Dr. G: Medical Examiner - Season 2, Episode 10 - Needle in the Haystack - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: A bizarre and brutal crime. The woman's legs were actually completely burnt off.
They had these huge holes, and their bowels were hanging out. NARRATOR: Can Dr. G complete an autopsy in time
to catch a killer [GUNSHOTS] and bring solace to a tormented family waiting for answers?
I told him, I love you. And he said, I love you, too. And that's the last time I ever spoke with him.
NARRATOR: And then, a man is found dead on a crowded Orlando bus, but no one sees him dying.
He's in full rigor, posterior lividity. NARRATOR: The first question, was it murder or something else?
The fact that he's found in a public place always raises your suspicions. [MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: Altered lives, baffling medical mysteries, shocking revelations. These are the everyday cases of "Dr. G, Medical Examiner."
[MUSIC PLAYING] While working in Texas during the summer of 2000, Dr. G was called on to help unravel one of the strangest
and most disturbing cases of her career. In a span of 24 hours, she'd not only need to solve a heinous crime, but also
help bring closure to a victim's shocked and tormented family. [MUSIC PLAYING] Shawn Cain was born to a poor family in rural Texas,
but he never seemed to let that get in his way. In school, he excelled at football, making All-American
by his senior year. By 30, Shawn was holding down two jobs and was supporting an ailing father
and his five-year-old son, for whom he shared custody. For those who knew him best, Shawn's character
was defined by his work ethic and his generosity. You know, sometimes somebody'll come in the store
and, you know, they would, you know, I don't have anything to eat. He would buy them something.
I need a newspaper. Hey, here, you know? Everybody he ever saw he helped, you know?
He just, he-- everyone. You know, I never saw him coming across anyone in need or anyone
that needed help that he turned-- would turn them away. Never. NARRATOR: But on a seemingly ordinary September day,
Shawn would be the one in need of help. [MUSIC PLAYING] He tells his family that he's going
to watch a ballgame at a friend's house, that he'll be back late. It is the last time his family will see him alive.
That night, Shawn doesn't return home. Instead, he ends up somewhere no one could have ever imagined.
[FIRE CRACKLING] At 11:00 PM, on a rural highway over 60 miles away from Shawn's home, a rancher spots what
appears to be a brush fire. But upon closer inspection, he makes a horrific discovery.
And he looks closer, and he notices there's two legs hanging out. NARRATOR: What at first appeared to be a typical range fire is
a pile of burning human bodies. He immediately backed off and called the Sheriff's office.
NARRATOR: By the next morning, the fire is out. Police working with Dr. G's field investigator
recover the remains of three bodies. Faced with what appears to be a triple homicide,
local police reach out for help to the state's premier investigative agency, the Texas Rangers, who handle
nearly 200 murders every year. One of the primary responsibilities of the Texas Rangers is to assist other police agencies.
On September 18, 2000, the Frio County Sheriff's Department contacted the Texas Ranger office requesting assistance
on a triple homicide. Apparently, witnesses had found three bodies. They were discarded on the side of a county road
and were set ablaze. They were requesting our assistance on this investigation. NARRATOR: Nearly 12 hours after their discoveries,
authorities still have no idea who the bodies are. And though they strongly suspect murder,
no one can say for sure how they died. The only one who can answer these questions
is a medical examiner. I knew that I was going to be having three burnt bodies coming in the morgue because I'd heard about it
on the news the night before. And so when I get there, we have our three burnt bodies, all of which are burned beyond recognition.
It smells like burnt barbecue, like you've, like, cooked something too long. NARRATOR: With the bodies comes a team
of Texas Rangers, who quickly state their primary objective-- identify the killers before they have
time to dispose of any more incriminating evidence. For Dr. G, the clock is ticking.
[TICKING] To do this, they assign one team led by Ranger Marrie Garcia to observe the autopsy with Dr. G,
while another team tracks down leads in the field. So everything we're finding, every little bit of thing
that we know that's going on, we're telling Marrie and Marrie's relaying it to Gary De Los Santos.
The main thing that you look-- that you're looking for, of course, you'd like to solve the crime just as--
absolutely as soon as possible. NARRATOR: Meanwhile, by 10:00 AM, the Cain family is beginning to ask questions
about Shawn's whereabouts. He told my sister [INAUDIBLE],, OK, well, I'm going to go over to her friend's house-- and it was--
it was early afternoon-- and I'll be back in a few hours, and never came back. And he was missing for, you know,
the first day he was gone, we never-- we didn't think anything of it. We were like, you know, he's 32 years old,
and it-- and it wasn't uncommon for him to go over to a friend's house and stay the night.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: At the morgue, Dr. G's staff is multitasking. Along with the bodies, the Rangers
have hauled in over 250 pounds of charred debris that must be scrutinized piece by piece.
At the same time, Dr. G must perform three complex autopsies in order to discover the victims'
identities and any clues leading to their killers. But first, she must try to answer the core question
of any autopsy-- what is the cause of death? In this case, the question itself is horrifying.
First of all, you have to determine, are they alive when the fire occurred? NARRATOR: Dr. G orders X-rays, the first of many steps needed
to determine whether the victims died an agonizing death engulfed in flames. [BEEP]
Any charred bodies that's charred beyond recognition, whether you think it's from foul play or accident,
you're going to do a complete X-ray of the body. NARRATOR: The X-rays immediately reveal
several critical pieces of evidence inside each of the three bodies-- bullets. We found both medium caliber projectiles, which
appeared to be 9 millimeters, and we found birdshot from a shotgun. NARRATOR: But this discovery alone
does not prove that gunfire killed the victims. Dr. G must also determine if the wounds they caused were fatal.
To do so, she will need to perform internal autopsies. They're burnt to the point of being black and charred.
Just finding wounds on a body that's charred down to sometimes internal organs are difficult.
NARRATOR: Difficult, but not impossible to Dr. G's trained eye. She begins with the male victim whose body was stacked
in the center of the pile. Although heavily charred, Dr. G detects a defect, or hole
in the remaining muscle tissue on the man's back left shoulder. There is a huge gunshot wound.
NARRATOR: She immediately recognizes the abrasion as a shotgun wound. On his posterior shoulder on the left side,
but it didn't go into his chest cavity. That, in and of itself, probably wasn't going
to be a fatal wound to him. NARRATOR: But what she finds next is a fatal wound. DR. G: Yeah, it looks like we have another bullet wound here.
NARRATOR: Two bullet wounds in the man's abdomen. DR. G: When I opened up the abdominal cavity,
I could actually see the holes on the inside portion of the abdominal cavity, and I knew
that those were gunshot wounds. His two fatal wounds were the two gunshot wounds to the abdomen.
Trisha, do you have a fresh one? NARRATOR: She moves quickly to the female body.
DR. G: With the woman, I found the gunshot wound to the back of the head. Went through her brain and then exited on her neck
on the opposite side, and so that definitely was a lethal wound. So she also had a shotgun wound basically
on her left side near her breast, and this shotgun wound was really quite devastating.
It was a lethal wound. NARRATOR: Dr. G now turns to the final body, that of the second male found at the bottom of the burning pile.
So obviously, he's got a lot of trauma-- NARRATOR: On him, she finds two shotgun wounds.
He's got a large shotgun wound to his-- to his-- to the front of his neck and then
a shotgun wound on the side of his neck here. DR. G: It caused massive destruction of his neck,
I mean, basically just his spinal cords transected. He's got like a two-inch defect all the way
going across his neck. It's certainly a lethal wound. I'm suspecting, since we have a bullet in him,
that one of these is going to be the-- is an exit. NARRATOR: What's more, Dr. G finds that none of the victims
have soot in their throat or lungs, indicating they weren't breathing at the time of the fire.
Because his skin is all burnt, I can't really tell if that's an entrance or an exit.
NARRATOR: Based on her analysis of the gunshot wounds and the lack of soot in the lungs,
Dr. G can now prove that all three victims were fatally shot before they were set on fire.
Five hours into her investigation, she makes the official declaration. All three deaths are homicides.
[MUSIC PLAYING] As the official ruling is radioed to the Rangers in the field, Dr. G must answer a far more difficult question
about the three victims-- who are they? One of the first concerns is being able to identify the body.
Without identifying the body, you ain't going anywhere. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Coming up next, Dr. G's
team uncovers clues that may lead the way in a Texas manhunt. And the family of Shawn Cain begins to worry.
I had kind of a bad feeling. I thought, oh, you know, maybe has has a car accident,
maybe he's in one of the hospitals. You never want to think your brother's dead.
NARRATOR: When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues. [MUSIC PLAYING] It's been 12 hours since three bodies
were found engulfed in flames on a remote Texas field. Dr. G, now well into the autopsies,
knows that all were shot to death before being set on fire. But neither she nor the Texas Rangers
have any idea who perpetrated the horrendous act, and the three victims are still unidentified.
With the odds of finding incriminating evidence diminishing by the hour, Dr. G is
still in a race against time. [MUSIC PLAYING] It's noon, the day after Shawn Cain drove off to his friend's
house to watch the ballgame. None of his family members have heard from him since.
A call is made to the friend Shawn was watching the game with. The friend tells the family that Shawn
left last night around 7:00 PM. That's when my-- my dad was like, hey, you know what, do something.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: At the same time, Dr. G begins her efforts to identify the female found in the burning pile,
but it's not her body, but rather the victim's clothing that yields the investigation's
first critical clue. Oh, this is interesting. DR. G: Part of her bra was still intact, and under the bra
was a ID card. Looked like a driver's license. Had a person's name and a picture.
Now, of course, I can't compare the picture. She's black and charred. I can't see.
But we certainly had the name. So we thought, well, you know, we hit gold here. [INAUDIBLE],, can you go ahead and put
this in an evidence envelope? NARRATOR: The information is instantly radioed to the investigators in the field, who
rushed to the address listed on the ID. To their surprise, they find the woman whose name is on the ID
alive and well. But the lead is far from a dead end. The woman tells the Rangers that she
had recently lent the ID to a friend, Marta Esposito, age 22. Still, the statement from Marta's friend
is not enough for the investigative team. Next, the morgue staff locates the dentist of Marta Esposito,
and comparing past dental records with those taken at the morgue, Dr. G makes a positive ID.
[MUSIC PLAYING] With the identity of the first victim in hand, Rangers continue searching for anyone
who knew Marta to help shed light on her whereabouts the night before. [MUSIC PLAYING]
One body identified, two to go. [MUSIC PLAYING] Back at the morgue, Dr. G turns her attention
to the second body, the male found at the bottom of the burning pile. The man on the bottom, he would have been covered
the most, so he would have had the least amount of oxygen and burning around him.
He still had a lot of normal Caucasian skin, particularly on his back, particularly
on portions of his arms and legs, and there were numerous tattoos. NARRATOR: Surprisingly, the Texas
Rangers recognized the tattoos. They are the insignias of the deadly narcotics gang
known as the Mexican Mafia. [MUSIC PLAYING] The Texas Rangers have seen their share of gang violence.
Drug feuds between the Mexican Mafia and the prison-based gang known as Hermano de Pistoleros Latinos, or HPL, had
been raging for over a decade. [SIREN BLARING] And along with the gang-related insignias,
the tattoos spared by the raging fire spelled out a name-- Tomas Morales. The discovery is immediately radioed
to Rangers in the field. We know for a fact that a lot of the gang members like to tattoo their names on their bodies, sometimes
their girlfriends' or wives'. NARRATOR: Tomas Morales is a name that Texas Rangers know well.
He is a known member of the Mexican Mafia. [MUSIC PLAYING] By 4:00 PM, Rangers are blanketing
their network of gang informants asking about Morales. Their relentless field work soon pays off.
Several people tell them that Marta Esposito was Tomas's girlfriend and that both have been missing
since the previous night. Two bodies identified, one to go. [MUSIC PLAYING] But before Dr. G attempts to ID the final body,
her assistants alert her to evidence that has just been found in the pile of debris they have been sifting through.
DR G: A couple of these pieces of carpet were burnt together, and I distinctly remember the fellow, who we're training
to be a forensic pathologist, she's asking me if we do need to go through every piece.
And I said, yes, every piece needs to be opened and separated. And so we-- I can remember her struggling
with these two pieces of carpet that just kind of melded together. And she opened it, and here was this yellow piece
of paper partially burnt. [CAMERA SHUTTERS] NARRATOR: Close examination reveals that it is a Western Union credit application.
And she looked at it and said, is-- is this important to you? And I looked at it, and it had a name and an address on it.
And I thought, you know, what are the odds? Surely this couldn't be what I think it might be.
I immediately got Ranger De Los Santos on the phone and asked him if this name and this address
was of interest to him. There was just silence for a moment, and he said, where did you get that?
NARRATOR: The address on the Western Union slip is the house of Paco Lopez, a known
underboss of the HPL gang, the bloody rivals of the Mexican Mafia. The Texas Rangers were excited because they realized,
well, maybe this informant is telling the truth, and B, now we have a piece of evidence
that we can go and get a search warrant and go into that house. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Warrant in hand, the Rangers
arrive at Lopez's house. [MUSIC PLAYING] [KNOCKING] Texas Rangers! Nobody move! Texas Rangers!
NARRATOR: As they burst in, three men make a run for it. We got a runner. He's out the front.
NARRATOR: Part of the search team gives chase, while others stay behind and begin
to search the house, which immediately offers up damning clues. [MUSIC PLAYING] Lopez and the others in the house
are now the Rangers' lead suspects. [MUSIC PLAYING] By the end of the first day, two of the burned bodies
have been identified, the scene of the shooting has been located, and the Rangers
have Paco Lopez, their chief suspect, on the run. However, there remains one final question Dr. G must answer--
who is the third victim still lying in her morgue? [MUSIC PLAYING] Coming up next, a surgical procedure performed three years
earlier connects the dots between a horrible crime and a sister's desperate search for her missing brother.
We started asking more questions, and it just-- that's when everything just kind of hit and sunk in.
NARRATOR: And later, a man dies on the city bus without any witnesses to his death.
We really don't know anything about him. He's just, I mean, it was just kind of sad.
NARRATOR: With no known medical history, can Dr. G figure out what or who was this man's silent killer?
When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] In the last 24 hours, Dr. G has performed three
complex autopsies, producing a string of valuable evidence that has led Texas Rangers directly to drug dealers
responsible for the shooting and burning of a woman and two men. But the third victim still lies in Dr. G's morgue unidentified.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Across town, Pam Cain, the sister of missing 32-year-old Shawn, reaches out
to a friend for help. My friend had a lot of people-- friends in the Sheriff's department.
And so I said, hey, you know, can you do me a favor? You know, maybe-- maybe he got picked out for whatever.
You know, hey, just check it out. And they-- so they checked all the jails. Wasn't there.
Checked-- I'd started calling hospitals. No luck. NARRATOR: While the Cain family's
search turns up no leads, Dr. G examines the final victim. Unlike the other bodies, this one
has no outward evidence to identify him, no ID, and no tattoos. However, when Dr. G reviews all her findings on the man,
she discovers one vital clue inside the body. One fellow had had some major surgery
with orthopedic devices, metal rods going up the spine, probably for a curvature of spine that was corrected.
So we knew that-- that is not an everyday operation. NARRATOR: The rods are known in medical circles
as Harrington rods, a name borrowed from their inventor, and every rod has a serial number.
Each of these rods are unique. All the orthopedic devices have unique numbers on them
that we can track then to a lot, what hospital they were sent to, and we can track them to the specific person that gets this.
NARRATOR: With the cooperation of the hospital, Dr. G secures the records, and with them comes a man's name--
Shawn Cain. The Texas Rangers are sent to break the news to the Cain family. Sister Pam, away at the time, has the terrible news
delivered by her siblings. My other brother said, hey, you know what, we have to tell you something.
And, you know, my sister and I were like, what, you know? Well, the Texas Rangers have been here,
and they found Shawn. And, you know, we were like, well, where was he? Is he, you know, at somebody's house?
He said, no, he's in the morgue. NARRATOR: To double check Shawn's identity, his family is asked whether Shawn
had undergone any back surgery. They confirmed he had. Shawn had broken his back a few years prior here.
He-- he had lived in Dallas for-- for a time, and he broke his back. And he had two rods, I believe they're Harrington rods,
in his back. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: The devastating news is only made worse by the strange and horrific circumstances.
You know, the first thought that I had in my head when I found out all the details,
you know, that they had burned the bodies, was, please, God, let him have passed on before this happened,
you know, so he didn't feel anything. NARRATOR: Rangers quickly tell the family that Dr G's autopsies revealed that her brother
had died before the fire. It is a comforting answer to a grim prayer. But when Pam hears the circumstances of the death,
an even more perplexing question is raised. I think my first thought was, what were you doing in that house?
NARRATOR: Could Shawn Cain, hardworking father, supportive son, giving friend, have been involved with the Mexican
Mafia or their rival gang? Was he leading a double life? It is a question that will soon be answered with the help
of Dr. G and the Texas Rangers. [MUSIC PLAYING] First, they discover that Marta, the female murder
victim, and Shawn were, in fact, loosely related through marriage. But a remote family tie explains precious little
about that grim night. [MUSIC PLAYING] However, since the arrest of Paco Lopez and his accomplices,
Texas Rangers have secured a key informant, the brother of Paco Lopez. Forced to help dispose of the bodies,
Paco's brother came forward, afraid for his own life because of what he knows. To put his brother Paco away where he can't hurt him,
he tells the Rangers everything he knows about the murders, including Shawn's involvement in the incident.
After a dramatic 48-hour tandem investigation, in the morgue and in the field, Dr. G and the Rangers
can now explain how all three bodies ended up burning by a remote Texas roadside.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Shawn leaves his friend's place after watching a game around 7:00 PM and is probably heading home.
Sometime on the way, he picks up Marta Esposito, whom he knew through a family connection.
She is accompanied by her boyfriend, a drug dealer from the Mexican Mafia gang named Tomas Morales.
Exactly where they met that night will never be known. What is known, according to the Rangers' informant,
is that at approximately 8:00 PM, Shawn's car, with Marta, Tomas, and Shawn inside,
pulls up to the home of Lopez, a member of the rival HPL gang. Tomas is not making a social call.
Talking to the informant and other folks, it was determined that he had arrived at the suspect's house
collecting on an old drug debt that one of the subjects owed him. NARRATOR: But Lopez, expecting Tomas,
has no intention of paying and sets an ambush. The only hitch-- Tomas isn't alone.
Unbeknownst to the people inside the house, he also had two other people with him.
We believe that they knew they could not get rid of one person and leave the other two to walk away and notify the police,
so they were coaxed coming into the house. NARRATOR: One of the gang members comes out to the car
and invites Marta and Shawn into the house. [MUSIC PLAYING] Once inside, Lopez and company unleash their deadly plan.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Their primary target, Tomas Morales, is the first to be dispatched.
According to the informant and Dr. G's findings, Lopez empties both barrels of a 12 gauge shotgun
from a distance of three to four feet. So the one is going straight across the neck,
and the other is going in a more downward direction towards the axilla. So he definitely-- both of those would have been fatal.
He died from the two shotgun wounds. NARRATOR: Marta Esposito is next. Get up! [GUNSHOT]
NARRATOR: From Doctor G's findings, it seems she was futilely attempting to shield herself.
Her arm was kind of up and partially in the way. The shotgun wound went through her liver,
caused a lot of internal damage. The shotgun was around 4 and 1/2, 5 feet away. [GUNSHOT]
NARRATOR: Shawn Cain, the man in the wrong place at the wrong time, is the last to die.
[GUNSHOT] Field and morgue findings suggest that in the chaos of the other shootings,
[GUNSHOT] Shawn attempts to escape through a front window. But as he does, Lopez wields his shotgun toward Shawn and fires.
[GUNSHOT] And the shotgun wound in his shoulder was a non-fatal wound. It was of similar distance, about four feet away,
scalloped edges, only had one or two stray pellets. [GUNSHOT] NARRATOR: But the blast spins Shawn
around to face his assailant. Then one of Lopez's accomplices fires two shots from a 9 millimeter pistol.
[GUNSHOTS] The bullets lacerate his abdomen, wounds that end Shawn Cain's life. Lopez and his accomplices then scramble
to rid the apartment of massive amounts of damning evidence. After they killed all three, they
decided to call other people to help them dispose of the bodies. NARRATOR: One of which is Paco Lopez's
brother, who would soon turn into the Rangers' key informant. GERARDO DE LOS SANTOS (VOICEOVER):
They, in turn, wrapped up the bodies in carpet and drove them out to the countryside
and set them on fire. [TIRES SQUEALING] NARRATOR: The grim tale gives Pam and her family one note
of solace-- Shawn was not involved in a gang or drug dealing. He was simply giving a friend a ride.
The third victim on this case was an Anglo male, Shawn. We do not believe he was associated with any gang.
He just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: All three killers were in custody within a week.
Due to the cold-blooded and premeditated nature of the murders, the prosecution sought
the death penalty for Lopez. Doctor G's testimony about how the killings were carried out
and how the victims died weighed heavily on the jury. You know, when I first got into forensic pathology,
I think I had a fear that I would be testifying against really bad people and they would be just a few feet
away, and things that I would say would put them in jail or give them the death penalty, and that
did scare me a little bit. And then once I've done it many, many times, I realize that I'm
just reporting what happened. NARRATOR: Paco Lopez and one accomplice were sentenced to life in prison.
A third accomplice received the death penalty. For the Texas Rangers, it is an ending
that couldn't have been reached without the efforts of Dr. G. I mean, she puts her soul and heart into what she does.
NARRATOR: As for Pam Cain, the senselessness of Shawn's death will always be overshadowed by the way he lived.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Her lasting memory of Shawn is not his horrific death. It is, instead, a small incident that occurred the last time
she saw him alive. She had run out of gas, and her brother came to help. And I gave him a hug, and I said,
thank you for coming for me. And he said, hey, I'd-- I'd walk through fire for you.
You know that. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.
We have a 55-year-old man who is found dead on a city bus. NARRATOR: What killed this man on an Orlando bus?
And why didn't anyone notice that he was dying? We knew nothing about him. I had no cause of death whatsoever.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: More than 14 million people in the US rely upon it every day--
public transportation. And for more than 20 years, Larry Haggarty has been a rider.
55 and never married, Larry is a Vietnam veteran who spent most of his life in Orlando.
According to those who know him best, he's gregarious, enjoys time spent with friends,
and loves his job in the wardrobe department of a local theme park, where he has
worked for almost two decades. Larry was just the kind of guy that you just knew that you liked, his-- his character,
his ideals, his laughter. He was so funny. Just-- just made you feel good to be around him.
NARRATOR: Larry, however, didn't like to be behind the wheel. Instead, every day, he takes a 25-minute bus ride
to and from work on the Lynx Number 50 route, which loops from downtown through the local theme parks.
[MUSIC PLAYING] It was Larry's own personal chauffeur. I mean, it happened to be a little bit bigger
than a limousine, but he-- he seemed to like that, the fact that he didn't have to worry
about driving, he didn't have to worry about the insurance, he didn't have to worry about maintenance.
He found comfort in the fact that he could get on the bus and go home. [MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: Today, however, Larry isn't going to make it home. After getting off from work, Larry boards the bus at about 6
o'clock on a Saturday evening. [MUSIC PLAYING] He takes his usual seat, puts earphones on, and settles in
for the short ride home. [MUSIC PLAYING] No one notices as he seems to drift off to sleep.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Nearly 90 minutes later, the bus completes its route at Orlando's downtown bus station.
All of the passengers disembark except for one, Larry Haggarty. [MUSIC PLAYING] The driver tries to wake him, but he doesn't respond.
He can't. Larry is dead. [MUSIC PLAYING] When I had conversed with the driver about the situation,
he was very stressed out or nervous, upset, because he, you know, once he realized the situation,
you know, he just didn't know what to do. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: After Orlando Police investigate the scene,
Larry Haggarty's body is transferred to the morgue. There, Dr. G will be tasked with unraveling two mysteries--
determining what exactly happened to this man on his commute home and why didn't his fellow commuters
realize something was wrong. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] 12 hours later, it's early Sunday morning.
But while much of Orlando is waking up, Dr. G is working the weekend shift at District 9.
[MUSIC PLAYING] No underwear? He hasn't got underwear? [INAUDIBLE] So it's a Sunday morning, I'm in the morgue,
and we have a case where the man is found on the bus the night before. My investigator goes and investigates,
and it's just a fellow we know nothing about. NARRATOR: Normally when a new body arrives at the morgue,
Dr. G reviews medical records or personal histories of the victim that have been collected by her investigators
before determining if an autopsy is necessary. But in the case of Larry Haggarty,
tracking down information on the victim has been difficult. [INTERPOSING VOICES]
By 9:00 AM, after a round of futile caused by investigators, Dr. G still only knows the basics
about Larry Haggarty-- his name and the circumstances in which he was found. DR. G: The-- the fact that he's found in a public place
always raises your suspicions a little bit more. So we would be more apt to autopsy him just because he is
found in a public place because bad things can happen to you in a public place. NARRATOR: In cases where the decedent could be the victim
of a crime, time is critical. Any evidence on the body must be collected as quickly as possible.
With this in mind, Dr. G and her staff begin to prep Larry Haggarty for examination.
When we return, Dr. G begins the autopsy on Larry Haggarty and must consider a dark possibility.
Was he murdered? And the head, could've been trauma. Maybe somebody had bumped him on his head.
I always have to be suspicious. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: On the commute home from work,
Larry Haggarty dies on a crowded bus without anyone noticing. Nobody remembers him getting on,
and nobody remembers him having any troubles. NARRATOR: Now Dr. G must determine a cause of death
and answer this question-- what would cause a man to die unnoticed on a bus full of passengers?
[MUSIC PLAYING] As Dr. G prepares to examine Larry Haggarty, she approaches the case with one thought in mind--
there are an infinite number of ways to die. Often, clues to a person's mysterious death
can be gleaned in their medical records, providing Dr. G at least a starting point
for her investigation. But in cases like this, where there are no records available,
Dr. G must approach her work as if it were essentially a blank slate. Anything could have caused this person's death.
In this case, we had no clue. We had no clue that he had any history, and we didn't know anybody that knew him.
NARRATOR: However, there is one small, yet crucial inference that Dr. G can make about the cause of this man's death.
Whatever or whoever killed him must have done so quietly, so quietly that no one noticed a thing.
And that is why, as she begins the external exam, Dr. G is on the lookout for any signs of trauma
that might indicate foul play. What I definitely had to do since he's found on a bus
is make sure there's no trauma, so I look very carefully from head to toe, under the armpits, between the legs,
everywhere. No tattoos, no vascular scars. Fingers are a little dirty. No interior wrist scars, no chest scars, no surgical scars.
A couple of bug bites on him, though. I wonder if he gardens or something. NARRATOR: Bug bites, but nothing else.
OK. There's no clue that there was any kind of trauma related. NARRATOR: From the looks of Larry externally,
foul play seems less likely. But a body holds many secrets on the inside, and in Larry's case, as soon as his chest is opened,
it reveals one to Dr. G. Larry was a smoker. Big old lungs kind of overinflated.
Kind of a big old barrel chest, too. Lot of blackening from his smoking days. NARRATOR: But even though Larry's lungs
are damaged from his smoking, Dr. G can see that they did not kill him. [MUSIC PLAYING]
His heart is another story. To begin with, at 620 grams, it is nearly double the size of a normal heart.
Ooh, that's big. NARRATOR: But that's not the only abnormality Dr. G finds. He's got very bad coronary artery disease.
His entire left anterior descending is calcified. The vessels that supply blood and oxygen
to the heart, the coronary arteries, were severely narrow. We don't even have-- a very minimal
opening, and some of that's necrotic, too, really. NARRATOR: Dr. G wonders whether Larry was aware
of his deadly heart condition, until she finds two foreign objects. He's got-- ooh, he's got a stent in his coronary artery.
Wish we'd have known that. NARRATOR: The two stents Dr. G discovers in Larry's coronary arteries are wire mesh tubes inserted
during angioplasty, a procedure where a balloon-tipped catheter is threaded up into the arteries of the heart.
Once in place, the stents serve as buttresses to hold open previously blocked vessels.
As soon as I saw those metal stents, I know that he'd been to a cardiologist and has a history.
NARRATOR: In addition, Dr. G finds several abnormalities in Larry's heart, a clear indication that Larry
suffered several heart attacks. One of them likely occurred some time ago, but the other is much more recent, only hours old.
[MUSIC PLAYING] DR. G: In this case, the back of the heart had areas of recent heart attack with a fresh
real early hemorrhage in there. So I knew there was a new episode going on over an old episode.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: But this discovery raises more questions than answers.
Gripping, crushing pain is the hallmark of the overwhelming majority of heart attack victims.
If a heart attack killed Larry, why were there no witnesses to this telltale sign
while he rode the bus? Dr. G theorizes that Larry might have suffered another type
of heart attack altogether. Classic heart attack is the chest pain, I'm having the big one, you know, Ethel, and you go down.
And the-- but there's about 20% with heart attacks that they don't feel anything or very minimal symptoms.
NARRATOR: It is known as a silent heart attack. A silent heart attack is exactly like a normal heart attack.
In each, blood to the heart is cut off and part of the heart muscle dies, resulting in the formation of tough scar
tissue, which weakens the heart and can trigger deadly arrhythmias. But there is one critical difference between the two.
A person having a normal heart attack will know it. One having a silent attack will not.
DR. G: I don't know why. I don't think anybody really knows why some people have
the classic symptoms and some people have atypical symptoms or no symptoms. NARRATOR: After finishing dissection of Larry's heart,
Dr. G now knows for certain how Larry Haggarty met his fate and why no one on the bus knew he was dying.
[MUSIC PLAYING] According to Dr. G, Larry Haggarty suffers coronary artery disease, as evidenced
by the stents and severe blockages she finds in his heart. Then, while at work that Saturday,
Larry unknowingly suffers a silent heart attack. A friend saw him sit down and was a little out of breath.
And on asking about it, Larry said, oh, nothing's wrong, and got up. NARRATOR: Later that evening, as he boards
the bus, an area of Larry's heart is beginning to die from lack of oxygen. The electrical signal that generates
the heart's beating can't get through the damaged tissue. The heart short circuits and stumbles into an arrhythmia.
It was irritable, and so instead of beating so all the rest of his brain and the body
can get blood, it starts quivering. He can't pump blood to the brain, so he passes out.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Within minutes, his heart ceases to beat, and Larry stops breathing.
To everyone around him, he appears to be just another sleeping commuter. No, it just, to me, there was a sense of sadness to the case.
Here's this man just minding his own business with his little earphones probably
trying to block out the world sitting on the bus by himself. Nobody notices anything.
He's just-- just sitting there and dies. There was just something a little sad about the-- the case to me.
[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] MAN: Atlas.

Jeffrey Ortiz, a mentally challenged man with the mental capacity of a nine-year-old, is making himself a sandwich when he inexplicably falls, striking his head on the kitchen counter.

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

Brief Summary

Dr. G investigates a triple homicide and a silent heart attack on a city bus, revealing tragic circumstances for both victims.

Key points

A Bizarre and Brutal Crime. A shocking discovery leads to a complex investigation involving three burnt bodies.
Identifying the Victims. Dr. G uncovers clues that lead to the identification of the victims.
The Horrific Truth. Dr. G confirms all three victims were shot before being set on fire.
A Family's Devastating News. The Cain family learns the tragic fate of their missing brother Shawn.
Shawn's Involvement Uncovered. The investigation reveals Shawn's unexpected connection to the murders.
Silent Heart Attack. Larry Haggarty dies unnoticed on a bus due to a silent heart attack.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I told him, I love you.

Last words spoken to Shawn Cain.

0:38WatchMay 25, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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