly a decade.
[0:00:26]
In this week's episode, we're going to try to do something a little bit differently. Usually we like to cover cases that are currently in the news from a legal perspective. But today, we will be taking a deeper dive into cases with a view towards the forensic science involved in solving the cases and presenting that evidence in court.
[0:00:43]
First, we're going to talk about the brutal killing of eight family members in Pike County, Ohio, allegedly motivated by a custody dispute turned deadly. Plus, the autopsy of Tammy Daybell, whose death was initially deemed to be natural. But she was exhumed after her husband Chad Daybell and his new wife Lori Vallow were implicated in the disappearance of Lori children, a really tragic case. And finally, the slaying of a woman in Atlanta Park who suffered 50 stab wounds and one year after her death, no killer or motive has been determined.
[0:01:16]
The reason we are having this special episode today is we were joined by Joseph Scott Morgan, a former medical examiner and expert and applied forensics and host of the Body Bags Podcast. Welcome, Joseph.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:01:29]
Thanks for having me, Josh. Good to be here with you and your fans.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:01:32]
Absolutely. Before we jump into these cases, give us -- I talked a little bit about your background, but tell us a little bit about your background and the current position that you have.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:01:42]
Yeah, yeah. Let's see. I'm a Louisianan by birth andstarted my careerwith the Jefferson Parish Coroners Office in the New Orleans metro area. Trying to, you know, kind of frame it so folks will understand. It’s a large populated area, suburb if you will of New Orleans. And if anyone has ever been to my hometown, New Orleans, I know that there’s not too many different directions you can go. Everybody’s kind of piled in on top of one another. There’s still middle class there. There’s always been a middle-class picture surrounded by water, you know, on the highway.
[0:02:23]
So, for me, living in arguably one of the greatest port cities in the world as a young investigator with the coroner down there, I was proving not just to see things that happen on the street and street crimes and that sort of thing, but also international stuff that came in you know that rolled in off the boats and put you in an interesting position from the perspective of investigation, getting through language barriers and also trying to understand international law a little bit sometimes, and even admiralty which is kind of weird.
[0:03:04]
And it was just a great training ground. And so, I was there for roughly six years and I was an investigator there with the coroner. And when I started out till my students, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I back then, if you worked as a medical legal death investigator, which is what I was, the eyes and the ears, if you will, of the coroner in the field, you were also mandated to work in the morgue.
[0:03:39]
And so, I became a pathology assistant. Now, I guess at the end of my career I wound up doing about 7000 autopsies or assisting 7000.
Josh Ritter:
[0:03:46]
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:03:48]
And I always tell my kids, you know, look, out of every classroom, every penny I've ever spent on tuition, the best classroom I was ever in, was the morgue. Particularly for, you know, my area of expertise, medical, legal, death investigation. And you learn more there than you ever will sitting in a classroom.
[0:04:10]
And so, we were very small shop. When I got there, there were only three investigators and two of us also did autopsies. I worked at night as an investigator. During the day, as a path assistant. And on average, I would roughly assist in over 600 autopsies per year.
Josh Ritter:
[0:04:35]
Wow.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:04:35]
And you can do the math behind that and really understand. You know, there's an old adage in in medicine where they talk about particularly like LA County or a place like what used before, before Katrina, Charity Hospital in New Orleans or Cook County, it's called See One, Do One, Teach One.
[0:04:55]
And so, it's like they're going to throw you in to the mix and you got to catch up. If you don't, you're going to be sucking the tailpipe because it comes at you fast and furious. There's no time to wait, so you got to learn on the job.
[0:05:12]
And then after I was there for about six years, I was offered the position of senior investigator with the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office in Atlanta, GA. And I wound up staying the vast majority of my career there, roughly 14 to 15 years.
[0:05:31]
And eventually transitioned into academia, where I spent about a decade. If I've got any veterans in the audience, I was at the University of North Georgia, which is one of the six senior military colleges in the nation like to sit at all and BMI in Texas, A&M Virginia Tech in North Georgia but strictly an army school, it's up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, home of the Ranger Mountain Phase. I was there for about a decade, started the forensics program there. And now I'm in Alabama, right on the I-20 corridor.
[0:06:13]
I guess for everybody that has ever flown and probably everybody can identify with this, I'm about 90 miles from the Atlanta airport, I guess heading out of Alabama. I mean heading out of the Atlanta area and down the I-20 corridor. And you know they're old adage about the Atlanta airport if you're going to, if you're on the way to hell and you have change planes, you like to change planes in Atlanta.
[0:06:38]
So that's kind of where I am. Again, back in the Appalachian Mountains. Beautiful Campus, Jacksonville State University in Alabama, we have an applied forensics program here. And I'm the distinguished scholar of applied forensics here. So, that's what I've done.
[0:06:55]
You know, my entire life, I was one of the youngest medical legal death investigators in the country when I started out. I had no business doing what I was doing, and it's all I've ever done, other than teach. And the two were kind of hand in hand now. It's hard to separate one. I can't remember where one ends and one begins, really, but I love teaching. Glad I don't have to be on call and run calls at night and being away from my family and that sort of thing. I love teaching. I love what I'm doing.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:07:23]
That's fantastic. Well, we will be calling upon that vast experience of yours in discussing these cases. I'm excited to jump into these with you.
[0:07:33]
Let's first talk about Pike County, Ohio. In April of 2016, eight members of the Rhoden family were shot across three homes in a camper in Pike County, Ohio. Roughly 50 miles from Columbus.
[0:07:47]
The victims were seven adults and a teenage boy. They included Christopher Rhoden, senior, 40 years old. His ex-wife, Dana Rhoden, Dana, pardon me, Rhoden, 37. Their three children, Clarence, 16-year-old Christopher, and 19-year-old Hannah. Clarence Rhoden’s fiancé, 20-year-old Hannah Gilly, Christopher Rhoden’s senior brother, 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden, and a cousin 38-year-old, Gary Rhoden. Three young children were left unharmed.
[0:08:16]
So, it basically, essentially wiped out this entire family. The murder shocked residents and led to one of Ohio's most extensive criminal investigations. Interestingly, the discovery of marijuana growing operations at a number of the locations led to initial speculation that the killings weredrug related.
[0:08:35]
However, in November of 2018, several members of the Wagner family, a prominent family in Pike County, were arrested. Jake Wagner, George Wagner the third, Angela Wagner and George Wagner the fourth were all charged in the murders. Prosecutors alleged the killings were motivated by their custody battle over the daughter of Jake Wagner and Hannah Rhoden. The majority of the victims were shot multiple times, with the Wagners allegedly using homemade silencers to kill the victims in there.
[0:09:05]
Jake Wagner pled guilty to eight counts of aggravated murder five years after the killings. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors will reportedly drop the possibility of the death penalty. Jake’s mother, Angela Wagner, also pled guilty to helping to plan the murders.
[0:09:20]
So, in incredible, devastating case, I know it's something, Joseph,that you've been following closely. What is it about this case that fascinated you?
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:09:31]
Well, first off, I think the nature of where it happened. It's in rural America, you know, kind of a forgotten corner of the world. People don't really, aren't really aware that this place exists. I've been there now. I've been out to the scenes and the scenes where the homes were, which I'll get to that in a second.
[0:09:59]
And it reminds you a lot - it's very big, colic looking beautiful, rolling green hillsfarmland.Some of the most beautiful soil you've ever seen, you know, for growing crops and whatnot. And it's right in the foothills of Appalachia.
[0:10:17]
And if folks will take a look at a map, it's essentially in Southeast Ohio. And Pike County itself is one of the poorest counties in all of Ohio, which would make it one of the poorest counties in Appalachia, which is really saying something.
[0:10:34]
I'm in the southern bit of Appalachia where my school is now. And it's not too dissimilar from where I live now. The people are salt of the earth. They live a hand amount existence up there. There's not a lot of jobs.
[0:10:50]
And so that was the case with the Rhodens and the Wagners. You had mentioned essentially the Wagners who are charged and a couple of them are about to be tried coming up pretty soon. And they possessed vast landholdings up there and they've been up there for, you know for decades.
[0:11:14]
You can almost throw a rock and hit West Virginia or Kentucky from there. It's right to confluence where, you know, those three states come together along the Ohio River. And it's very isolated, Josh, very, very isolated.
[0:11:30]
And that was one of the things that really drew me too it because you know when you hear about mass homicides, many times you'll think about in large urban areas or that have access to certain services. You know, that indwell approximation to a large city. They didn't have that.
[0:11:51]
And just imagine this, the scope, but you did a fine job of talking aboutthese four locations, which is bizarre in and of itself. You know where you've got essentially four mobile dwellings that were hit not simultaneously, but kind of falling like dominoes. There was a tremendous amount of planning that went into this.
[0:12:19]
And three of the homes, the actual trailer homes, all sat on the same road. And this is not some place that you wind up by accident, OK.
Josh Ritter:
[0:12:28]
Right.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:12:29]
It's not like it's on the way to Cincinnati, it's on the way to Columbus, or it's on the way to Louisville. You purpose to be there. And so, you know initially they thought that there was a huge volume of weed that was going through here and being produced and people had put out this kind of interesting narrative that it was, you know, somehow related to Mexican drug cartels. And they soon found out that that wasn't the case
[0:12:56]
But early on, I think he's governor now DeWine buthe was AG DeWine at the time when all of this went down, Mike DeWine. He knew that he was going to have to call in resources and they had to. They had to bring this, you know, bring the resources in.
[0:13:13]
And what's really fascinating about this and I think that certainly your attorneys in the audience will find this interesting. Josh, they actually picked these scenes up and towed them away.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:13:29]
That's a fascinating part of this to me. And please, please get into why that decision was made.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:13:33]
Oh my God. It's incredible. And we're talking, we're not talking about trailer homes that had just been dropped down in the last, you know, year or two. We're talking about stuffthat was stubbed in.
[0:13:47]
You had, you know, sewer lines running into electrical lines, security cameras. There were hot houses there. There were outbuildings. I mean these gigantic outbuildings and rusty old shells cars that they had to kind of navigate these things around. And of course, the property itself undulates and very difficult to get it out.
[0:14:07]
And when you think about that from a forensic standpoint, if you're going to attempt to process these, these scenes, it becomes kind of a nightmare situation. And a lot of us would, you know -- and I talked about this with my colleagues that are in forensics and whatnot. And you know some of the things that we've come up with or you know, how do you maintain, you know, one of the things that we talked about in forensics is kind of the pristine nature of the scene.
[0:14:36]
I mean that's a big deal. And I know you've heard that in court, you know how protected was the scene. Well, just imagine if you will, I mean all I think everybody can identify with being on an Interstate highway and you've got, you know a wide load coming through with escort cars and everything you're having to pull over and these things rumbling down an Interstate.
[0:14:56]
Now, that's an Interstate. Can you imagine a country lane? Maybe, you know, bouncing down unimproved roads, hitting potholes. And so, we're talking about a case that involves multiple gun fire related deaths. I mean, yeah, multiple gunfire, related deaths with multiple gunshots. Anything that you might be looking at relative to trajectories, you've opened a door now for a wise, a wise defense attorney to say, “Well, how do you know that all of this stuff was studied inits contextual initial format?”
Joshua Ritter:
[0:15:34]
I'm going to go ahead and say you don't even need that wise of a defense attorney to cross examine on that yet.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:15:39]
Yeah, you really don't. I don't know. A lot of people say first year law student, you know they always throw that out.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:15:43]
Right.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:15:44]
And I don't know about first yearlaw student. But it doesn't require somebody that's very sophisticated. I know I'm not sophisticated, but I looked at this and I thought, gee whiz, this was really a roll of the dice. And I'm fascinated to see if this comes up in trial.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:16:00]
I can't imagine how it wouldn't. So, they moved the homes before any analysis was done of the scene?
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:16:07]
That was my understanding that they remained very tight lipped about this, Josh. As you can imagine. I think they had assistance. Of course, the feds got involved.
[0:16:18]
You've got multiple farms. And you know, right you were when you mentioned anytime you drop that term homemade suppressor. Automatically, you know that's going to activate, you know, the antenna of the ATF are going to go up immediately. Not that they wouldn't already, but you're going to call in the resources of an organization like ATF and certainly the FBI and any other you know alphabet agency within the feds that have an interest in this sort of thing.
[0:16:51]
So, I think my, just for my own personal curiosity, I'm curious to know if there were federal agents that were whispering in their ear. They were saying, you know, you might want to consider doing this. But famously, and this kind of goes to another issue, there was a great photo that was taken of the location where these trailers were taking back. The only way I can really describe it is it looks like an old airport, like with airport hangars.
[0:17:28]
You know, I would think about, you know, like in my context for New Orleans, I would think about a place where they store Mardi Gras floats, these big, big places. And somebody, I think it was an AP photographer, took a picture of the gate that leads into this area. It wasn't locked.
[0:17:48]
And that was in plain view of the general public. And again, that's something, you know, that perhaps I can't imagine that that would escape the view of somebody that's defending one of these individuals.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:18:01]
Do you know why the decision was made to go through these? I mean, like you said, just the logistics alone of doing it, of moving these types of homes, is not an easy thing. Was there – I got to imagine somewhere somebody felt there was a compelling reason to do this. Have you stumbled across that reason?
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:18:20]
Honest to God, Josh, I have not. You know, I'm still scratching my head over that. I would -- you know the first thing that popped to mindwas, you know, this was early on in the investigation I was thinking, you know, well, maybe they were fearful of cartel involvement.And this is, like I said, it's very isolated, very isolated. They don't have a lot of money.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:18:44]
OK, it's not like LA County.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:18:45]
Right.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:18:46]
Where you can take multiple teams of deputies and stand, you know, have them on watch and they're watching the perimeter constantly. My thought was is that they were going to try to draw these things back in to a secure location and it would offer them a couple things.
[0:19:06]
First off, it would offer them acontrolled environment in which to process these structures which look, I mean, as you well know, having been a prosecutor, you know that we take cars back to crime labs all the time and you know and process those. And that's a car on a flatbed.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:19:25]
Right, right.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:19:27]
And sometimes they'll still have bodies in them, you know? And that's not unheard of. I've been involved in a lot of cases. But we're talking about mobile homes, big mobile homes that you know that they did this in.
[0:19:41]
I was just, you know, struck by this. I thought it was really a wild idea. I'm very anxious to see how all of this plays out and the nuances of it. And you know, the bodies, the coroner did a fine job. You know, he's like a local elected official. I think he's a general practitioner or something. He's not a forensic pathologist. But he did an adequate job for what he had.
[0:20:07]
I mean who gets up, you know, early in the morning as coroner in some rural area, an agar-based area, and you're treating parents, I mean patients, and all of a sudden your phone goes off and you said you got eight bodies in four different locations. Can you imagine?
[0:20:24]
And everybody knows these people. They just have -- as of the recording today, they just have ceded a jury. They've got alternates now. I think they've got six alternates now. This thing is going to get rolling this week. The first of these cases, there's two guys to be tried that have not rolled over on this.
[0:20:42]
And so that's going to be -- in my estimation, this is – and I'm biased because I've been following it for so long and I've been on the Piketon Massacre podcast. This is the premier case of the year because there's, particularly from an investigative and a forensic standpoint, you can't – it's so rich with content and it is pure American Gothic. I mean, just right down to its core.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:21:14]
Yeah. Well, we will definitely continue to be following it. I mean one of the things that we didn't even touch on is just kind of the, what do you call it, the group psychosis, to have an entire family decide, “Yeah, let's go, let's go ahead and murder all of these people in one night and let's plan it out.”
[0:21:37]
And I don't care how rural it is. That takes a tremendous amount of planning to have hit all four of those homes, you know, sequentially. Just the, how do you, how does a family, how does no one in that family say, “Wait a minute, have we all lost our minds here?” Do you know what I’m saying?
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:21:56]
I know. And, you know, the thing about it is apparently one vehicle is used. So, you've got ateam moving from dwelling to dwelling to drilling? What in the hell doyou talk about when you’re on the way?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:22:08]
Exactly. Exactly.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:22:09]
Are you taking this turn? Am I taking that turn?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:22:12]
The horrors that you just witnessed at one scene now travel with you to three more scenes and no one gets out of the car. It's amazing. Like I said, we will continue to follow it, but thank you for that really incredible analysis of it.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:22:26]
Oh yeah, yeah. No worries. Yeah.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:22:28]
Let's talk about another case where there's some troubling handling of evidence, I guess you could say. We're talking about the murder of Tammy Daybell. The first wife of Chad Daybell, 49-year-old Tammy Daybell, died October of 2019. The cause of death was originally deemed to be natural. However, shortly after Tammy's death, Chad married Lori Vallow. Lori Vallow’s children later disappeared and the bodies of Lori’s children, JJ Vallow, 7 years old, Ty Lee Ryan, 17, were later discovered at Chad Daybell's property.
[0:23:03]
At the time, officers didn't consider Tammy's death suspicious and the Daybell children declined an autopsy of their mother. However, in December of 2019, Tammy's remains were exhumed after an investigation began into the disappearance of Lori’s children. An autopsy was performed, but the details have not been publicly released.
[0:23:22]
According to Tammy’s son, Garth Daybell, authorities told the family she died of asphyxiation, but reportedly have not given more details to the family. The Daybell children continued to be supportive of Chad, claiming that bodies recovered on his property were placed there to frame him and arguing that the shallow graves would be uncharacteristic for Chad to dig, I love this, as he had former experience as a gravedigger.
[0:23:49]
Chad and Lori allegedly shared extremist apocalyptic beliefs, and that may have influenced the actions of the couple. What's going on here? Talk to us first about how unusual is it to -- I know an autopsy is not performed in every death, but I what I'm curious about is if it was determined to be asphyxiation, should there been signs that someone should have said, you know what, maybe we should perform an autopsy here.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:24:18]
Yeah, you're right. If the coroner had gone to the scene.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:24:24]
Oh, tell us about that.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:24:26]
Yeah, that's -- you know, when it came in to us initially because, you know, JJ and Tylee were already missing, you know. So, it was already in the news, all right. And that, you know, they were looking for these children.
[0:24:45]
And then when Tammy died, immediately you know, everybody, all of us that were involved, you know, in the media and that sort of thing and we're doing analysis of these cases immediately, you know, we begin to look at this and think about, well, how do you make this assessment?
[0:25:06]
Because you know, with Tammy, one of the things that has constantly been, you know, put out there is the fact that she was healthy and she was -- when she died at that time, she was training for a race like people said marathon. I don't think it was a marathon. I think it was like a half marathon or something like that. It was a significant race, all right.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:25:35]
Sure.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:25:35]
It's not something that somebody would some kind of heart condition or something would, you know, be engaged in. And she had no prior complaints. And she apparently was just beloved, you know, the community. She worked as a media specialist for one of the local schools. So, all the kids knew her, you know, in the library and that sort of thing.
[0:25:57]
She's been married to Chad for some time. But the morning -- Chad had mentioned the night before he made the statement to the cops that she was coughing profusely or something like that. I don't know. It's very non-specific.
[0:26:13]
That morning when she was discovered dead, he contacted the local PD, which was in I think it's Rexburg, Idaho. And the kids actually went to the home and or were living at the home. They’re Chad and Tammy’s kids. And one of the children mentioned at that moment, Tom, that she had a kind of a frothy oedematous conethat was emanating either from her nose or mouth.
[0:26:52]
Now, for those that don't know, when you see this – many times, this is, you got something going on with your lungs, OK, like it can be an airway issue like an asphyxia event we see a lot in like heroin ODs where the respiratory system is kind of suppressed. You'll see it in drownings. Matter of fact, when people are pulled that are dead or pulled out of the water, the cone will actually, it's kind of creepy when you see it, but the cone will actually present after the body has cleared the water. So, something is going on.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:27:27]
Describe what you’re talking about. It’s like a?
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:27:29]
It's a frothy, yeah. Just imagine like the head of a beer.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:27:33]
Oh my God.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:27:33]
And it's got generally kind of got a pink tinge to it. And it's called a frothy oedematous cone. And so, you've got something from a respiratory standpoint that's going on.
[0:27:44]
And if somebody with medical legal training had seen that at that time, you would throw on the breaks, you know, something is going on here. There's a drug related issue or I want to dig deeper into this to see if there's any signs of an asphyxia event where someone has been choked or, you know, suffocated or something like this. But that didn't happen at the scene.
[0:28:06]
As a matter of fact, one of the deputies that was there that rolled out to the scene, actually made the statement that to them, everything appeared to be consistent with a natural death.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:28:22]
Deputy sheriffs or deputy?
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:28:24]
Deputy sheriff. And so, you know, my qualifier for that as you can imagine, it's going to be well, I’ll put on a lawyer hat real quick, which I'm not a lawyer, but I would, you know, if you were on the stand, I'd make a comment like, “Oh, where did you go to medical school?”
Joshua Ritter:
[0:28:45]
Right, right.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:28:47]
Where did you receive this training, you know, that you're talking about now?Why is it that you know you can make this assessment? What qualifies you to make this assessment?
[0:28:59
Because generally with police officers that go to the scene, God bless the cops. Some of my best friends. But the deputy sheriff in Rexburg, you know, Idaho is not qualified to make that assessment.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:29:12]
Yeah.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:29:14]
And the thing about it is that once that bell is wrong – and again, we go back to this idea of the pristine scene. Once you've taken the body out of that context, you've lost everything.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:29:28]
How is it that the Corners Office or medical examiner never got involved with this woman before she made it back to wherever her body was before they buried it?
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:29:38]
Yeah, apparently the body went to the local Funeral Home. And by law, you know, these people come from Utah. The whole family does, apparently. And so, and interestingly enough, you know how you mentioned that Chad was a gravedigger at one point in time?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:29:53]
Right.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:29:53]
The graveyard that Tammy wound up being buried in is where he used to dig graves.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:29:58]
Of course.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:30:00]
It's mind-blowing. And so, but you know, once you've crossed that bridge and when you transport a body across, state lines of body in most cases has to be involved.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:30:15]
So, they – without the coroner – again, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but this --
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:30:18]
No, no, please.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:30:19]
This is bothering me to the core of my kind of prosecutorial hard wiring. But you're saying without a medical examiner or coroner's office, anybody getting involved, her body is taken directly to a Funeral Home, likely embalmed there and then transported across state lines to where it was buried, even though we had all of these kind of surrounding circumstances that someone should have said, maybe we should take a look at how this woman died.
[0:30:47]
Tell me how there was that breakdown. How does that happen that that – is it just the side effect of this kind of small town? Or what is it that it leads to no one kind of stepping in and saying, wait a minute, we better follow protocol more closely here.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:31:08]
Well, a lot of it has to do withthe deferral of the local authorities to the wishes of Chad Daybell.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:31:17]
Wow. Wow.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:31:18]
Yeah, I know. And the thing about it is–
Joshua Ritter:
[0:31:21]
By the way, should be suspect number one from the get go, right?
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:31:24]
Yes, absolutely. I mean any, you know, I mean, you've been down this road long enough, Josh would know that anytime you've got someone dead and they share a bed with you, that's your numero uno. We have to exhaust every possibility to check you off the list.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:31:47]
You at least deserve a couple more questions beyond oh, she was coughing the night before? Well, everything checks out here.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:31:54]
Yeah. And it's such a problem. Now, there's some indication the coroner may have seen the body at the funeral home. But again, I don't know to what degree the body was examined at that point in time.
[0:32:10]
And the thing that has come back to me and I haven't been able to verify this is it has been stated that coroner has limited funds and they’re part time. And I'm thinking OK. And this is one of the things that really irritates me. This is my own personal little soapbox. A lot of this city governments, and they're everywhere, they have time to throw money at things that are really nonsensical, as you well know, you've worked in the government.
[0:32:39]
But yet, those that are literally the least defended and spoken for in our midst, they wind up with the short end of the shaft. Matter of fact, Doctor Minyard who is the coroner in New Orleans many years ago, he famously, in a documentary, he actually made a statement, put this up on the screen in big bold letters. This was actually a frontline documentary. He said, “Dead people don't vote.”
[0:33:07]
So, what that means is, is that you know you're going to take a back seat when it comes to funding. But this this comes down to common sense. I can't imagine that in Rexburg, Idaho, at that particular time and moment that there was something more pressing than the death of a young woman and she's young. And that you couldn't take just a few moments to just go, hey dude, just go draw tox, draw blood. But no, that wasn't done.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:33:37]
Yeah, it's really good point.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:33:38]
And then once you get, once you're involved, it's all over but the crying at that point. Because now you're going to embalm the body and you're going to haul it and you're going to take the body down to Idaho. And then you're going to place the body in a coffin inside of a crypt, and you're going to leave it down there for a couple of months before the body is ever exhumed.
[0:33:58]
Now, you know the cool thing about Idaho is the fact that Idaho doesn't have coroners. And coroners are great. All right, don't get me wrong. That's what, you know, you have corners, you have medical examiners. It's a weird system that we have all over the country.
[0:34:12]
But in Idaho they have a state wide medical examiner. There's no such thing as a coroner there. So, you know, and they're separate from law enforcement. They conduct their own investigations. Now, granted, this is not something that would be prosecuted obviously unknown, preaching the choir. This is - if there's malfeasance in Idaho, this is not something to be prosecuted in Utah, but they have the ability to exhume these remains and do the autopsy.
[0:34:42]
I think that it's kind of interesting though that they've remained so tight lipped about this as far as their findings and they're playing very close to the vest. And it's very important that I think that everybody that's listening to us right now understand that this is not – these cases are multi-jurisdictional.
[0:35:04]
You know, the last time that anyone saw Tiley, I don't know if people remember this, you know where she was? She's on federal land. She was at Yellowstone. I mean, that's the last time someone saw her.
[0:35:16]
So automatically if that's the case, you know, you flip the Fed switch at that time, you've got these weird things going on down in Arizona. You know with Lori's ex-husband, you know he's shot in the chest by her brother, who soon dies after all of this.
[0:35:37]
And so, you've got multiple jurisdictions thatare involved in this thing. That's why it's such a bizarre set of circumstances. I’ve been covering these things since it happened. And I'm still, you know, I'm still dumbfounded by some of the stuff that I hear and things that, you know, kind of turn up, you know.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:35:54]
Yeah. God. This one’s heading to trial soon too.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:35:58]
Yeah, I think it is. I want to say Christmassy Tom or the first of the year, you know, something like that. But it's been such a kind of a wackadoodle kind of thing with people going for mental health evaluations and changes of council and all that. I’ll believe it when I see it, it's kind of what it comes down to for me.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:36:18]
I just hope we get some of the answers to some of these questions.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:36:22]
I do too.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:36:23]
I'm like you. I don't want to throw law enforcement under the bus, but I am still dumbfounded that, you know, that deputies got a sergeant he answers to.And did that sergeant not say, “Hey, maybe we better get somebody involved here to find out why this young woman just drop dead out of nowhere before we just call this a natural death and move on?” Incredible.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:36:44]
Yeah, it really is.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:36:46]
Turning to another bizarre case that it has not even been solved yet, let's talk about Katie Janess who was 40 years old when she was killed in a public park in Atlanta while walking her dog Bowie on July 28th, 2021. Both Janess and her dog were stabbed to death.
[0:37:06]
According to the medical examiner's report, Janess was stabbed 50 times in the attack. The assailant reportedly carved the word fat into Janess’ chest. The victim was stabbed in the throat and suffered at least 15 stab wounds to the face.
[0:37:21]
An autopsy report listed Katherine Janess’ cause of death as sharp force injuries of her face, neck, and torso. The Atlanta Police Department also ordered an autopsy on Katie’s Dog, Bowie, to search for potential DNA that could have ended up on the dog. The brutality of the slain shocked the local community and emphasized the need for greater security in Atlanta’s parks.
[0:37:42]
The case remains unsolved, with no arrests or public suspects announced. The FBI is assisting in the ongoing investigation. Joseph, I'm not sure how much of your time as a medical examiner, if you were ever asked to, kind of understand by the nature of the killing, what relationship that person may have had with the victim.
[0:38:10]
But you know it doesn't - it can take an ARM chair kind of detective to understand that there was a lot of, it sounds to me like personal hatred involved in this when you've got stabbings to someone’s face that many times, a word carved into their chest. I know I have a question in here somewhere, but talk to us about what all of that means to you.
[0:38:32]
And something that's always remarkable to me is thatwe use these terms like stabbed 50 times and we just kind of glance by it. The amount of time that it takes to do that and the amount of strength that takes to do that, this is not, you know a butter knife into a slab of warm butter. This is a human being taking these many stabbings. Jump into it. Please share with us your thoughts on this.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:38:59]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know I've had a few. First off, sharp force injuries and sharp force deaths are arguably the most brutal because it's, you know, I guess somebody – you know, Bludgeoning’s would run a close second, but there's something about using cold steel on somebody where it's very, very up close and personal because you're – people use the term, you know you're in my space.
[0:39:30]
And just imagine the most intimate of interactions that you can have in this context where you're burying a knife over and over again in a public park. And you know, I know a lot of folks are not familiar with Piedmont Park. But it is Atlanta Central Park, essentially. Obviously, not that big, but nonetheless, people walk their dogs.
[0:40:00]
So, it has been kind of a haven for the homeless over the years. You know, even during my days as an investigator worked couple homicides but nothing, nothing that rose to this level at all.And I work, you know a couple series of serial homicides in Atlanta and I never saw anything this brutal associated with that.
[0:40:25]
I think that first off you have to think about the context in which this has happened. This is in a public place and it's not too far off of the main thoroughfare road way, and it's at a crosswalk.
[0:40:39]
So, when she would have hit that crosswalk with the dog taking the dog, you know, for nightly, you know, outing, this is not something that she would have been unfamiliar with. It's a path that people regularly walk.
[0:40:58]
It gives me – when I first read the autopsy report, which was striking to say the very least, it gave me pause to think this would have taken a considerable amount of time regarding the work. The person would have been just, you know, in the heat of the deep south summer. OK, would have just been drenched in sweat.
[0:41:24]
Because it's not just the environmental temperature, it's the adrenaline, it's pumping. The madness that's at work because you're talking about anger here. And the level of disfigurement, because one of the things that really stood out, Josh, was the fact that she'd been partially disembowelled.
[0:41:46]
And when you dig into the autopsy report, you realize that there are focal areas of haemorrhage and those loops of bowel that are hanging out, which gives you an indication that she was alive when this was going on.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:41:57]
Oh my God.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:41:58]
So, it has a level of horror and terror to it that I don't know that many people can really fathom. And it has not gotten as much press nationally as I would have liked to have seen it have gotten because it's so over the top, it's so horrific.
[0:42:16]
And then, you know, this verbiage where if folks that are listening, watching will just envision her, the word fat is – the tip of the knife has been taken, and it's written from right to left, the letters are slightly offset in the rather large letters. You know, it's not like these are tiny, you know, like a tiny little thing. And it involves the lower chest and the abdomen.
[0:42:50]
And so, she was – and this is in addition to the other sharp force injuries that she had sustained.And then the facial disfigurement as well. And yeah, I mean there's enough people that watch Shark ran out there to know that, you know the old term, you know overkill that you know we use and that people in media use all the time. But this is truly an example of this. You're trying to literally destroy somebody.
[0:43:16]
But, you know, let's face it, you know, you in our meeting, you know, like this, we're talking. This is how we identify ourselves. This is how we identify ourselves to our families and our loved ones. And you rob an individualand I don't want to gettoo far out into the, you know, psychopathology weeds becauseit's not really my bailiwick. But there are certain things that we look for as death investigators at a scene.
[0:43:38]
First off, we try to marry it up with any other cases that might have similarities. I got to tell you, man. I haven't heard a pit about that. There were a few things that you got the impression at the beginning they were kind of reaching for and nothing really stuck at all. Like there's not been any other manifestation out there that rises to this degree of brutality.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:44:07]
So scary start to cut you off, but I'm just thinking with what you're describing and like you said, robbing her of her identity.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:44:17]
Yeah, yeah.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:44:18]
To me – and again, this isn't my bailiwick either, but just trying to put it all together of who would commit this type of crime. Your choices are either somebody who knew her and hated her so much, which you would think detectives have spoken to all those folks, right? And no one seems to fit the bill or a complete psychopath who has committed this one murder and continues to walk the streets in Atlanta, which both things are equally terrifying.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:44:51]
They are terrifying. And then you think about the people that inhabit. Just think just for a moment that those individuals that inhabit that area, they knowthis has happened. Trust me, everybody knows this has happened and still no one has had the bracelets put on him at this point.
[0:45:07]
So, you're thinking, you know, we're coming into fall, there's going to be musical festivals and all that kind of stuff that goes on in these parks, you know, and you're thinking, Lord Jesus man, you know, am I going to take my family out here? You know, do I want to go walk my dog at night?
[0:45:23]
Yeah, because if somebody – and this is another thing just from an environmental standpoint. The perpetrator is very comfortable with this environment. They knew their way around it. You know, they knew that -- well, I don't know that that could have anticipated that the cameras were in the toilet and weren't working, but they knew that it was kind of a darkened area when you made that turn.
[0:45:46]
So, you've got, instantaneously you've got camouflage where you can lay and wait. And how would you know, you know my big thing is, how would you know that she was on the way? Because this is a personal attack, I think.
[0:46:00]
And you would maybe know her patterns. You know, they always tell you to vary your patterns, that sort of thing. For good reason, and you sit there and you think well, my God, did somebody know she was going to take her puppy out for a walk that night and they knew the path that she took and they waited for?
[0:46:17]
But still to this point, you know, at least to my knowledge what I know because I don't have any inside information, what kind of leads have they developed? And I'll be very interested to know what behavioural sciences unit has come up with the FBI.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:46:34]
Yeah, God. One thing that you said earlier on that is still the kind of a sticking point to me that I always try to emphasize when talking about these types of cases is you described it as the amount of work involved. And you're right. The pure work of doing this horrific thing on top of the weather, on top of the energy and all of that. This is not something that the person simply, you know, wipes the blade clean on the grass and walks away casually.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:47:03]
No, no, no, no, no.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:47:06]
This person is going to look like a complete monster. I mean, we're talking about drenched in sweat and also likely drenched in blood. And then it's just, what, casually walking down the street in the middle of Atlanta. And OK, so the one set of cameras aren't working. Aren't there dozens of cameras everywhere watching us do everything and did this person just vanished? He's just amazing.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:47:29]
Yeah, I had a conversation with Sheryl McCollum who many people will know in True Crime. She runs the Cold Case Institute and Sheryl's a friend of mine and we were discussing this case. She's based out of Atlanta. Pardon me.
[0:47:41]
And, you know, we came up with kind of a Hollywood reference here. We both thought, you know, do you remember the movie Carrie? You know where she has the blood dumped on her. And I'm not saying it would have been that much, but the perpetrator would have had contact traces of blood all up and down their hands or arms because it's such a feverish event and you're using an instrument.
[0:48:11]
It's not like the this was a morgue instrument or surgical instrument that was used. You know something that has a very fine blade on it. It's meant for this sort of thing. You're talking about a deployable knife prop, possibly. Maybe something along the lines, I don't know, honey knife or a buck knife.
[0:48:29]
And, you know, every time you strike -- people might not know this, but every time you strike with a knife, that edge becomes, it's lessened, OK. So, by the time you get up in that double-digit number, now you're talking about utilizing a knife that is not the same weapon that you started off with.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:48:50]
Right.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:48:51]
It requires more energy and you've sapped yourself of your energy by that time.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:48:54]
Right. And again, I think we're past the point of getting graphic on this, but here we are. But you're now talking about a knife that has not only become dulled, but the knife itself is likely soaked in blood, and therefore your grip on the knife is not as sure as it once was. And perhaps that person even suffering injuries to their own hand themselves from that knife in this kind of feverish moment.
[0:49:20]
You're right. I don't know how this person could just disappear without someone, somewhere going, you know, look at the injuries on so and so.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:49:31]
Yeah. And that has crossed my mind as well. And one of the other things I'm hoping that they did when they did the examination, I'm sure that they did knowing that office, head to toe x-rays on the body. Because with a knife like this, you're going to lose little fine fragments and from a metallurgical standpoint,that's something that if the person still possesses the knife and you can – if they were able to recover from a metallurgical standpoint any kind of shaving that was contained within the wound which can be difficult, then you've got a potential chemical tie back from a molecular tie back to the blade that was forged.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:50:16]
A murder weapon. Wow.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:50:17]
And so, you know, we talk about ballistics and everything, people don't think about knives lots of times, but that has happened. It does happen. And it's just a matter of being, though. I'm sure that they were all hands-on deck though when they were doing this examination.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:50:33]
Incredible. Wow. Well, I hope to be reading the news that this person is caught someday because it’s just terrifying to know that that person still walks amongst us.
[0:50:45]
Joseph, this was fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on this week. Where can people find out more about you?
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:50:51]
Yeah, sure. You can check me out. My podcast is Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. It is a forensic based podcast. We thought for a time that perhaps, and I don't know, can't validate this, that I was the only forensic scientist or one of the few forensic scientists that was actually hosting their own podcast. And if not, I hope that there are more that come out. But for right now I know that I am.
[0:51:22]
And I don't get off into the weeds with a lot of psychopathology and relationship, you know, issues regarding crimes and all that. I talk about the forensics of cases. Generally, try to stick with stuff that's recently been adjudicated or that's recently in the news. I think today the Courtney Clenny case, the Only Fans model case, I dropped it today.
[0:51:48]
And so, you can find that on iheart Apple, Spotify, Audible and, you know, wherever you get your podcast, we're out there. You can find me on Law and Crime and Court TV. I think I'll be on court TV tomorrow night talking about the Piketon case. And then at Jacksonville State University, you know where I'm a professor there. So, I pop up in a lot of places.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:52:12]
That's fantastic. I can't wait to listen to that episode on your podcast.
Joseph Scott Morgan:
[0:52:16]
Yeah, sure.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:52:17]
And I'm your host, Josh Ritter. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Joshua Ritter ESQ. You can find our Sidebar episodes wherever you get your podcasts, and we want to hear from you. If you've got questions or comments you'd like us to address, tweet us your questions with the hashtag #TCDSidebar. And thank you for joining us at the True Crime Daily Sidebar.
