Dr. G: Medical Examiner - Season 5, Episode 10 - False Impressions - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[OMINOUS HUM] [SIRENS WAILING] NARRATOR: In a South Texas swamp, police make a grisly discovery.
STEVE MILD: There were two black plastic bags. The arms and legs in one bag, the torso and head
in the other bag. NARRATOR: And they need Dr. G's help to piece together the clues.
Whoever put him in these bags is, you know, the perpetrator. NARRATOR: But will the autopsy findings
lead them to the suspected killer, or just another dead end? DR. G: If you can't connect him to the crime,
if you can't put the pieces together that say, this is a homicide, he may go free.
NARRATOR: Then, a pedestrian is run over by a slow-moving van. DR. G: The guy's not breathing.
The guy's not responding. The fellow that's driving that fan feels horrible. NARRATOR: But Dr. G can't figure out how a seemingly minor
mishap could have turned fatal. DR. G: So what really happened? I don't know. The driver doesn't know.
And certainly, the police don't know. [THEME MUSIC] NARRATOR: Altered lives. Baffling medical mysteries.
Shocking revelations. These are the everyday cases of "Dr. G: Medical Examiner."
Every year in the United States, over 800,000 people are reported missing. The vast majority are found alive
and returned safely to their families. But sadly, some are found too late Dr. Jan Garavaglia has worked on a number of these tragic cases,
but one of the most disturbing occurred several years ago, when she was a medical examiner in Bear County, Texas.
[HELICOPTER WHIRRING] It's early winter in South Texas, and law enforcement officials are scouring
the countryside for the body of a 27-year-old man named Peter Gibbs. He disappeared without a trace one week earlier
under suspicious circumstances. STEVE MILD: We had people on foot. We had people on ATVs.
We had people on horseback. At one point, we had three helicopters out there. We were getting real frustrated because we
still did not have a body. NARRATOR: As the days tick by, Peter's family worries that his body may never be found.
But eventually, investigators narrow their focus to a shallow swamp near Angleton, Texas.
And it's not long before they find what they've been looking for. STEVE MILD: We went out to that location,
and there were two black plastic bags. The arms and legs in one bag. The torso and head in the other bag.
DR. G: They had called up and asked me to do the case of a body that was found in South Texas.
And this body was in parts. NARRATOR: Two plastic bags of human remains arrive in the morgue, just as they were found.
Investigators suspect that this is the body of Peter Gibbs, who disappeared earlier that week.
As a first step, Dr. G reads through what police know so far about the case. DR. G: The information we have from the investigation
is not very complete at the beginning of the autopsy. We know he's got a wife. We know he's a painter.
NARRATOR: According to investigators, Peter was last seen by his wife Sarah one week earlier,
when he set out to collect a debt from an acquaintance named Andrew Garcia. STEVE MILD: He had not been seen or heard from since.
He normally contacted family members two or three times a day, just as normal routine.
And that just threw up a bunch of red flags to them. DR. G: His wife was very worried when he didn't come home,
and almost immediately, she suspected something was wrong and reported him missing.
NARRATOR: Within a few hours, investigators visit Garcia's home and question him
about Peter's disappearance. But right away, his odd behavior raises their suspicions.
STEVE MILD: We asked him if he had seen the victim. And he denied knowing anything about where
he was, denied even seeing him. He had a girlfriend. STEVE MILD: He was vague in his answers.
Inconsistent. He was contradicting himself. At this point, we had a pretty good idea that we probably
had a homicide on our hands. But we still didn't have a body. NARRATOR: Investigators search Garcia's home
from top to bottom. STEVE MILD: We went room by room, searched high and low, turned everything over, looked at it inside out, upside down,
and backwards. NARRATOR: They find no body and no evidence of foul play. But they do find something else.
STEVE MILD: We did find some firearms. And we did take what we thought was narcotic residue.
[SIRENS WAILING] NARRATOR: Police immediately arrest Andrew Garcia for illegal weapon and drug possession.
And while he sits in jail, investigators continue looking for Peter's body. Their search culminates almost a week later in the swamp
near Garcia's home. [SIRENS WAILING] Investigators question Garcia about the body,
but he maintains his innocence. However, they soon discover that he's told a completely different story to his cellmate.
STEVE MILD: He's told his cellmate, well, I killed a guy, and then I hid his body.
[DRAMATIC BEAT] NARRATOR: Eager for a chance at a reduced sentence, Garcia's cellmate turns the jailhouse confession
over to police investigators. Unfortunately for prosecutors, this is not enough to secure
a murder conviction. A confession to a cellmate may not be considered reliable in court, because his cellmate
has criminal problems himself. NARRATOR: Without an official confession and only
scant circumstantial evidence, both investigators and Peter's family fear that justice may never be served.
Obviously, they were distraught, as any family member would be, with the loss of a loved one.
The family did believe that the suspect had committed the crime. The family is hoping that Dr. G will be able to prove that,
yes, their family member was murdered by this person, and could get a conviction.
[TENSE MUSIC] DR. G: So the autopsy will help to see what's real with that perpetrator's story
and what we can prove isn't real. If you can't connect him to the crime, if you can't put the pieces together
that say this is a homicide, you know, he may go free. [OMINOUS HUM] NARRATOR: At the Bear County morgue in San Antonio, Texas,
Dr. G is carefully piecing together dismembered remains from two large garbage bags.
Investigators believe this is the body of Peter Gibbs. DR. G: So the body comes to me in two bags.
And I have to carefully document how this is found, because whoever put him in these bags is the perpetrator.
So it's really important we have to save as much evidence as we can. So on the first bag, it's a big plastic trash bag.
It's partially torn. And it's all gathered at the top with twine. The second bag is also tied with twine,
but around this bag is a weight. 10-pound weight, kind of rusted, held together with wires.
We don't know what we're going to find in these bags. Hopefully, the whole body will be there and that that'll
give us some information. You don't know until we look. NARRATOR: As she places the body parts on the gurney,
it's clear right away that the victim's legs were severed at the thigh, and his arms
just below the shoulder. This is a really nicely dismembered body. I must say, many of the ones I've had were a lot more messy.
A lot of stab wound. They try to do it with a knife, and they find out that it's so difficult. And then they end up with a saw,
so you get knife marks, you get saw marks. This one, really nice, clean marks. NARRATOR: And it isn't long before Dr. G makes
another unexpected discovery. It's been about six days since they say this murder happened.
And six days in Texas could be rough. Now, I have something going for me. The body is surprisingly preserved.
It's been cold, and he's in water. So that could delay any kind of decomposition.
NARRATOR: For Dr. G, this means that physical evidence may be better preserved than she expected,
including the victim's fingerprints. DR. G: Although they think it's this one person,
we still have to scientifically identify them. We did have a set of the victim's fingerprints
on file, so we sent those fingerprints to the morgue to be identified. NARRATOR: And it doesn't take long
to confirm that this is indeed the body of 27-year-old Peter Gibbs. DR. G: First thing you want to look at
is, what am I seeing on this body? The points of amputation were very clean. The muscle was cut very sharply.
The bone was cut very sharply. There's some tool marks on the bone. Pretty clean cuts.
It looks like they probably used a butchering device, like we'd see with animals.
NARRATOR: Dr. G immediately notifies investigators of this finding. The autopsy will help them with things they
know they have to look for. And so anything I can tell them may help them. NARRATOR: But after a thorough search of Garcia's home,
detectives come up empty-handed. When my investigator and the detective looked around the house, there was no evidence.
NARRATOR: Back at the morgue, Dr. G continues to painstakingly reconstruct the final moments
of Peter Gibbs's life, looking for anything that might help the murder investigation.
DR. G: Clearly, this man has his arms and legs amputated. But when you look at those wounds, there's no blood.
NARRATOR: This lack of blood tells Dr. G that Peter was dead before he was dismembered, because his heart did
not pump blood to the wounds. So this clearly looks postmortem. NARRATOR: Dr. G also sees that the front of Peter's body
is covered with abrasions. They too appear to have been inflicted postmortem. DR. G: If you cut yourself, or if you abrade yourself,
it's going to bleed, and then it kind of crusts on there. So this is-- all the skin is abraded off,
but there's no oozing, there's no crusting, nothing. NARRATOR: And these findings tell
Dr. G something important about the chain of events. Peter's dead body was dragged first, then dismembered.
DR. G: And how do I know that? Well, first of all, we've got these big drag marks on the front.
He also has drag marks on the anterior front of the thigh. And it goes down the thigh onto the amputated area.
So they cut right through the drag mark. So clearly, they cut him up after they dragged him.
NARRATOR: When Dr. G inspects his face more closely, she finds something else. There's also an incised wound, which is kind of interesting.
It's like a cut, like somebody took a knife and cut underneath his chin. Possibly, they were trying to initially cut his--
maybe decapitate him and just decided it wasn't worth it. NARRATOR: At this point in the autopsy,
Dr. G only knows how Peter Gibbs's body was disposed of. Now, the pressure is mounting for Dr. G
to find any evidence that could connect Garcia to the murder. And as soon as she turns Peter's body over,
she finds something that just might. When you flip him over, you see what might be the cause of death.
And that's two gunshot wounds to the back of the head. [GUNSHOTS] Oh, yeah. We want to see if he was alive when he
received those gunshot wounds. And did the gunshot wounds kill him? NARRATOR: As a first step, Dr. G and her morgue technician
perform head X-rays on the body of Peter Gibbs. DR. G: When you have a gunshot wound,
X-rays are always taken first. We want to see if there's a projectile that needs to be recovered.
NARRATOR: These revealed two bullets still lodged in Peter's brain. We were hoping that she would be able to recover the bullets
themselves so that we could then compare those to the firearms owned by the suspect.
NARRATOR: This might be the linchpin needed to finally connect Garcia to the crime.
You need to recover the bullet, because the bullet may have striations on it that may link
that bullet to a specific gun. Well, certainly, if the bullets recovered from the victim at the time of autopsy match
a firearm that's been retrieved from the possession of the suspect, that's good evidence for the state.
[TENSE MUSIC] Good, good, good. NARRATOR: But before she can remove the bullets,
she must first examine the wounds. So what I'm doing is I-- so I got to shave off the edges of the wound to really--
so I can see it much more clearly. So we're going to dab it again. Well, the first impression is that there are small defects.
They only measure about an eighth by an eighth inch. Look like a small caliber projectile, like a .22.
NARRATOR: But she won't know for sure until she reflects the scalp for a look inside the wound.
After I'm looking at the wound externally, we cut the scalp from ear to ear in the back, reflect that,
and we see a lot of scalp hemorrhage, or bruising from the gunshot wound. Clearly, his heart was pumping when
he got those gunshot wounds. [HEART THUMPING] [SAW WHIRRING] NARRATOR: Next, Dr. G opens the calvarium,
exposing Peter's brain. The bullets to the back of the head that caused massive trauma to his brain are what killed him.
The brain was actually getting to decompose a little faster than the rest of the body.
That's because of all the trauma there. But you could clearly still follow the paths.
The one on the left went back to front and slightly left to right. The other one went back to front and slightly right to left.
NARRATOR: Now, she can finally remove the bullets lodged in his brain. DR. G: Well, you always retrieve the bullets with your finger.
You never want to use anything metal, because remember, there's those striations on the outside of the bullet.
Those striations are made by the lands and grooves on the inside of the barrel that helps give the projectile-- a bullet its spin.
The small striations from those lands and grooves are unique for that gun. After bullets are fired, there's little imperfections
on the inside of a gun, and those little imperfections cause those markings on the bullet, which are unique.
And so you never want to touch the outside of that bullet with metal because you want the examiner to be able to look
at those striations as best he can, and you don't want any interfering scratches on there.
NARRATOR: Although the bullets are removed, the autopsy is far from over. DR. G: But I still need to do an internal examination.
Is there any other internal trauma that I didn't see externally? But there's also another really important
reason to do the internal examination, is I need to get toxicology. I need to get blood from him.
Okie-dokie, I think that's it. Let's go for it. So we're going to do our Y-shaped incision.
We're going to look in his chest cavities, abdominal cavity, and look for any other trauma.
I'm going to look for hemorrhage underneath the skin to see if he'd been beaten.
All right. There's no hemorrhaging subcutaneous tissue. It doesn't look like he's been beaten.
NARRATOR: Dr. G's next step is to collect fluid samples for toxicology. Despite the fact that the body has been dismembered
and submerged in water for six days, there is still liquid blood remaining in the heart.
DR. G: His heart still had blood in it from the aorta. We were able to collect that blood for toxicology.
NARRATOR: With toxicology samples drawn, Dr. G begins removing the organs and dissecting each one
carefully, looking for any additional evidence that may help her reconstruct the crime.
DR. G: I remove the organs one by one, but I really don't see anything remarkable.
There's no real evidence of natural disease, and there's no evidence of any other trauma to the neck,
the chest, or the abdomen. No surprises. No natural disease. And really, nothing interesting found.
After all the examination on the body, I package the evidence. I send the bullets off to a firearms examiner.
And I send the blood and the urine off to our toxicology lab. NARRATOR: With this, Dr. G ends her autopsy.
She must now wait at least three weeks for the toxicology report in order to conclusively rule on Peter's death.
But before the tox results arrive, detectives received the anxiously-awaited ballistics
report, and it delivers a stunning blow. STEVE MILD: The bullets that were found
were analyzed against the weapons that we had found at the country home. Unfortunately, they didn't match up to any of the weapons
that were in our possession. NARRATOR: After a full autopsy and a three-week investigation,
the prosecution still has no concrete evidence to link Garcia to the death of Peter Gibbs.
STEPHEN LUPTON: There is concern about the possibility that the evidence might not be convincing to a jury,
and that the jury might not find the suspect guilty. [OMINOUS HUM] NARRATOR: Despite a full autopsy,
Dr. G has not uncovered any hard evidence to link Andrew Garcia to the murder and dismemberment
of Peter Gibbs. And now, Peter's family fears the man who killed their loved one may go free.
STEVE MILD: The family is hoping that a case can be made strong enough to be able to get a conviction.
NARRATOR: But just when Dr. G is ready to close the book on the autopsy, she receives the toxicology back from the lab,
and the report reveals a finding so shocking, it threatens to turn the entire case on its head.
DR. G: You never know what you're going to find. You don't know if it's going to be important or not important.
So I was truly surprised when I got this tox back. [TENSE MUSIC] NARRATOR: The first thing Dr. G discovers is a small amount
of cocaine in Peter's blood. It wasn't enough to kill him, but it's clear that he
used it just before his death. DR. G: The cocaine was all very recently ingested,
which means he died very quickly after he ingested that cocaine. But there was something even more surprising.
He had a fatal level of strychnine in his blood. NARRATOR: Strychnine is a poison typically used to kill rodents.
It is highly toxic, and can lead to an extremely slow and painful death. DR. G: It's a stimulant.
It causes your muscle to be so overstimulated that it paralyzes them. It paralyzes your respiratory centers,
because they're so stimulated that you can't even breathe. Finding strychnine in his system was a complete
out-of-the-blue finding. I don't think anybody suspected it. And it certainly-- you couldn't see
anything with the internal exam that you would suspect it. Poisons in general are just gone out of favor,
but when I do see it, I tend to see arsenic, and I've seen cyanide. I have to say, is the first case of strychnine I'd ever had.
NARRATOR: Dr. G immediately phones the prosecutor Stephen Lupton to deliver the stunning news.
STEPHEN LUPTON: After the toxicology came back showing there was strychnine in the system of the victim,
then law enforcement went out to the scene of the crime and did a search. And they found strychnine, which is used for predator control.
It's a poison present at that location. NARRATOR: With the discovery of strychnine at Garcia's home
and in Peter Gibbs's blood, the prosecution is now certain that the strength of this evidence
will help secure conviction against Garcia. STEVE MILD: It's something that he's going to have an extremely
hard time explaining away. And it just bolsters our case that much more. NARRATOR: And with all the information in hand,
Dr. G can finally describe step-by-step how she believes this gruesome and unusual crime unfolded.
[LIGHT MUSIC] It's around 10:30 AM on a sunny Saturday morning, and Peter Gibbs arrives at Andrew Garcia's home
to collect a long-overdue debt. However, Garcia has no intention of paying him. DR. G: They gave him some cocaine,
probably laced with strychnine. Strychnine takes about 15, 30 minutes to act. And it causes your muscles to contract.
It almost looks like you're going into a seizure, but you're still awake. NARRATOR: Peter soon experiences a violent wave
of muscle contractions. But the effect is not what Garcia anticipated. DR. G: Poison's probably not working fast enough,
or it's not working the way he expected. Maybe he didn't expect the muscle contractions.
So he takes his gun and shoots him in the back of the head, not once, but twice.
Those bullets cause massive destruction to his brain, and within minutes, his heart stops beating.
NARRATOR: Peter is dead, but now Garcia needs to get rid of the evidence. DR. G: He drags him to another location, where
he then processes him by cutting off his legs, cutting off his arms, putting those in bags,
and then throws them into the water. [LIGHT MUSIC] NARRATOR: When investigators confront
Garcia with Dr. G's autopsy findings, he knows the game is over. STEVE MILD: The evidence that Dr.
G found was extremely crucial. It basically slammed the door on any possibilities of him being
able to work his way out of and get either a lighter sentence or even get off of the charge.
DR. G: Certainly finding strychnine in the body helped show that this was an intentional act, probably
premeditated. Once they confronted him with the evidence, he took a plea. NARRATOR: Garcia pleads guilty to the murder of Peter Gibbs,
but never confirms the details of the crime. STEPHEN LUPTON: There's no requirement in our state, when
a defendant pleads guilty, that he debriefs or tells the full story. So we never know what his story may be with regard
to strychnine or anything else. NARRATOR: The conviction brings some much-needed solace
to Peter's family. STEPHEN LUPTON: The defendant plead guilty to a charge of murder and received
a 35-year sentence in the Texas Department of Corrections. NARRATOR: For Dr. G, this is one of the most
satisfying aspects of her job. DR. G: It always feels good to know that you add a little piece of the puzzle to help a criminal be
held accountable for his crime. But you know what, it happens on a regular basis in the morgue.
That's why the job is so much fun. NARRATOR: In Dr. G's next case, the mystery is no less confounding and the stakes no less important.
We're going to see, is there any pieces of the puzzle that I can put together? Because the poor driver of the van wants to know what
happened. How come he didn't see him? [OMINOUS HUM] NARRATOR: It's a busy morning at Orlando's District 9 morgue,
but Dr. G always makes time for her kids. [PHONE RINGING] DR. G: I think this is Eric.
Wait a minute. Hello? Hey, how did you do? OK. So you're going to hang there? OK.
All right. I'll be there at 12:30, then. Bye, honey. Thanks for calling. NARRATOR: Her kids call frequently,
but visits are rare. They haven't come see me at work since Alex was four years old and he accidentally walked in.
And that's when he said he saw the calvarium off, and he told everybody I cut people's
heads off for a living. And the other one is really kind of, ooh. He's a little spooky about the whole death thing.
NARRATOR: But for Dr. G, understanding death is what makes her job so fascinating.
Dr. G carefully reads through the investigator's report of 55-year-old Raymond Morris.
And right away, it's clear that the case will be a difficult one. DR. G: Oh, boy.
We got a report from the hospital that somebody died in their ICU from being hit by a van.
NARRATOR: So far, all that's known about Raymond's death has been provided by the driver, Martin Stanhope.
[TRAIN HORN BLOWING] According to Martin, the trouble began just before dawn, as he was setting out on his newspaper delivery
route. [ENGINE STARTS] DR. G: He says he starts to back out, and he hears something.
He stops immediately, and he walks out, and he notices there's a man down right next to his tire.
MARTIN: You OK? DR. G: The guy's not breathing. The guy's not responding. And he's worried he ran over him.
Paramedics are called. Paramedics make the decision that it looks like they ran over his head.
NARRATOR: Raymond is swiftly transported to the hospital, but by the time he arrives at the ER, he's barely alive.
DR. G: They do a CAT scan, and they think they see some blood around the brain stem from the injury.
NARRATOR: But as doctors work to pinpoint the source of the bleeding, Raymond's condition
quickly deteriorates, and within hours, he dies in the ICU. [INAUDIBLE] NARRATOR: Now, Dr. G's priority will
be to determine exactly how the accident caused his death. DR. G: It's unclear what kind of trauma he has, so we'll see.
We'll hopefully get the facts of what's really going on with him and figure out what happened.
NARRATOR: Unfortunately, Dr. G has little in the way of background to go on. Investigators learn that Raymond was a former machinist who had
recently fallen on hard times. But that's pretty much all they know, and so far, they've been unable to track
down a single next of kin. DR. G: We can't find any family. The hospital couldn't find any family.
Our detectives couldn't find any families. My investigators can't find any families.
It's unusual. We try to exhaust all the resources we have, but we do get a handful every year.
Why do we do the autopsy even though we can't find any next of kin? Maybe nobody cares.
Believe it or not, society cares. The police want to know what happened. I want to know what happened.
NARRATOR: Still, Dr. G hopes to provide much-needed answers to Martin Stanhope, the driver of the van.
Martin is overwhelmed by the thought that he may have killed Raymond, and feels responsible for his death.
DR. G: Police felt that he truly was surprised about hitting him. So I don't think they're going to charge him with anything,
but he has a lot of guilt about this, and he would like to know what happened. He's baffled by what happened.
How come he didn't see him? NARRATOR: For Dr. G as well, the death of Raymond Morris
raises many questions. DR. G: It's unclear how trauma killed this fellow. Was he already on the ground when he hit?
Why is his head the one that's injured? What really happened? I don't know. The driver doesn't know.
And certainly, the police don't know. So we're going to see, is there any pieces
of the puzzle that I can put together to help figure out what really went on? Well, when I first saw his body, he certainly has evidence
of being in the hospital. He's a little bit disheveled. He's got a lot of tubes.
A tube out of his mouth, endotracheal tube that was hooked to a ventilator. His hands are edematous.
They've got needle sticks from IVs, and attempts to IV and draw blood. NARRATOR: And something else stands out about his hands.
He's got staining of the fingertips from smoking. NARRATOR: Dr. G's first step is to chart the external trauma
on Raymond's head. And sure enough, she finds evidence of injury right away. DR. G: On the right side of his face,
he's got like a one fourth by one fourth inch abrasion above his eyebrow. He's got a nice abrasion and contusion
on his cheekbone prominence that goes across to his ear. He's also got a small contusion on the right shoulder.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC] NARRATOR: But then Dr. G spots what could be another injury-- one that doctors might not have recognized.
DR. G: His belly's a little bit distended, a little bit firm to palpation. NARRATOR: This might be a sign of internal bleeding,
which would mean the van might have struck Raymond's torso as well. But to find out, Dr. G will need to open the body
and determine its cause. The question is, will her finding allay Martin's fears or confirm his worst nightmare?
So what we'll do is we'll look and see what kind of injuries we have, and maybe we can help piece
together what really went on. [OMINOUS HUM] NARRATOR: Dr. G is ready to autopsy the body of Raymond
Morris, who doctors believe was killed when Martin Stanhope ran him over with his van.
The fellow that's driving that van feels horrible. He's very guilty. He didn't see him.
But it's unclear exactly what happened, so we're going to have to open him up to really see what the injuries are.
NARRATOR: Dr. G begins the examination with a Y incision. She is on the hunt for any sign of fatal trauma.
DR. G: If it ran over his chest and not his head, then I would expect some rib fractures.
I would expect some contusion or bruising to the skin and to the musculature. If it ran over his abdomen, I would expect maybe a torn liver
or lacerated spleen. Oh, nice full bladder. Mm-mm-mm. OK. NARRATOR: With the organs exposed,
Dr. G carefully inspects them for any indication of damage. But what she sees is puzzling.
DR. G: At some point in the records, they felt that he had some type of abdominal injury.
So I open him up, and I incise that area, but there's no broken ribs that I can find.
There's no blood there. There's no trauma there. They said he had some internal injuries,
but it's certainly very underwhelming by looking at it. NARRATOR: But Dr. G can now see what
caused the abdominal swelling that she observed during this external exam-- fluid.
DR. G: His abdomen has a lot of edema fluid. That's because he's laid in the hospital for a day and a half,
pretty much dead. And they're still giving him fluids. They gave him a lot of fluids to try to get his blood pressure
up when he first got there. And this fluid has kind of just leaked out. It's in his abdominal cavity.
It's in his abdominal tissue. Ugh. I don't like going to the bone. There we go. NARRATOR: Next, Dr. G opens Raymond's
rib cage, and one by one, begins to examine his internal organs. DR. G: Of course, I start with his heart.
And his heart was of normal shape, normal size, but his coronaries were not good.
His are all very crunchy. He had severe narrowing to his coronary arteries. And when I mean severe, I mean 90% narrowing
to the coronary artery that supplies the front of the heart. 90% narrowing to the coronary artery
that supplies to the back of the heart, and almost as severe on the circumflex, the side of the heart.
He clearly has heart disease, clearly not something that we know about, or anybody--
I think-- knew about. It was not in any of his medical records that we found, and it was certainly unknown to the emergency staff
and to the doctors that took care of him for a day and a half. NARRATOR: At the very least, Raymond's diseased heart
would have made recovery from the accident very difficult. But Dr. G also wonders if the shock of being run over
could have actually induced a fatal arrhythmia, or even a heart attack. If you have a bad heart and you're hit by a car,
there's a good chance that you're not going to survive just because you have a weakened heart,
and the stress of the accident, and the pain, and everything that causes your blood pressure to go down
will certainly affect your heart even worse. His heart is a ticking time bomb. He could have had an arrhythmia with that heart at any time,
even in the best of circumstances. NARRATOR: But even to the trained eye of the medical examiner, an arrhythmia leaves no evidence.
So to confirm this as the official cause of death, Dr. G must first rule out everything else.
DR. G: His heart was enough to kill him alone, but it's unclear what's going on,
and I have to look at each organ to just see, what else are we going to find here?
The next thing to look at would be the lungs. Now, he had an X-ray in the hospital.
One doctor's reading this X-ray as normal, one reading it with severe disease. What is it?
When I look at his lungs, it's severe disease. NARRATOR: Dr. G can clearly see that the air
passages of Raymond's lungs are pocketed with pus. It's a sign that he suffered from pneumonia, an infection
of the lung tissue. This illness, a common complication for patients on ventilators, may have been contracted during Raymond's
time on life support. But to be sure, Dr. G will need to examine the lung tissue at the cellular level.
His lungs were in bad shape, and I needed to look at those under the microscope.
NARRATOR: But first, she must examine the remaining organs for any signs of trauma.
Unfortunately, the findings are once again slim. DR. G: Well, his stomach is remarkable only
that he had a feeding tube in. Sometimes when you get a feeding tube through your nose
down your esophagus and your stomach, it can cause some irritation and some superficial mucosa
ulcerations, and that's what he did. Just some irritation from the feeding tube, but really not much else.
He has no trauma to the liver. His spleen's intact. It's not torn. There's no hemorrhage in the back part of his abdomen,
in the retroperitoneal area. His kidneys look fine. There is no trauma in his abdomen,
and there is no trauma to the chest. And the rest of him is really not that remarkable.
NARRATOR: Which means only one thing-- the only trauma Raymond sustained in the accident
was an injury to the head. The question is, did it kill him? DR. G: We reflect the scalp, and I'm particularly
interested in the right area, where that abrasion in cheek were. And I really don't see any contusions.
Something's got to be going on arond there. He doesn't have any skull fractures.
And I'm thinking, well, he's got closed head injuries, so it's more on the inside in the brain.
This is a big van running over your head. I would expect maybe some hemorrhage overlying the brain,
or contusions to the brain, or bruising to the brain itself. NARRATOR: Dr. G's more technician, Brian Machulski,
uses an oscillating saw to open Raymond Morris's skull. And right away, Dr. G finds no sign of the blood the hospital
CAT scan supposedly detected. Instead, she finds that Raymond's brain is massively swollen.
DR. G: His brain is squeezing through the only opening it has, which is the base of the skull.
It's like squeezing the tube of a toothpaste. It's only going to go out the one hole.
NARRATOR: It's clear that the brain swelling is so severe, there's no way Raymond could have survived it.
And yet there's still something extremely puzzling about Raymond's injuries. In short, he doesn't have any.
DR. G: His brain is definitely swollen, but surprisingly, there's nothing else in the cranium.
It's no trauma. It's all due to lack of oxygen. NARRATOR: Dr. G's surprising conclusion?
Raymond's death is not a result of being run over by Martin's van. What killed him is lack of oxygen to the brain,
a condition called anoxic encephalopathy. When the brain doesn't get enough oxygen,
it's being injured. Those cells can die. The blood vessels are injured, and they
can start leaking and swelling. [INAUDIBLE] So now we got to dig a little deeper.
What was the reason for his brain not to get enough oxygen? Then we're going to have our answer.
[OMINOUS HUM] [LIGHT MUSIC] NARRATOR: Dr. G has just completed the autopsy of Raymond Morris.
She now knows what killed him-- fatal brain swelling. But she doesn't know what caused it.
DR. G: I have lack of oxygen. But that's a mechanism. That's not my cause. NARRATOR: For Dr. G, there's only one place left
to look for an explanation-- the microscopic slides of Raymond's heart and lung tissue.
DR. G: So ultimately, at the end of that autopsy, I needed to look at those micros,
because we don't have any trauma. He's got a bad heart. Is anything acute going on in his heart?
Is there anything acute or chronic going on in his lungs? NARRATOR: A few days later, the samples come in.
And all it takes is a single glance for Dr. G to conclude exactly what happened to Raymond Morris
that fateful morning in the parking lot. I think we've hit upon what the ultimate cause of death is.
[OMINOUS HUM] [TRAIN HORN BLOWING] NARRATOR: It's about 5:30 AM, and even though Raymond Morris
has been feeling sick for days, he spent the entire evening out at his local bar.
But he's growing extremely fatigued, and for good reason. Raymond is suffering from a severe lung infection.
DR. G: He certainly has an acute pneumonia, a pneumonia that he'd just gotten. But also a chronic older pneumonia.
So his pneumonia was quite extensive. NARRATOR: The tissue sample of Raymond's lungs
is the smoking gun, and shows that his infection was much worse than Dr. G could see at autopsy.
It appears older and more extensive than what would have occurred as a result of a respirator.
And now she knows why his brain was deprived of oxygen. Raymond's lungs were so damaged that he
literally couldn't breathe. You think of a sponge, and you have the little air spaces.
And that's where the air should go to exchange the oxygen for the carbon dioxide
in the surrounding blood vessels. But if those air pockets fill up with pus, it's hard to get air exchanged into your body.
NARRATOR: As Raymond leaves the bar just before dawn, his lungs are failing. Oxygen is still entering the organs,
but it can't be exchanged in the air pockets because they're clogged with pus and scar tissue.
It isn't long before Raymond grows short of breath, but there's no one around to help him.
Until he spots Martin Stanhope's van. DR. G: Once he sees that delivery van, he probably starts walking over to try
to tell him he's in distress. NARRATOR: But by this point, Raymond's lungs are barely functioning.
He can hardly breathe, much less call for help. And now his diseased heart begins to falter as well.
DR. G: That lack of oxygen is causing his heart to get irritable. That's the final coup de grace.
Goes into an arrhythmia. It's not pumping blood. Collapses, hitting the van most likely going down.
That's the hit that the guy feels. NARRATOR: That's when Martin Stanhope jumps out of the van
and finds the 55-year-old man sprawled out on the ground. At this point, Raymond's heart isn't beating,
and his brain begins to swell, pushing beyond the confines of his skull. He's rushed to the hospital, but by then, it's far too
late for anyone to save him. And so what turned out to be trauma with unsurvivable injuries after autopsy, as usual,
we find the truth. Turns out to be natural disease. He died ultimately from the lack of oxygen in the brain.
But what caused that, what caused that is his bad lung disease, both acute and chronic pneumonia, and his bad heart
disease, which probably caused him to have an arrhythmia. NARRATOR: With no next of kin, Dr. G's first phone call
is to Martin Stanhope to assure him that he was in no way responsible for Raymond's death.
DR. G: At least the driver knows that he didn't kill this fellow. [MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) I can hear your voice. You sound so alone-- NARRATOR: Sadly, however, Dr. G believes
this is one autopsy she shouldn't have had to perform. He himself could have gone to a clinic,
could have gone to the hospital before it was too late, before he collapsed, and got
treated for that pneumonia. Ultimately, like I usually see in this morgue, it's the choices you make that ultimately cause
you to die before your time. (SINGING) I've got problems on my own. This is the end.
Hope I will see you again. [WHOOSHING] MAN: Atlas.

As each lead turns cold in a gruesome murder case, Dr. G worries justice may never be served. As the autopsy draws to a end, Dr. G uncovers a shocking clue that may solve this crime.

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

Brief Summary

Dr. G investigates the murder of Peter Gibbs and the accidental death of Raymond Morris, revealing shocking truths in both cases.

Key points

Gruesome Discovery in Texas Swamp. Police find dismembered body parts in black plastic bags, leading to a murder investigation.
Shocking Toxicology Results. Toxicology reveals fatal levels of strychnine in the victim's blood, linking the suspect to the crime.
Fatal Brain Swelling Revealed. Dr. G discovers that Raymond's death was due to lack of oxygen, not trauma.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You never know what you're going to find.

Dr. G on the unpredictability of autopsies

21:30WatchJun 16, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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