Dr. G: Medical Examiner - Season 3, Episode 6 - Broken Lives - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Police make a grisly discovery when they pull the body of a bound and gagged
woman from her shallow grave. Her tissues are very soft. She's got greenish discoloration.
NARRATOR: Her grieving mother is desperate for answers. You want some type of justice.
Nobody has the right to do that to a family, nobody. NARRATOR: Can Dr. G prove that this young woman was murdered
and help put a suspected killer behind bars? If you can't put the pieces together
that say, this is a homicide, you know, he may go free. NARRATOR: Then a mentally ill man is
found dead in a halfway house. He's got blood coming from his nose and his mouth.
NARRATOR: And Dr. G uncovers a possible motive for murder. They saw him on Monday.
They gave him his allowance. And then they don't see him again. Did somebody try to rob him?
NARRATOR: Altered lives, baffling medical mysteries, shocking revelations, these are the everyday cases of Dr. G,
medical examiner. As chief medical examiner for the district nine morgue in Orlando, Florida, Dr. Jan Garavaglia
must solve mysteries every day. But sometimes, her job takes her beyond the realm
of simple medical diagnosis. In some cases, Dr. G is called upon to use her expertise to help the deceased themselves,
to speak for those voiceless victims, and to see that justice is served. It's my job to find the answers.
It's my job to hopefully come up with a cause of death. NARRATOR: Dr. G was called upon to play this crucial role
in 1989 when she served as medical examiner at the Duval County medical examiner's office
in Jacksonville, Florida. On this balmy Thursday morning in March, Dr. G receives word that the police are bringing in a box
containing a disturbing cargo. They think they're seeing what could be a decomposed person in the box,
but they weren't 100% sure. NARRATOR: But the contents of the box are not nearly as unsettling as the story of its discovery.
The day before the delivery to the morgue, a man shows up at the Jacksonville sheriff's office.
He claims that two months earlier, a friend of his, Kenneth Garrity, enlisted his help
in burying a box in the woods. Garrity told him that the box contained his dead dog.
So he went with Kenneth out to a wooded area and they buried this box that had this dog in it.
A few weeks later, the man starts hearing reports of a missing person in the area,
a 24-year-old woman. When he learns that the missing woman is none other than Garrity's girlfriend,
he begins to fear the worst. He started putting two and two together and saying,
you know, I buried a box with a supposed dog in it about the time she went missing.
Then this fellow took the police to where he buried this box. And they started digging it up.
I started digging, and I got down probably six or eight inches and I hit a wooden box.
Oh, yeah, I can see it. Look at that. Is that your box? That's the box. When I opened the lid of it up,
you can definitely tell it was a human not a dog that was in the box. Well, at that point, it became a homicide case
or a death of suspicious means. NARRATOR: Detective Bradley rushes the box and its macabre contents to the medical examiner's
office. He is counting on Dr. G to tell him if this is indeed the body of the missing
woman Michelle Robertson. And if so, how did she die? According to her family, Michelle Robertson
was a vivacious 24-year-old with an insatiable zest for life. Michelle was a very outgoing child, very small,
very petite, but very outgoing. And a lot of fun. You know, she really brought the fun into any kind of situation.
SHIRLEY GARNTO: Always happy. Thank you, grandma. SHIRLEY GARNTO: Had the best smile.
She was very good older sister, very good, very kind person. NARRATOR: When Michelle fails to acknowledge her sister's
birthday on January 18th, her family immediately suspects that something is desperately wrong.
THERESA KLEIN: Soon as my birthday arrived and there was no phone call, there no gift or card,
I said, there is something wrong with Michelle. She is either she's gone, something has happened to her.
SHIRLEY GARNTO: I started calling their apartment and nobody answered, nobody answered, nobody answered.
I was pretty sure that there was something really, really wrong. NARRATOR: As the days go by and Michelle fails to reappear,
her distraught family begins to fear that Michelle is never coming home. And they suspect that her boyfriend
Kenneth Garrity may have played a role in her disappearance. I had told Michelle that I didn't trust him.
I think he was a bully. He had a strange personality as far as getting mad easily.
NARRATOR: Now with the excavation of the mysterious box and its grisly contents,
Michelle's family and investigators are anxious to know if Michelle has finally been found.
And if so, was she the victim of a homicide? This case was somewhat of a big deal.
Everybody wanted to know, is it her? Is it not her? NARRATOR: It is now up to Dr. G to find the answers in what
will prove to be one of the most disturbing cases of her career. The box was delivered to my office intact.
The lid was still on it but a little bit ajar. The box is about three feet long,
three feet deep, but narrow, about 1 and 1/2 feet wide. And then we open the box up.
NARRATOR: A quick glance inside confirms the worst. When you look inside, it does look like there
is a human body in there. My immediate reaction is kind of your adrenaline goes.
And you're thinking, boy, this is going to be a lot of work, but let's get into it.
NARRATOR: Dr. G can tell right away that it's a woman, but her identity and cause of death are a complete mystery.
To avoid destroying any potential evidence, Dr. G and her assistant carefully remove the sides of the makeshift coffin,
fully revealing the body for the first time. She is bent at the waist and her knees
are brought up towards her head to fit into that small box. She's very petite. You can't see much of her because she's wrapped
in a yellow blanket and then an electric cord was wrapped with four loops around the body.
NARRATOR: But the shocking treatment of the body does not end there. We have one piece of evidence that's glaring right at me.
She's got this packing tape over her mouth, her nose, her eyes, even goes over her ears.
She couldn't breathe through that. NARRATOR: Despite the horrifying implications of this discovery,
Dr. G is determined to stay focused and objective. At this point, you don't react to any
of the emotion of the case. I know that she must be the loved one, the daughter,
the sister of somebody. But my job is to find the answers. NARRATOR: Dr. G surveys the body for clues
to the victim's identity. Unfortunately, the body's state of decomposition is too advanced for visual identification
or a fingerprint analysis. She does, however, determine that the victim's appearance is
consistent with a female in her mid 20s with wavy brown hair, weighing less than 100 pounds, and under five feet tall.
Although this physical description matches that of Michelle Robertson, for Dr. G,
it is not enough. You know, I wanted a scientific ironclad identification. NARRATOR: And she knows just where to look for it.
I look in her mouth. She does look like she has some dental repair. So we know that there must be a dentist.
NARRATOR: People are often identified by comparing their teeth to personal dental records.
We'll start with the most obvious. We'll look at the teeth. We'll look for the fillings.
We'll look at the restorations. If that's not available, then we have to use more subtle techniques looking at sinuses, looking
at angle of the mandible. We want something unique to that individual, whether it's a filling, a piece of bone, a root fragment.
NARRATOR: For this critical task, Dr. G enlists the help of a forensic dentist who compares Michelle's dental records to the victim's teeth.
Within minutes, they have their answer. JAN GARAVAGLIA: Sure enough, he was able to give a positive identification
that her dental records match this body. So it's clearly Michelle. NARRATOR: Detective Bradley now has the heart wrenching task
of informing Michelle's mother that her daughter has been found dead. I already knew.
I already knew. I knew that if she was in any kind of trouble, she would have called me.
It was very, very devastating. But, at the same time, we'd finally known. We'd finally known.
NARRATOR: Michelle's grieving family now believes that Michelle was murdered by the very man who buried her body,
her boyfriend Kenneth Garrity. I felt he was unstable. He tried to keep her isolated and didn't
want her to have friends, didn't want her to receive phone calls. What's going on?
Didn't want her to be as close to us as we were. NARRATOR: You need to listen to me when I'm talking to you.
She would say to him, I will leave you. And he would always say, no, you'll never leave me.
You'll never leave me. NARRATOR: But suspicions are not enough. With only circumstantial evidence against Garrity,
this entire case hinges on whether Dr. G can find proof of murder. JAN GARAVAGLIA: It's a bad thing to bury somebody
who dies in your house. That sounds bad. But there's not much crime to that. There is a much more punishable crime
to kill somebody who's alive. NARRATOR: But in her quest to prove how Michelle Robertson died, Dr. G faces a formidable adversary,
mother nature. The natural forces of decomposition have left their grim mark on Michelle's body--
Her tissues are very soft. She's got greenish discoloration. NARRATOR: --destroying the very evidence Dr. G relies on.
Will she be able to find enough clues to help solve this mysterious death? Or is it already too late?
I'm hoping, at this point, that there's clear cut evidence. Sometimes you can't tell for sure.
NARRATOR: Dr. G is carefully inspecting the body of 24-year-old Michelle Robertson
for clues that might point to a cause of death. Michelle's family and investigators
suspect that Michelle was brutally murdered at the hands of her own boyfriend, Kenneth Garrity.
You want some type of justice. You want some kind of penalty. Nobody has the right to do that to a family, nobody.
I already have that tape that was on her face. That could be a cause of death in and of itself.
But we're looking for other things. NARRATOR: But there's a problem. Autopsying a decomposed body presents enormous challenges.
When you have a decomposed body and the tissues are showing some discoloration and the tissues are softened, it's
much harder to find trauma. NARRATOR: But as she continues her examination, Dr. G finds Michelle's body to be surprisingly intact.
Ironically, the reason for this lies in the callous way her body was disposed of.
Being buried helps in this case because you're going to decompose slower. It's a little cooler in the dirt.
You're protected from the elements. NARRATOR: But despite the relative good condition
of the body, Dr. G finds no evidence of external wounds. As Dr. G continues her examination,
Detective Bradley learns another disturbing detail about Kenneth Garrity, that he had a history of violence.
Six months before Michelle's disappearance, he had beaten her severely causing multiple contusions.
We'd found out that she had been assaulted by Kenneth Garrity and put in a hospital.
So I guess you'd have to say he's a violent person. Domestic violence isn't just about anger.
It's about control, and it's about power. And he was trying to have control and power over her.
That's what domestic violence is about. NARRATOR: This latest discovery fuels the investigators' suspicions.
But so far, their case is purely circumstantial. In order to arrest Garrity, they are counting on Dr. G
to prove that this is a homicide. So far, the external exam has turned up nothing.
JAN GARAVAGLIA: I don't see any major trauma on her. So I'm very suspicious that she either has a blow to her head
or she's got strangulation or she has both. NARRATOR: Dr. G's next step is to check
for signs of strangulation. JAN GARAVAGLIA: One of the things I look for is subtle signs of trauma on her neck.
It could even be just fingernail marks, could be just some bruising. NARRATOR: But the initial inspection yields no clues.
JAN GARAVAGLIA: Because of the greenish discoloration, the skin slippage, I don't see a lot of external trauma
on the neck. NARRATOR: Undaunted, Dr. G looks for another telltale sign of strangulation.
Then we'll look for the petechiae, the little burst blood vessels in those thin membranes
in the inside of your eye. Those blood vessels can burst very easily with increased pressures put on your neck from strangulation.
NARRATOR: But once again, Dr. G comes up empty handed. When I looked on this case, she didn't have any.
Now she is awfully decomposed. So I may be missing those, but I don't see any. NARRATOR: This finding, or lack of one,
makes it impossible for Dr. G to make a conclusion about whether or not Michelle was strangled.
I can't rule out strangulation. But I don't have anything to rule it in yet. So already, I look like I'm in a hole here.
NARRATOR: But Dr. G still has one last place left to look for signs of foul play,
Michelle's head. And when she does, she makes a chilling discovery. JAN GARAVAGLIA: One thing I find is that there's some evidence
of her being beaten. She's got a bruise or contusion on her forehead, and she's got a contusion or a bruise on the left side
of her head, and a broken nose. NARRATOR: But these bruises, while horrifying, are in themselves inconclusive.
JAN GARAVAGLIA: We need to see, did these cause her death or are these just a sign of her being beaten prior to her
being killed? NARRATOR: Will Michelle's body give up its secrets? Only the internal exam will tell.
If you can't put the pieces together that say, this is a homicide, he may go free.
NARRATOR: Dr. G is examining the body of 24-year-old Michelle Robertson, recently excavated
from her shallow grave. But so far, she hasn't been able to determine the cause of death, much less a means of homicide.
I need to see what I can find on this body and say, these are the facts that I can say happened,
and these are the things I can say didn't happen. NARRATOR: Dr. G makes the standard Y incision,
cutting from shoulder to sternum to fully reveal the internal organs. She then studies the body looking for any signs
of physical trauma. We look for any rib fractures that would suggest being beaten
or stomped. We don't see anything along that line. NARRATOR: The next step is to follow
a clue from the external exam. JAN GARAVAGLIA: I really want to evaluate those contusions
or bruises on the head. I don't know yet if that blunt trauma to the head killed her.
NARRATOR: Now it's time to take a closer look. Using an oscillating saw, a morgue technician
cuts through the skull. Dr. G then steps in and removes the skullcap. I look inside, but I don't see any evidence of hemorrhage.
NARRATOR: This is a serious blow to the case. The absence of blood means that Dr.
G cannot make an accurate determination about the severity of Michelle's head trauma due to the decomposition
of her brain. Whether there's internal trauma or not, I just can't say. I don't see any evidence of it.
NARRATOR: It appears that the case has reached a dead end. With no way to tell if her head injury killed Michelle,
Dr. G is still without a cause of death, and her options are running out. Only one stone remains unturned.
While she didn't see any signs of strangulation during the external exam, she knows that evidence could have
been erased by decomposition. To completely rule out strangulation, Dr. G must now look for evidence internally.
Definitive proof may lie with a small bone of the neck called the hyoid. The hyoid bone is kind of a U-shaped
bone that sits in the upper portion of your neck. NARRATOR: The hyoid bone is the only bone in the body not
connected to any other bone. Its main function is to help support the tongue. The tiny hyoid bone is protected by thick layers of muscle
and the mandible, making it nearly impossible to break, except when extreme pressure is applied to the neck.
There are very few ways to break that bone without strangulation. NARRATOR: Dr. G begins the painstaking
dissection of Michelle's neck. And before long, she has her answer. I do the layer Y dissection.
I see that hyoid bone, and there's hemorrhage around it and there's a fracture of the hyoid bone.
NARRATOR: This discovery can mean only one thing. She was strangled. NARRATOR: But Dr. G is not quite ready to declare strangulation
the cause of death. The broken hyoid bone, that indicates, at least, that there is a strangulation.
Now does that indicate she died from strangulation? Possibly not. NARRATOR: There is no doubt that Michelle was strangled.
But this alone might not have been enough to kill her. What it is is you're cutting off the blood supply
to your brain, and you're cutting off the drainage from your brain. So basically, you're not getting oxygen, and you pass out.
The problem is, even after you pass out, there has to be some pressure maintained
because studies have shown that you can wake back up. NARRATOR: Dr. G suspects this is exactly what happened
in this case, which would explain the tape found on Michelle's face. She's probably coming out of her strangulation
making gurgling noises, so he suffocates her by putting the tape over her mouth and nose
to make sure she died. NARRATOR: Dr. G finally has the forensic evidence needed to make the case against Kenneth Garrity.
The cause of death is going to be strangulation with suffocation from the tape and then
contributing soft tissue injuries to the head. It's a classic case of domestic violence, and it's tragic.
NARRATOR: After an hour long examination, Dr. G is now able to report her findings to investigators.
It's Sunday, January 8th, and Michelle and Garrity are spending the day together at home.
Suddenly, something triggers Garrity's rage and he lashes out. JAN GARAVAGLIA: There's a fight.
There's blows to the face, blows to the head to the point where he breaks her nose, probably stuns her.
NARRATOR: Garrity then grabs hold of Michelle by the neck and begins to strangle her.
His grip is so strong that he breaks Michelle's hyoid bone and cuts off blood flow in and out of her brain.
Michelle's brain quickly becomes starved for oxygen, and she most likely loses consciousness.
But she probably then starts to gurgle. And he realizes she's not quite dead, so he puts the tape over her mouth and nose and eyes
so she can't breathe. There is no way she's coming out of that strangulation. NARRATOR: Within a few agonizing minutes, Michelle is dead.
Then in a cold-blooded effort to dispose of his girlfriend's body, Garrity places Michelle in a box
and buries her with the help of his unsuspecting friend. There she remains in her shallow grave
until she is discovered by police two months later. It just amazes me that there are people
that can do this to anybody. NARRATOR: Thanks to Dr. G, investigators finally have enough hard evidence to arrest
Kenneth Garrity for murder. Once we made the arrest, he confessed. So that was just the final nail in the coffin.
NARRATOR: On May 16, 1990, Garrity is convicted of second degree murder. Although he receives a 35 year sentence,
he serves only 11 years and is released on April 18, 2000. No one else is charged with any crime in connection
with Michelle Robertson's death. Michelle's mother is grateful to Dr. G for bringing
her the comfort of the truth. If it wasn't for her, we would have never known what caused Michelle's death.
She has children of her own. So she knows what we're going through. NARRATOR: But Dr. G believes that Michele's death
holds a valuable message for the living. About 11% of all our homicides are some type of domestic violence.
And I think the bottom line here is if there's any evidence of violence and you're afraid,
I would suggest leaving quickly. I know that's very hard. Call the national hotline for domestic violence
and see what your options are, make a plan that you could leave quickly if things get out of hand.
NARRATOR: In Dr. G's next case, the body of a mentally ill transient is found in a halfway house.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out he's dead because he's already starting to decompose.
NARRATOR: And Doctor G's first priority is to figure out if this man was the victim of foul play.
He was last seen by the caregiver who had actually just given him his allowance.
Did he get in a fight? Did somebody try to rob him? NARRATOR: District nine is a busy urban morgue
in downtown Orlando, Florida, a city known for its theme parks and resorts. But in the morgue's jurisdiction of Orange and Osceola Counties,
an estimated 7,800 people live on the streets or in group shelters. When they die, their bodies usually
end up in Dr. G's hands. Having transients come through is a common thing. NARRATOR: And their bodies often remain unclaimed.
I have a lot of empathy for people who died suddenly and nobody cares about them.
I have to care about them. NARRATOR: Such is the case of 40-year-old Alex Wilcott.
Well, today, we have a middle-aged man that was found dead in a halfway house. NARRATOR: Dr. G's investigator's report on the homeless man
reads like so many cases she's seen in the past, no job, no friends, no family. He'd been living at St. Paul's Residence, a halfway house
for the homeless in Edgewood, Florida, for about a year and a half and spent most of his time
alone in his room. So it comes as no surprise when Alex doesn't come down for dinner one night.
But the next morning, when Alex fails to show for breakfast, a fellow resident goes to his room to wake him.
Alex, you OK? NARRATOR: But Alex isn't sleeping. Alex. Then one of the roomies comes in and sees him in his bed--
Hey! JAN GARAVAGLIA: --dead. NARRATOR: A St. Paul's administrator immediately calls
the authorities, who arrive on the scene with Dean Smith, Dr. G's medical investigator.
We entered the subject's private room, found him lying in bed on his back. He was covered with a blanket.
His head was kind of tilted to the right. He'd probably been dead 24 or 30 hours.
NARRATOR: Dean immediately begins interviewing residents and staff at St. Paul's, who reveal
that Alex had been estranged from his family for some time. We found out that he's pretty much for the past 20 years
lived a pretty much nomadic life. We know he's single. He's never been married, doesn't have any children.
NARRATOR: And according to those at the halfway house that knew him, Alex was often irritable and suffered
from periodic mood swings. While these few facts provide some insight into Alex's life,
they don't shed any light on how he died. There's just a lot of pieces of the puzzle
that I don't know yet. I just told Dean that we need some more information. NARRATOR: While Dean Smith works to uncover more details
about Alex, Dr. G begins her own search for clues in the autopsy. OK, let's flip that leg.
NARRATOR: She begins by looking for a cause of death that she's seen all too often with transients, murder.
JAN GARAVAGLIA: Having transients come through who are murdered is a common thing.
I mean, it's certainly something we see several times every year. Whenever you have communal living with a bunch of men,
some of them are very transient, some of them have psychological problems, you always worry about trauma.
NARRATOR: And despite the limited background information available on Alex, the investigator's report
does indicate that he was last seen alive two days earlier when a caregiver gave him
his weekly allowance of $20. There you go. NARRATOR: Is it possible that someone
killed Alex for his allowance? Did somebody take his $20, beat him up and take his $20,
suffocate him or do something to him? NARRATOR: To a drug addict, $20 can represent
two bindles of heroin or up to four rocks of crack cocaine, a significant fix. We certainly are going to have to rule out
foul play right off the bat. NARRATOR: Dr. G starts the autopsy by checking Alex's body
for any bruises or contusions consistent with an assault. And she finds her first clue on Alex's face.
JAN GARAVAGLIA: He's got blood coming from his nose and his mouth. Is it decomposition or is it from some type of trauma?
NARRATOR: Attempting to isolate the source of the blood, Dr. G meticulously examines Alex's head and face.
Feeling the facial bones, nasal bones, looking in the mouth, I don't see any direct trauma.
So it could still be coming up from his GI track or coughing up. NARRATOR: But despite these findings,
20 years of experience tells Dr. G that it's way too soon to rule out foul play.
There are many people that I've opened that I've been surprised at finding internal trauma
when I don't see anything external. NARRATOR: Sure enough, when Dr. G examines Alex's brain,
she discovers an intriguing abnormality. He's got adhesions of the surface of his brain.
NARRATOR: And she wonders if this could be his hidden killer. Dr. G is about to open Alex Wilcott's body
and look inside for answers. We need his history. We can find a lot when we go in there,
but I don't like surprises. NARRATOR: If Alex was the victim of a violent assault,
Dr. G would expect to find evidence of trauma to his head. He could have a subdural hematoma
or blood over his brain. NARRATOR: So that's where Dr. G begins the internal exam.
Morgue technicians carefully saw through Alex's cranium. But right away, the cranial exam proves
problematic for Dr. G. That's because Alex's brain is starting to decompose. Now in a normal body, I would cup the brain in my hand
and remove it. You cannot do that with a decomposed body. You get one look at the brain.
I hope that his brain is still preserved enough that I'm going to be able to see
if he does have any trauma. NARRATOR: Dr. G quickly scans Alex's brain and immediately spots something unusual.
He's got adhesions of the surface of his brain to the dura, which indicates that he did have
some old trauma to that brain. NARRATOR: Head trauma, but old head trauma. Despite the start of decomposition of Alex's brain,
Dr. G is nevertheless able to make one other key finding. There is a no fresh hemorrhage either in the scalp
or in the brain. There's no skull fracture. That's easy enough to see. So we don't have any fresh trauma to his brain.
NARRATOR: No recent injury, no indication of foul play. It's looking less likely that Alex was murdered.
But Dr. G won't know for sure until she performs the internal exam. Hopefully, we'll have the answer very quickly.
You make your Y incision and look for hemorrhages, see if he's had any blows to the chest,
and look and see if there's any free fluid in those regions, see if there's any free blood in the belly.
NARRATOR: But after a thorough examination, she can detect no signs of hemorrhaging,
no pooled blood, and no signs of bruising of any kind. It's a finding that leads Dr. G to her first conclusion
in the case. When the head is clear, the chest is clear, and the belly is clear, you know,
there's really not much chance that trauma has killed him because we don't see any trauma.
NARRATOR: Medical investigator Dean Smith returns to the morgue with tragic new information
about Alex Wilcott. When I heard that, I thought, what a sad life. NARRATOR: But will it lead her to his elusive cause of death?
Dr. G's next step is to remove Alex Wilcott's organs, one by one. So far, she has found no overt signs of trauma
to explain the 40-year-old transient's sudden death. JAN GARAVAGLIA: Okey dokey, I expect everything to be normal.
I don't see-- certainly don't see any trauma. NARRATOR: Then, just as the team is running out of leads,
medical investigator Dean Smith returns to the morgue with new information about Alex that he obtained
from a childhood friend. We got some fairly sad information about this poor fellow.
NARRATOR: Dean learns that Alex was hit by a motorcycle when he was eight. He was pretty much in a coma for about 10 days
in the hospital, had some severe head injuries after that. NARRATOR: Two years later, he suffered
a second head trauma when he plummeted from a neighbor's tree. These accidents explain the old head trauma Dr.
G detected in the cranial exam. She also learns that these injuries caused him to develop
a debilitating mental illness, one that would alter his life forever. Supposedly, he's been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
There is a lot of controversy about what environmental factors might be involved
in causing schizophrenia. Some studies have shown that people with a history of head
trauma are two to three times as likely to develop schizophrenia later in life. NARRATOR: Schizophrenia is a neurological brain disorder
that causes paranoia, delusions, frightening behavior, and disorganized thoughts.
And this new finding could take the investigation in a completely different direction.
This new information adds some maybe things I'm going to concentrate a little bit more on.
NARRATOR: She must now consider how Alex's mental illness may have played a role in his death.
There is a subset of people with schizophrenia that do die suddenly. So that just adds a little bit of more question.
NARRATOR: Schizophrenics often die prematurely from untreated natural disease or illness.
Schizophrenics are not going to be as attuned to their bodies. So we see more advanced diseases in them sometimes.
NARRATOR: Dr. G now wonders if Alex developed a serious medical condition that went untreated
and eventually killed him. That's what I often see in schizophrenics. They'll have this bad disease going on and no complaints.
NARRATOR: Her next step is to examine Alex's heart and lungs. So I might as well look at the lungs.
NARRATOR: These vital organs may hold the answer to this mystery. As Dr. G removes the lungs, she immediately
notices something troubling. I weigh the lungs, and both lungs are very heavy. The heavy lungs are due to fluid buildup.
Oh my gosh, that left lung is just full of fluid. NARRATOR: A phenomenon medically referred to as edema.
So we have very heavy lungs. Well, what does that tell me? Well, people who have heart disease
will have very heavy lungs. Their heart's just not pumping well enough and the fluids get backed up into the lungs.
I'm really curious about the heart. Well, let's do this heart. This is where the money is.
NARRATOR: And when she examines the heart, she finds another clue. Wow. Look at this.
It really looks like he's starting to have some dilatation to his heart. NARRATOR: Dr. G quickly determines
that Alex's heart is enlarged and the wall is thickened. His heart's really thickened here,
like 1.8, 1.5 in that vicinity. NARRATOR: This is often a result of chronic high blood pressure.
If your blood pressure is high, your heart has to pump that much harder to get it out against those pressures.
NARRATOR: This extra work can cause the heart muscle to thicken, just as a muscle thickens
in response to weight lifting. As that heart gets thicker, it's more prone to arrhythmias,
and it's more prone to fail. NARRATOR: But as she continues to examine his damaged heart,
Dr. G finds another important clue. When I do the coronary arteries, it was another little surprise.
He also had some atherosclerosis. NARRATOR: Atherosclerosis is a buildup of plaque in the heart's arteries
that supply blood to the heart muscle. Severe atherosclerosis can block the flow of blood to the heart.
But surprisingly, that's not the case with Alex. Atherosclerosis or narrowing of the blood vessels
was not that severe. He only had about a 30% narrowing. NARRATOR: While the atherosclerosis in Alex's
arteries was not severe enough to kill him, Dr. G quickly realizes that it paved the way for a more
serious problem to develop. Voila, little thrombosis. I do see a clot adhere to the atherosclerosis.
And I thought, hmm, could that be real? Blood clot right inside the coronary artery.
NARRATOR: A blood clot, or thrombus, can form as a result of atherosclerotic plaque.
It can become deadly when it stops blood flow to the heart muscle altogether. For Dr. G, this clot is the final piece of the puzzle.
He already has a sick heart from the high blood pressure, and it looks like then he gets a thrombus on top of that.
NARRATOR: After an hour long examination, Dr. G is finally ready to contact Alex's estranged family to let them know what happened to him.
40-year-old Alex Wilcott has been plagued by a life of misfortune. After two serious childhood head injuries damage his brain,
he is eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. He doesn't appear to be treated because we
don't have any medication. NARRATOR: Alex's debilitating mental disorder contributes to an isolated nomadic existence.
JAN GARAVAGLIA: He's been in and out of mental hospitals and in and out of halfway houses.
NARRATOR: These factors also most likely lead to Alex disregarding his health altogether, resulting in a case
of chronic high blood pressure. People who live in halfway houses and live nomadic lives
don't always get the best medical attention. It's not something you routinely do is
go check your blood pressure. NARRATOR: Untreated, Alex's chronic high blood pressure
ravages his heart. His heart, over years, had pumped against the high blood pressure.
The heart got thicker. And over time, and we're talking years, the heart starts to fail.
NARRATOR: The stress of this extra work on Alex's heart eventually causes it to fail and also puts him
at risk for atherosclerosis. Then he develops a small blood clot that further compromises the weakened organ.
Now as his heart struggles to pump enough blood out, his lungs back up with fluid.
He would have a little bit of cough. Maybe he'd have thought that was maybe the flu coming on,
little shortness of breath. Maybe that's he went to bed. NARRATOR: Over the next several hours, as Alex sleeps,
his overtaxed heart fights to continue beating. But eventually, his heart gives out.
He most likely died in his sleep. NARRATOR: Unlike many of the transient cases in Dr. G's
morgue, Alex Wilcott wasn't murdered, and he did not overdose on drugs or alcohol.
He died a natural, quiet death. JAN GARAVAGLIA: Dying in a halfway house all alone,
I mean, it really makes you think what a sad, sad life some people have. NARRATOR: In the end, Alex's untimely death ironically
may have stemmed from two tragic head injuries he sustained as a child. This trauma might have led him to develop
a debilitating mental illness, which in turn caused him to neglect his health. This poor guy's got no luck either in his youth, all
these horrible accidents that occur to him, down to dying in a halfway house all alone.
Whenever I do an autopsy, you really do get a window in people's lives. This poor kid's life was unlucky from the beginning to the end.

Dr. G must figure out if a decomposed body is that of a local missing woman and if she was murdered.

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

Brief Summary

Dr. G investigates Michelle's murder and Alex's natural death, revealing domestic violence and mental illness issues.

Key points

Gruesome Discovery. Police uncover the body of a bound and gagged woman in a shallow grave.
Desperate for Answers. A grieving mother seeks justice for her missing daughter.
The Shocking Truth. Dr. G uncovers evidence of strangulation and suffocation in a murder case.
The Tragic Life of Alex Wilcott. Alex's life was marked by misfortune, leading to his untimely death in a halfway house.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Nobody has the right to do that to a family, nobody.

A family member's emotional plea regarding the loss of their loved one.

0:34WatchJun 8, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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