Dr. G: Medical Examiner - Season 1, Episode 6 - Who is Watching the Children? - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Two young children are found dead in their own home. The scene was atrocious.
That's the worst house that I've ever been in. NARRATOR: Police theories run from carbon monoxide poisoning
to accidental overdose. But Dr. G's shocking findings threaten to turn a community upside down.
It was very worrisome, right from the beginning, that I was going to be dealing with something very odd here.
NARRATOR: Then, a 25-year-old pregnant mother of two dies within a week of checking into a homeless shelter.
Can Dr. G wade through a long history of abuse and poor health to discover what killed this woman so suddenly?
Unbelievable. This is abnormal. [GASPS] NARRATOR: Altered lives, baffling medical mysteries,
shocking revelations-- these are the everyday cases of Dr. G, medical examiner. [MUSIC PLAYING]
It's part of Dr. G's job to remain objective, to get the facts, and uncover the truth.
But sometimes, her findings are not what people want to hear, especially when they point to the most unlikely
of suspects. [MUSIC PLAYING] [SIRENS WAILING] [INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER] On January 6, 1995, a panicked call comes in
to San Antonio's 911 operator. A man named Rick tells them that he's with a baby who's turning blue.
First on the scene are the paramedics who find the tiny body of five-month-old Timothy Gutierrez on a couch.
He isn't just blue. He's dead. They note that rigor mortis is already setting in.
Sergeant David Evans is one of the first police officers to arrive on the scene.
The scene was atrocious. That's the worst house that I've ever been in. There were toys.
There were clothes. It was dirty. There was food everywhere, and it stank. It smelled like there was just trash in the house.
It was pitiful. So we had to focus in and try and stay focused on what we were there to do, which was
then investigate this death. NARRATOR: Police soon learned that the property is home to several members of two different families.
DAVID EVANS: We soon found out that there were eight children and four adults living in this one house.
NARRATOR: Emergency personnel on the scene are alarmed by their findings. But the situation is even worse than they imagined.
Just as the police begin their investigation on the infant, the man who called 911--
Rick-- informs them that there is yet another body in a back bedroom. [MUSIC PLAYING]
There, lying on a mattress, is a second dead child-- Renee Alicia, Timothy's two-year-old sister.
She's lying on her side and has vomited next to her. NARRATOR: Something in this house is killing children.
A feverish hunt begins. Is it a poisoning, gas leak, or could they have overdosed on medication?
We notice there are some medicines, so our focus then becomes, is there an overdose
on the children's medicine? NARRATOR: But after finding no obvious signs of trauma or assault on the children's bodies,
detectives spot another more likely suspect-- the house's heaters. It's cold that day, so we're concerned that maybe
there's a possibility of some type of carbon monoxide poisoning. NARRATOR: While emergency responders begin checking
the house for carbon monoxide, the bodies of the two dead children are transported to the county
medical examiner's office. Dr. G gets the call. [MUSIC PLAYING] JAN GARAVAGLIA: Initially, I was on call.
I got a call from my investigator that we had two children dead in a house. And they were worried it was carbon monoxide.
NARRATOR: But from the circumstances, Dr. G is already skeptical about the carbon monoxide theory.
There is a boyfriend in the house that didn't seem to have symptoms. And there was another caregiver in the house--
a 12-year-old girl that's one of the children-- didn't seem to have symptoms. NARRATOR: When Dr. G gets her first look at the two children,
her suspicions are confirmed. They are obviously not victims of carbon monoxide poisoning.
As soon as I saw them in the morgue, they had no evidence of carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide deaths tend to have
a real cherry-pink lividity-- very common for me to see that from the other side
of the room. And neither one of these children had that. NARRATOR: After death, blood stops circulating
and succumbs to gravity, pulling at the dead bodies' lowest point. Normally, the pooled blood will appear as purple or maroon
on the skin, much like the color of a bruise. But when blood has been tainted by carbon monoxide,
the lividity will appear bright pink. The normal lividity of the two children tells Dr. G that, whatever killed them,
it definitely was not carbon monoxide. The lividity of baby Timothy also tells Dr. G something else--
how long the infant had likely been dead. Baby had anterior lividity. It had been dead for a while.
The lividity-- or where the blood pools-- was fixed. It was fixed on the face. NARRATOR: The fixed lividity indicates to Dr. G
that the baby was dead for a period of time, possibly several hours, before EMS arrived.
But as she continues the autopsy, the possible time of death seems to be the only thing
Dr. G can determine for sure. We found absolutely nothing-- no trauma, no natural disease, nothing.
There was nothing significant on Timothy that was found. It was very worrisome, right from the beginning,
that I was going to be dealing with something very odd here. NARRATOR: The infant's body fluids
are sampled and sent to the toxicology lab for testing. But the results come back negative
for any lethal substances. Under different circumstances, this case may have been diagnosed as SIDS--
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. More of a phenomenon than a medical condition, SIDS is a diagnosis of last resort--
one that is made when a complete autopsy, examination of the death scene, and review of the infant's
clinical history reveals no other rational explanation. On babies, we sometimes see that,
and those are called sudden infant death syndrome if the circumstances are right.
NARRATOR: But SIDS only affects children in the first year of life. So it's not a possibility in the death of Renee Alicia.
JAN GARAVAGLIA: Two-year-olds are very uncommon to die. You're past the infant-death stage, and yet you're--
not dying, usually, unless it's an accident-- a car accident, or drowning accident.
So it's a very uncommon age for us to see. NARRATOR: At first glance, Dr. G finds no trauma
on Renee Alicia's body. But telltale signs of a difficult life are evident. JAN GARAVAGLIA: She was very unkempt.
She had the worst set of head lice I have ever seen in my life. It was just swarming in her hair.
NARRATOR: Initially, Dr. G sees nothing to suggest how this two-year-old may have died.
But Dr. G's exam has just begun. A five-month-old baby and his two-year-old sister
have died under mysterious circumstance. Police have a host of possible culprits--
carbon monoxide, overdose, SIDS. But all of the theories are about to be thrown out when Dr. G makes one startling discovery.
[OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING] As part of every autopsy, Dr. G examines the inside of the mouth to check for obstructions
or other clues. When she opens the mouth of two-year-old Renee Alicia, this mysterious death instantly becomes a homicide case.
What I saw were the impressions of her teeth abrading the inner aspect of her lips--
not a bite mark, mind you. It's hard to bite the upper inner aspect of your lip.
They were impressions, as if somebody had pressed something-- a hand, or pillow--
against that mouth to suffocate her. NARRATOR: From the outside, there are often no markings to confirm suffocation.
But pressure on the top of the mouth from a hand or pillow would create a linear abrasion from the lower
edge of the teeth marking the inside of the upper lip. Turned to the detective and said,
this is a homicide, unless you can tell me somebody did CPR in this child. And they said, no.
Nobody touched this child. Nobody did CPR. She immediately told me, this child had been suffocated,
because of those impressions. So she was able to find that and rule homicide in that death.
NARRATOR: What's more, Dr. G is immediately convinced that the baby Timothy was also smothered,
even though she found no teeth marks during his autopsy. Now, this baby doesn't have any teeth,
so it's a very easy to suffocate it with no marks. So I said, most likely, both of these are going to be homicide.
We know the two-year-old definitively is. By inference, the second one is. We've got someone that has suffocated at least one child,
probably another, since we have two dead infants at the same time. And so the focus of the investigation at
that time is, who was the last one with the child? JAN GARAVAGLIA: So far, we're looking good.
NARRATOR: With Dr. G's findings on hand, police are now on the hunt for a killer.
Their chief suspects-- the four adults who live in the house where the dead children were discovered.
Topping the list-- the victim's own mother, Mary. Incredibly, she'd already lost a baby
under mysterious and strikingly similar circumstances five years earlier. It appeared that it was some type of pneumonia
that the child died from. It was undetermined whether or not the child died of the pneumonia or SIDS.
It was really an undetermined death. If parents have one child die of SIDS, then it's a sad occurrence.
But then, when they start having other children die of SIDS, then you need to look further into that,
because that usually means there's some sort of foul play involved. NARRATOR: And despite initial suspicions in this case,
Mary has a rock-solid alibi. A neighbor recalled hearing two-year-old Renee Alicia cry at the time the mother was leaving the house.
So Renee Alicia was apparently alive the last time Mary was with her. For police what, at first, seemed like a pattern of murder
becomes only a cruel coincidence. Next, police focus their attention on Mary's boyfriend, Rick--
the only adult present when the children died. He also discovered the bodies and called 911.
His alibi, at first, seems unbelievable. And he just said that he didn't know what happened.
He was sitting there watching TV. NARRATOR: Police are not buying his explanation.
But then, they talk to a 12-year-old child, Victoria. She is the daughter of the other family that lives in the house.
She confirms Rick's story. When we'd bring up anybody else's name, she said, I was the one that was in charge of the kids.
It was my responsibility. I was the last with them. NARRATOR: The 12-year-old goes on
to tell police about her somewhat unusual role in the household. DAVID EVANS: Many times, she was the primary caretaker.
If one of the other children had a disciplinary problem, if they did something wrong, then
Victoria was disciplined for not taking care of it. She was in charge of those kids.
And if the other kid's messed up, Victoria got punished because the other kid's messed up.
And it was just a sad situation over all. Everybody described it as a dysfunctional home.
There was a lot of neglect of other children, including Victoria. NARRATOR: With all the adults in the house
providing solid alibis, police turn their attention to 12-year-old Victoria, a girl who many considered to be
a victim of neglect herself. To me, it seemed that their primary focus was always on Victoria.
They just seemed to target her. NARRATOR: But from Dr. G's perspective, it's the how, not the who, that concerns her.
I felt strongly that someone killed the two-year-old, without a doubt. I don't know if it's Victoria.
That's not my job. It's the police job, and the prosecutor's job, to figure out who did it.
NARRATOR: San Antonio police question their chief suspect-- Victoria Dalton-- without her mother or a lawyer present.
I think it was six hours or more. It was quite a long time. She was not allowed to leave the room.
And remember, this is the child that had never been in trouble before, never had any kind of problems
with the law. Victoria had not even been to the principal's office, really, in her school.
So she had never been questioned by authorities, or anybody in a position to intimidate her.
And she was there, by herself. The mom was not in the room. JUAN NERRI: She was confused.
She was distraught. And it was quite traumatic. After six hours of questioning, Victoria admits that she suffocated Renee Alicia.
But she insists it was an accident. She suffocated the two-year-old. She used a pillow.
Pillow was found next to her, when you look at the scene pictures. But once Victoria has legal representation,
she soon recants much of what came out in her six-hour interrogation and claims that she is innocent of the murders.
When the public learns that the police suspect a 12-year-old girl for the murders, many in the community
become incensed. JUAN NERRI: This is one of the very first cases where you had a child of 12 accused of the murder.
And so it really stirred a lot of emotion. There were candlelight vigils. She was getting all kinds of letters of support.
CARY CLACK: She was so young. And people didn't want to believe that someone-- this child-- could have done these two heinous acts.
And so that easily fit into people wanting to believe that she was innocent and wanted to support her.
Public opinion was that they forced that confession out of her. They had the wrong person.
They were sure that she was not the person that killed these children. With tensions high in the household where the children
died, Victoria leaves and moves in with her grandmother, miles from San Antonio.
Meanwhile, police continue their homicide investigation. DAVID EVANS: The thinking at that
time was to let her go home. We'll continue with the investigation. And we will just present this to the district attorney
and let them proceed with the case at that time. But then, investigators get a disturbing phone call
from Victoria's grandmother about her dog. It seems it's dead. The grandmother saw Victoria playing with the dog's throat
and asked Victoria what she was doing. And Victoria replied, well, I'm just looking for some lumps
on this dog's throat. And then, several hours later, she asked Victoria, where's the dog?
And Victoria said, well, I don't know. And so amazingly, they looked in the living room
and found the dog wrapped in blankets. And the dog was deceased. So at that time, the grandmother said,
I don't want Victoria around the house anymore. A little bit too much to go without concern, even
to the grandmother. So the grandmother notified the detectives of this fact, and the detectives notified me.
NARRATOR: Proving that Victoria strangled the dog may be a critical link in establishing
a deadly pattern of behavior. But the grandmother's story won't be enough. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Dr. G has ruled the death of two small children homicides. And police have put a 12-year-old girl,
Victoria Dalton, at the top of their list of suspects. But a challenged confession-- obtained
without the girl's lawyer, or parents, present-- is their only evidence, until police receive a strange call
from Victoria's grandmother claiming that Victoria has just killed her poodle. Now, the fate of a 12-year-old girl charged
with a double murder hangs in the balance as Dr. G attempts to discover what or who killed the family dog.
[MUSIC PLAYING] This is the first time that I'd ever heard of an autopsy being performed on an animal
to see that it had been murdered in any way. I am no poodle expert, so I found two
experts in veterinary medicine. One was a veterinary pathologist, and one was a veterinary radiologist.
And we all performed the autopsy together. NARRATOR: And it won't be easy. Dog anatomy differs greatly from that of humans.
Dr. G's objective-- to determine whether the dog died of natural disease, or of trauma.
Part of the autopsy is to show the negatives-- the fact that there's nothing else wrong.
NARRATOR: Ruling out natural causes will add considerable weight to the authority's contention
that the dog's death is part of an ongoing pattern of violence. We found no evidence of any natural disease.
Dog, internally-- although it was 11 years old-- had nothing wrong with it. Had some hot dogs and aluminum foil in its stomach,
but other than that, nothing wrong with it. NARRATOR: Nothing wrong-- until they
inspect the canine's mouth. Dr. G sees a minor, but possibly telltale, injury. THERESE HUNTZINGER: The extent of the injury on the poodle
would suggest that the suffocation was a cut to the tongue. Those injuries were very similar to Alicia's injuries, which
led Dr. G's opinion and cause of death to be suffocation because of internal injuries
and external on her upper and lower lip. NARRATOR: After the incident with the dog, prosecutors feel
that-- even at 12 years old-- Victoria could pose a danger to those around her. She is arrested on the charge of the double murder.
Many of the citizens of San Antonio remain convinced of her innocence. There was a strong bias for Victoria
without knowing a lot of the facts. Somehow, they've got the wrong person, or my findings were wrong.
And I just can't-- to me, I have to ignore that part. I can only go with the facts that I
have with my investigation of what I've done. Medical examiners-- there's a perception that they are
there to work for the state. They may be paid by the county, but their opinions are not paid and bought for.
NARRATOR: Victoria Dalton's capital murder trial opens in October, 1995. For the prosecution, the task is daunting--
how to convince a jury that a 12-year-old child is a murderer, without any eyewitnesses,
and no clear motive? THERESE HUNTZINGER: Why would a 12-year-old girl kill Alicia--
and then to go back and, literally, hold her hand on the back of the head of the infant,
and hold him down into the couch sufficiently long enough to suffocate his little body and to leave
him laying there, still? NARRATOR: But the one thing that the prosecution does have is the testimony of Dr. G. It
will be the most crucial part of the state's case against Victoria. When you're talking about shooting cases, infant deaths,
the kinds of case-- is it an accident? Is this accidental? Is this intentional? What are the other circumstances?
It's not always just about that cause of death. It's all the surrounding circumstances.
It's the forensics of it that are intriguing. And they're called upon to offer their opinion
and their investigation. Her testimony was vital. It was an integral part of the case.
NARRATOR: On the stand, Dr. G explains the complexities of her conclusions and why, in her opinion,
both children were suffocated. JAN GARAVAGLIA: We have clear evidence that this one was
a homicide-- the two-year-old-- with the marks on the inside of the lips. But I didn't have any marks on this baby.
There's no reason for the baby to be dead. I can't call it a SIDS, because I have the two-year-old dead
at the same time. And so these two are both homicides, and because it is so easy to suffocate that baby
without leaving a mark. And I clearly have one of them already suffocated. It's kind of hard to get that over to the jury.
This is a case where we needed, desperately, to have a jury understand the medical examiner's
testimony's critical. NARRATOR: The courtroom listens to Dr. G with rapt attention,
especially Victoria. She was the most intense defendant at the trial I have ever witnessed.
She hung on to every word I said. She was just looking at me and was fascinated by what I was saying.
NARRATOR: After three weeks of grueling testimony, the case goes to the jury. They are left to consider the prosecution's chilling account
and decide whether Dr. G's testimony proves that Victoria suffocated the children or not.
It takes the jury only five hours. Victoria is found guilty of capital murder. They went ahead and convicted her.
She was found guilty. I think the most remarkable part of this case is that a jury was able to, after weeks of testimony,
decide on her guilt-- that she had committed a capital murder-- within hours. NARRATOR: Although the jury finds Victoria
guilty of a capital crime, they give her a compassionate sentence-- 14 years out of the maximum of 40.
Victoria is sent to the care of the Texas Youth Commission. And there, she served her sentence
until 2002, when she was released into a transitional home. During her incarceration, Victoria
admitted that she had killed both Timothy and Renee Alicia, and expressed deep remorse.
She is now on her own, trying to put her childhood behind her. JUAN NERRI: She is the type of person-- she is going
to make the best out of it. And I think she has. NARRATOR: If Dr. G hadn't uncovered the subtle sign
of suffocation indicated by the impression of Renee Alicia's teeth and made the connection between that death
and the murder of her grandmother's dog, the murders might have gone unpunished.
It took an objective eye for Dr. G to get to the truth, no matter how inconceivable.
Had Dr. Garavaglia not ruled homicide, we wouldn't have had a case. Dr. G-- she's just an extremely
valuable resource to have. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Every death that passes through the Orange
County Medical Examiner's Office has a story to tell about the life that was lived--
a life shortened by illness, a life lived long and well, a life whose death might have been prevented.
For Dr. G, it's those deaths that could have been prevented that are, in some ways,
the most tragic-- such as the case of Veronica Murphy. 25-year-old Veronica Murphy has fallen on hard times.
She's just ended a reportedly abusive relationship, has been evicted from her apartment,
and is desperately looking for a new start. She turns to a local Orlando homeless
shelter for assistance. She arrives at the shelter with her two small children--
one six years old, and a four-month-old infant. She tells the staff that she's expecting
another baby in seven months. She also informs them that she is suffering from ovarian cancer.
WOMAN 1: One day, she just sit down and talk to me. She said, been to the doctor.
They say the cancer has spreaded, and there's nothing that they can do about it.
NARRATOR: In spite of these liabilities, the staff quickly learns that Veronica is a formidable woman,
determined to put her troubles behind her and make life better for herself and for her children.
WOMAN 2: The resident was very aggressive in establishing her self-sufficiency. She identified her own goals and objectives.
And she was very focused on fulfilling those goals. It was, make a fresh start, you know?
Because from my understanding, that was her whole point of moving to Orlando-- to get on her feet.
NARRATOR: But just six days after she arrives at the shelter, Veronica's world comes crashing down.
The early part of Saturday morning, her son came out of the room. And he was tearful, and saying that mommy was ill.
By the time the paramedics determined she did need to be transported to the local hospital,
she was very insistent that her children be taken care of. And she was reassuring to her children
that mommy would be OK, and mommy would be right back. NARRATOR: She couldn't have been more wrong.
Before even arriving at the ER, Veronica is dead. When she passed, the first thing
came to my mind was the cancer. NARRATOR: Unfortunately, no one knows for sure what killed Veronica Murphy.
Her body is transferred to the Orange County Morgue for answers. [MUSIC PLAYING]
At the Orange County Morgue, about 1 out of 15 bodies autopsied is classified as homeless.
Homeless cases present special difficulties for a medical examiner. Because most homeless victims lack medical records,
the search for the cause of death can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
But the case of Veronica Murphy is an exception. Though homeless, she does have medical records
available for Dr. G to review. Well, this morning, we have a 25-year-old black woman who is short of breath,
complaining of some back pain. And she's living at the Coalition for the homeless.
She doesn't smoke, drink, or use drugs. She's not employed. Father's en route, here.
He lives out in California. NARRATOR: The records, however, are not complete and leave many questions about Veronica's health unanswered.
25-year-old Veronica Murphy dies while seeking shelter at a homeless facility with her two small children.
Now, Dr. G must figure out what killed her. Was it the ovarian cancer she mentioned
to the shelter staff, or something yet to be uncovered? Because Veronica Murphy reported that she was fleeing
domestic violence when she arrived at the shelter, Dr. G will pay close attention to any signs of trauma
from such abuse that may have led to her death. Yes, 1, 2, 3-- OK. Pierce, double-pierced on this side--
ooh, keloid. NARRATOR: But apart from pierced ears and a scar, there is no external sign of any abuse.
But Dr. G does take note of Veronica's weight. JAN GARAVAGLIA: She is morbidly obese.
She weighs about 340 pounds-- a very big woman. NARRATOR: A person is characterized as morbidly obese
if they weigh more than double their ideal body weight, or if the person is more than 100 pounds overweight.
Morbid obesity commonly leads to a catalog of dangerous medical problems, from strokes, to high blood
pressure, to fatal heart attacks, and accounts for more than 300,000 premature deaths every year.
But whether or not Veronica's weight had anything to do with her death remains unclear.
Preliminary reasons-- there's a lot of different things we have to worry about. She's high blood pressure.
She's just had a baby. Plus, she's pregnant again. Postpartum cardiomyopathy-- possibility, I guess.
Hypertension, maybe there's a bleed in her head. There's always a possibility of pulmonary embolist-- blood
clot. NARRATOR: With so many possibilities, determining how Veronica died will become
a process of elimination for Dr. G, beginning with the internal exam. Using a Y incision to cut through the chest and abdominal
cavity, Dr. G opens the body. Once the internal organs are exposed, she pursues the obvious, first--
did Veronica die of the ovarian cancer she reported to the shelter staff? Ovarian cancer is considered curable, but very difficult
to detect in its early stages. For a woman like Veronica-- homeless and lacking consistent medical care--
the cancer could have easily progressed to a deadly stage without any obvious signs.
But when Dr. G examines Veronica's ovaries, she is surprised to find no signs of cancer.
That ovary didn't look that bad. She has a little cyst-- kind of a thick-walled cyst--
in her other ovary, but I wouldn't say that was cancer. NARRATOR: It appears that Veronica's belief that she
had cancer was unfounded. She thought that she had ovarian cancer, yes. And we didn't see any evidence of that.
NARRATOR: With ovarian cancer discounted as the cause of Veronica's death, Dr. G turns next to confirm whether or not Veronica
was pregnant when she died. According to Veronica's medical records, she was 11 weeks pregnant at the time of her death.
To confirm this, Dr. G must carefully examine Veronica's womb. It is a delicate process.
JAN GARAVAGLIA: The trick is to opening it up without breaking the amniotic sac.
So what we're going to do is open up through the birth canal, take a little peek.
NARRATOR: Much like the external examination, Dr. G must inspect the fetus in the amniotic sac
first to make sure nothing is amiss before she moves on to autopsy the fetus itself.
JAN GARAVAGLIA: We opened up, trying to maintain the integrity of the amniotic sac.
And the amniotic sac was maintained. And we could see the fetus inside the amniotic sac
looked normally developed. It was about two inches long. And from that, we can get a general estimate
of the gestational age. And it matched what apparently she felt that her last period was when she'd gone
to the hospital weeks earlier. It was about 11 or 12 weeks, gestational age. Dr. G's examination of the fetus
proves that Veronica became pregnant only one month after she gave birth to her youngest child--
a four-month-old infant. For Dr. G, this raises a red flag. When a woman is pregnant, her total blood volume
may increase by as much as 45%, causing blood vessels to enlarge and engorge. Along with this increase in blood volume
comes an increase in the danger of clotting as the body prepares for the loss of blood during labor.
Pregnancy is known to increase your estrogen level. And pregnancy makes you more prone to blood clotting,
because of the increased estrogen. Of course, birth control pills-- some of the birth control pills work the same way.
NARRATOR: And Veronica suffers from another major risk factor for blood clots-- morbid obesity.
OK. NARRATOR: But a killer clot can form anywhere in the body, causing a stroke in the brain, cardiac arrest in the heart,
ischemic colitis in the colon. And many times, a person doesn't even know they are
in danger until it's too late. JAN GARAVAGLIA: We've seen it in people who have any type of broken bone.
We've seen it in people with long transcontinental airplane flights, people who spend eight hours on the airplane
in those lovely, little cramped seats, and then come off the plane. They're checking into their hotel, and bam, they go down.
NARRATOR: But until Dr. G can prove for sure what precisely killed Veronica Murphy,
her death remains an unsolved case. [MUSIC PLAYING] 25-year-old Veronica Murphy is stricken
without warning at a homeless shelter and dies en route to the hospital. ER doctors are at a loss as to what killed the young mother.
And so far, Dr. G isn't sure, either. But she does have her suspicions. Veronica suffered from two known risk factors for developing
fatal blood clots-- her morbid obesity, and her rapid succession of pregnancies.
For Dr. G, the hunt is on. [MUSIC PLAYING] She begins by inspecting Veronica's respiratory system,
her heart, and lungs. But the moment that Dr. G sees Veronica's heart, she wonders whether Veronica died of something other
than a blood clot. This is a huge heart. NARRATOR: Veronica's heart is more than double the size
it should be. This is abnormal. 750 grams-- her heart should be around 350 grams.
She had a massively enlarged heart. NARRATOR: An enlarged heart is often attributed to high blood pressure, known
medically as hypertension. With high blood pressure, the heart must work harder to push the blood through
constricted arteries and veins. And this never-ending workout causes the heart to grow,
like any muscle in the body. Only with the heart, unlike other muscles, bigger isn't necessarily better.
An enlarged heart can place undue strain on the muscle and result in sudden cardiac death.
25 years old-- we don't really see a 750 gram heart in that age group. NARRATOR: And size isn't the only problem
with Veronica's heart. Oh. NARRATOR: Dr. G can see that the overworked muscle has obvious signs of trauma.
Yes, look at that. She's got fibrosis in her heart. Look at that. Isn't that horrible?
NARRATOR: For Dr. G, the finding of scar tissue in Veronica's already weakened heart means that it was an organ
struggling under great duress. The question is, did her heart kill her? JAN GARAVAGLIA: I thought, that's what she died from,
when I saw that heart. NARRATOR: With such an unhealthy heart, it is possible that Veronica Murphy could have suffered
from a fatal heart attack. But regardless of the state of her heart, Dr. G's next finding is the key to the case.
She's got one of the causes of death where it's really quite obvious at autopsy.
And even though she has the biggest heart I've seen probably this past few months--
maybe this year-- she died from pulmonary embolis. NARRATOR: As Dr. G suspected, Veronica Murphy
died from the effects of blood clots, specifically pulmonary embolism in the vessel
leading to her lungs. This is a blood clot. This is a blood clot. This is a blood clot.
NARRATOR: Now that Dr. G has discovered the fatal blood clots, she is able to piece together
the final chain of events in the death of Veronica Murphy. According to the medical evidence, when Veronica Murphy
checks into the homeless shelter, she's suffering from a deadly combination of risk factors
for developing blood clots-- she's morbidly obese, is 11 weeks pregnant, and just gave birth to a child four months ago.
At some point during the next few days, the blood flowing through the deep veins of Veronica's leg
begins to pool and clot. When you're obese, you don't have the muscle that's actually helping contract
to bring the blood back. So there's more stasis, or pooling of the blood, when you're obese.
NARRATOR: This syndrome, called deep vein thrombosis, may well have been occurring without any real discomfort.
JAN GARAVAGLIA: I don't think she had really any symptoms that would have drawn her to seek medical attention prior
to this event. We didn't hear anything about pains in her legs. We didn't hear anything about having
intermittent shortness of breath, or any type of chest pain. We didn't hear anything about that.
So this was pretty quick for her. NARRATOR: On Veronica's sixth night in the shelter,
the clock runs out. Several enormous clots break free in the deep veins of her legs.
Her huge heart swiftly pumps them up, into her heart, and straight into the pulmonary arteries where they begin
to block the flow of blood. As they're leaving the heart to get to the lungs, they're getting smaller and smaller and smaller.
So they just get caught up. NARRATOR: Veronica begins to suffer hypoxia-- lack of oxygen.
JAN GARAVAGLIA: Her pulmonary artery is occluded with these blood clots. They couldn't get even through.
And so going into both lungs, both lungs are completely occluded. So neither lung is getting any blood, so that's
incompatible with life. She died of a bilateral pulmonary thromboembolism. So the bilateral-- it's on both sides,
because it's including both lungs. Pulmonary-- it's in the lungs. Thrombembolis is, the thrombos is the blood clot.
An embolis is anything that goes free in your blood system and then lodges somewhere.
And so that is a cause of death that we know, definitively, why she died. NARRATOR: As she does with many cases,
Dr. G calls Veronica Murphy's family to help them understand and to come to grips with their sudden loss.
She had blood clots in her leg that broke free and went to her lungs. The reasons for why a young woman would
get blood clots like that-- one of them is-- the risk factor is being overweight and obese
like she was. The other problem is she's pregnant. NARRATOR: In the eyes of Dr. G, Veronica Murphy
was a person whose premature death was, sadly, predictable and preventable. It's sad that somebody passes on at a young age.
But it's also sad to me that somebody at 25 can weigh 340 pounds. I mean, I don't know what was in her life
that would make her like that. I don't know what brought her to the Coalition for the homeless.
Obviously, there's something going on with her that's sad that I don't know about.
NARRATOR: It's a story Dr. G reads all too often in the bodies that pass through the Orange County
Morgue. [MUSIC PLAYING] MAN: Atlas.

An infant and his two-year-old sister are found dead in a house shared by two families. At first, they are believed to have died from either carbon monoxide poisoning or cold medicine overdoses.

A Florida medical examiner takes viewers through puzzling cases while explaining procedures and conclusions.

Brief Summary

Dr. G investigates the suffocation deaths of two children and the sudden death of a pregnant woman due to blood clots.

Key points

Tragic Discoveries. Two young children are found dead in their home, leading to a shocking investigation.
A Disturbing Pattern. Dr. G uncovers evidence suggesting a pattern of suffocation in the deaths of the children.
The Trial of a Lifetime. Victoria Dalton, a 12-year-old, faces trial for the murders of her siblings amidst public outcry.
Victoria's Conviction. After three weeks of testimony, the jury finds Victoria guilty of capital murder in just five hours.
Veronica's Sudden Death. Veronica Murphy, a young mother, dies unexpectedly at a homeless shelter, leaving many questions.
Cause of Death Revealed. Dr. G discovers that Veronica died from fatal blood clots, a preventable condition.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Something in this house is killing children.

NARRATOR: A chilling revelation about the house where the children were found dead.

3:29WatchMay 18, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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