Dr. G: Medical Examiner - Season 6, Episode 7 - Wounded - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: A young father dies under mysterious circumstances. He hasn't been feeling well for the past week.
And now he's dead. My god, wake up! What is going on? NARRATOR: But before the autopsy even begins,
Dr. G's astonished by what she sees. I am shocked at his appearance. There is something wrong with this picture.
NARRATOR: Then a man is found dead in his home, covered in blood. The son's story is that for no reason
his father starts stabbing himself. But police and Dr. G immediately question the son's bizarre story.
Police are not buying the son's story. They are very suspicious that maybe this kid stabbed his dad.
NARRATOR: Altered lives, baffling medical mysteries, shocking revelations. These are the everyday cases of Dr. G, Medical Examiner.
OK. Let's see. Wow. That's a lot of trauma. These two must have been really going fast.
A lot of people think sudden unexpected death is always some big catastrophic event, a car accident,
a sudden big heart attack. But often times, the cause of death is things going on in your body that are subtle.
And over time, eventually kill you. Oh, my God. No. That's why you've got to listen to your own body.
Woof, woof, woof, woof. This guy looks like he's a heart attack waiting to happen.
I understand some people don't like going to the doctor. I don't particularly like going to the doctor.
But you have to take control of your health. Because if you don't, you may end up on my table
like this next case. [ZIPPING] NARRATOR: It's a blistering hot afternoon in Kissimmee, Florida.
But 32-year-old Donald Finch is spending it in bed. And his sister, Kate, is concerned.
The sister said he hasn't been feeling well for the past week-- severe fatigue, stomach pains, chills, and possibly fever.
She went to bring him a little bit of fluid. NARRATOR: But when Kate returns, she comes face-to-face
with her worst nightmare. She sees him on the floor collapsed. Donald? Donald? NARRATOR: Horrified, she immediately calls 911.
And within minutes, paramedics arrive on the scene. But it was too late. He was dead.
[CRYING] The sister's just flabbergasted. She's been letting him live in her house for a year.
And she's been taking care of him. She can't believe that he died. She would like answers.
It's not that busy a day today. But it looks like it's, um-- they're starting to pile up.
NARRATOR: Dr. G reviews the case file, hoping it will shed some light on Donald's death.
Let's see. NARRATOR: But instead, what she gets is a heartbreaking glimpse into his life.
About a year ago, he lost his job. He separated from his wife. They had a child together.
But she moved away. And he didn't think he'd ever see her. And he had to move in with his sister.
And now, he's dead. Sounds like terrible luck. NARRATOR: Dr. G's urgent priority now
is to get to the bottom of this medical mystery. And they don't have any diagnosis.
And he really has no history that we know of for sure. I can't get any medical records, because he
doesn't go see a doctor. NARRATOR: With no medical records to go on, Dr. G must rely solely on what Donald's
sister told her investigators. According to his sister, he does smoke one and a half
to two packs a day. That's a lot of smoking. Smoking can cause everything from heart disease and heart
attack, to multiple different cancers, to chronic lung disease, and many things in between.
So that was one concern. But I don't know what the body is going to tell me yet.
OK. A week of not feeling well could be a lot of different things. Oh, here it is.
Let's see if we can start undressing him. Wow. Things are not looking good. I am shocked at his appearance.
He looks like death warmed over. He's awfully thin, too. He's thin. He's debilitated and wasted.
Oh, my God. That's tense. And his belly is sticking out. It is quite a shocking, disturbing look.
Yeah. This guy's not looking good. Something is clearly wrong with him. I can't believe that the sister didn't mention this.
I need the head. I need a head shot. NARRATOR: Donald's alarming appearance opens
up a host of new possibilities. Now that I see him, it's a whole different ball game.
I'm immediately thinking, AIDS-- maybe that's why he's wasted and in bed. NARRATOR: AIDS is a disease caused by HIV, a virus
that attacks the immune system. And some of its symptoms are the same as Donald's.
OK. Yeah, we need to get the other side. Yeah. You know, nowadays, I don't see HIV cases very frequently.
It is a treatable illness now. NARRATOR: And if this diagnosis proves true it could have serious implications for the loved
ones Donald left behind. If he has AIDS, does the family know? Did his wife know?
Did anybody know any of this? Did you get the sides of the neck, too? Did you get this?
NARRATOR: Dr. G checked Donald's body for telltale signs of the disease. I look in his mouth to see if he has kind
of these white pillar lines on the side of his tongue, which is called hairy leukoplakia,
a sure sign of AIDS. I don't see any. But there's nothing there. NARRATOR: But AIDS will remain a possibility
until she gets the results of Donald's blood work. All righty. NARRATOR: For now, she's keeping all her options open.
I'm thinking cancer, maybe even a chronic disease like a TB or a diabetes. NARRATOR: But as Dr. G's undressing Donald,
she stumbles across something so unexpected-- What is this? --it stops her dead in her tracks.
There's something wrong here. It's quite disturbing. He doesn't have underwear on.
He's got an adult diaper on. And it's soiled. This is about as bad as it gets. There's something wrong with this picture.
I got it. I got it. I've seen disposable diapers on adults. But they've had some chronic illness
that makes them incontinent. I've never really come across someone that just nonchalantly
starts wearing them. Could I see his back real quick? NARRATOR: And when Dr. G turns his body over,
she gets another surprise. Yuck! Look at this! NARRATOR: A bed sore on his backside.
Well, a bed sore we see not with just somebody in bed, but we see somebody not moving in bed.
That makes me worry. Why is he not moving around? We're going to have to see what is inside of him that's
causing him to look like this. What else we got cooking over here? NARRATOR: Next, Dr. G performs a y incision,
opening up Donald's abdominal cavity from his neck to his waist. And at that moment, she realizes--
Oh! --that something is horribly wrong. Oh, my gosh. That's, like, gross. As soon as you open that abdomen,
there is a hideous smell that comes out. It does smell bad. It just so happens that there is a decomposed body
in the room at the same time. That didn't smell half as bad as my guy. Yuck! What is going on?
I hate that smell. NARRATOR: Dr. G's still reeling from the overwhelming stench emanating from 32-year-old Donald Finch's open body.
Oh! It smells like vomit! I hate vomit! Nah, you just aren't used to it. I deal with a lot of different smells.
But that smell is one of the worst I'd ever encountered. It's not nice. Now I'm really wondering what's going on.
NARRATOR: But first, Dr. G must collect blood for a variety of test and cultures.
I will, of course, do an HIV test on him. And I will take blood cultures, see if there's any bacteria
growing in his blood. NARRATOR: With the samples drawn, she cuts deeply into Donald's abdominal cavity,
trying to locate the source of the odor. And immediately, Dr. G realizes that something is
terribly wrong with his bowel. Wow. Look at that. Something funky is going on up here.
His bowel is huge. Nothing else could get your attention. NARRATOR: The bowel is a muscular tube that forms part
of the body's digestive system. So a normal bowel is maybe that big around. His is the size of a basketball.
Oh, my God. And then, the bowel wall looks like a balloon ready to burst. Oh, my gosh.
I hate it. It's thin, and it's under pressure. Something's wrong here! He's clearly got a bowel obstruction.
NARRATOR: In a healthy individual, solid waste material, or feces, passes through the bowel on its way to being eliminated from the body.
But in Donald's case, something is preventing this from happening. The fecal material can't get out of the bowel.
That's gross. So he's clearly-- something else is going on. NARRATOR: Dr. G is now determined to figure out
what's blocking Donald's bowel. I'm not doing anything till we figure this out. NARRATOR: She wonders if he could have been suffering
from a condition called volvulus, in which a loop of the bowel becomes abnormally twisted.
Maybe the bowels have turned on itself. This is if you kink a hose and the water can't get through.
NARRATOR: To find out, Dr. G inspects the bowel all the way to Donald's rectum. It is the glamorous part of the job.
NARRATOR: But to her surprise, she comes up empty-handed. There was no volvulus.
The bowel wasn't kinked. This might just be a cancer. NARRATOR: If Donald has cancer of the bowel,
he could have developed malignant tumors large enough to cause an obstruction. I don't see anything.
But there was no tumor anywhere. There's just no cancer in his abdomen at all. NARRATOR: Finally, Dr. G cuts into the bowel itself
so she can examine it from the inside. I knew this was not going to be pleasant.
This would keep a lot of people out of this profession. Wow. NARRATOR: And what she finds there is unlike she's
ever seen before. When I open up the bowel, I get my answer. Oh, gross. I see what it is.
He's got a fecal impaction. NARRATOR: A fecal impaction is an unusual and painful
condition in which a solid mass of hardened feces, or stool, builds up in the bowel, causing a blockage.
That is really bizarre. In his case, the fecal material has gotten so large that it's blocked
up the bowel to the point where it kind of just causes a jam. And the rest of the stool just started building up behind it.
Oh, this is just disgusting. The biggest fecal ball was about the size of a football.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. And then there were multiple other hard balls the size of a baseball.
We got 18 or 19 big wads of something. It was quite the sight. Nothing could get through it except some liquid stool,
which is why he had to wear the disposable diaper. That had to be a lot of pain.
I find a lot of this unbelievable. Did he not have a sense of what was going on inside of his bowel?
What is it that's causing him to live with this pain? I'm afraid to touch it. It was slipping all over the place.
In my years as a medical examiner, I had never seen that before. At this point, I don't know what to think.
NARRATOR: The case of 32-year-old Donald Finch has just taken an unexpected turn.
His bowel is jam-packed with fecal matter. And in more than two decades of performing autopsies,
Dr. G has never seen anything like it. That's disgusting. It was really quite remarkable to see that much stool
in a human body. Oh, my gosh. You can't live like that. Basically, I know that that fecal impaction
is to blame for his death. But I don't know really what's causing him to have a fecal impaction.
I'll get those out. And then you can get the rest out. The only people I've seen fecal impactions in
are usually debilitated people, old people who are bedridden. We know he has a bed sore.
So he's clearly not getting out of bed. The real question is, what is making him bedridden?
What's causing this in a 32-year-old man? NARRATOR: Thinking back to the external exam
Dr. G now wonders if her earlier theory about AIDS might be correct. That could have made him debilitated
enough to stay in bed. NARRATOR: But to find out, she must wait for Donald's blood
work to come back from the lab. We're going to pin this case. LAB ASSISTANT: [INAUDIBLE].
NARRATOR: One week later, Donald's blood cultures are delivered to the District 9 morgue.
And they immediately reveal one thing. Yeah. There we go. He's clearly got a lot of E. coli.
NARRATOR: E. coli is a common type of bacteria that is usually contained in the bowel.
But in Donald's case, the pressure from the build up of feces has allowed the bacteria to seep into the bloodstream,
causing a deadly infection. The bacteria getting into his bloodstream caused his final illness.
But that's just the mechanism of how he finally died. That's still not giving me the answer.
We want what caused the bowel obstruction in the first place. NARRATOR: Now she is more anxious than ever
to examine Donald's blood tests. I'm really thinking he's got AIDS, and this is what's going to cause all of his problems.
NARRATOR: Unfortunately, the report proves to be a dead end. His HIV test was negative.
It's frustrating. I don't know what happened to him. That doesn't make any sense.
NARRATOR: And there's only one tool left in Dr. G's arsenal-- the microscopics. One by one, she reviews the slides of Donald's nerves
and spinal cord, searching for any signs of infection that could have caused him to be bedridden.
But I don't see any evidence of infection. So I really need, at this point, to call the sister.
She needs to give me more answers. KATE (ON TELEPHONE): Hi, I have a question for you.
NARRATOR: Over the phone, Dr. G describes for Kate the circumstances that led to her brother's death.
Then she probes for more clues. I asked her, why didn't you tell me he was bedridden?
She said he wasn't. He would get up when he wanted to. But for months, he'd lay in bed and not want to move.
NARRATOR: Now Dr. G is truly stumped. I told her I don't have a medical reason that
would have caused all this. NARRATOR: But finally, Kate reveals a surprising detail
about her brother's past. She told me a really important piece of the puzzle that I wish I'd have known at the beginning.
NARRATOR: On the afternoon of his death, 32-year-old Donald Finch is trapped in bed, fighting what appears to be a bad case of the flu.
But Dr. G now knows he's suffering from something far more insidious and devastating.
According to the sister, he was severely depressed. It all started about a year ago when he broke up with his wife.
They had a child together. And it became clear to him that he was never going to be able to get into that little girl's
life again. And that was devastating for him. He sank into a deeper and deeper depression.
NARRATOR: Soon Donald stops eating and slowly begins to waste away. He laid in bed and didn't move for long periods of time.
That's how severe his depression was. NARRATOR: And his prolonged immobility eventually causes a bed sore to form on his backside.
He didn't care. I just think he lost the will to live. But Dr. G believes that Donald's depression
also set into motion a deadly chain reaction inside his body. Our bodies are meant to move.
When we don't move, bad things happen. His bowels became sluggish to the point where
firm, hard stools started developing, to the point where it became obstructed, to the point where no stool could get through.
He must have had tremendous abdominal pain. But I don't think that was matching the pain that he was feeling for the loss of his daughter.
NARRATOR: As Donald's stool continues to build up, his bowel becomes stretched to the breaking point,
with disastrous consequences. The bacteria which had been confined in his bowel gets translocated into his blood vessels.
NARRATOR: With E. coli bacteria loose in his bloodstream, Donald developed a massive infection that overwhelms
his already weakened body. He gets out of bed. His blood pressure drops. He collapses.
And it doesn't take long before he dies. That's really sad. Because he's a really young guy.
He comes from a good family. It's just a tragedy. NARRATOR: After a four week investigation,
Dr. G is finally able to give Kate some conclusive answers about her brother's death.
She was a little surprised. She didn't think that depression could kill you. We have people who are depressed that come through our morgue
all the time. Depression is a serious medical illness that ultimately can kill. If you have major depression, if you
know somebody with major depression, seek help. Things can be done for depression.
It's a treatable illness. NARRATOR: The case of Donald Finch is yet another example of a death that
could have been prevented if only he would have listened to his body. But sometimes a death is so sudden,
there are no signs at all. I just find it odd that he starts stabbing himself out of the blue.
What's leading up to this? This is a case that is somewhat bizarre. We have a 49-year-old male that lives with his 15-year-old son.
And the son's story is that for no reason, his father starts stabbing himself. NARRATOR: It's just before 10:00 AM on Saturday morning
when the Orange County emergency dispatch center receives a frantic call from 15-year-old Damian Harper.
He calls 911 and says my dad stabbed himself. NARRATOR: Moments later, paramedics
arrive to a grisly scene. [INTERPOSING VOICES] They tried resuscitation, take him to the hospital,
but there's nothing I can do. He's pretty much dead on arrival. [SIREN BLARING] NARRATOR: Now it's up to Sgt. Brennan of the Orlando Police
Department to get to the bottom of this strange and disturbing set of circumstances.
It appeared to be a very violent scene. We found signs of a struggle, a lot of blood.
The son's story is that, for no reason, his father grabs a kitchen knife and starts stabbing himself.
But Damian's story is so bizarre that police are immediately suspicious. The fact that the father had multiple stab wounds
was so out of the ordinary that it led you to believe that it was a homicide. We oftentimes see suicides with cutting instruments.
It's rare to see stabbings. Typically, it's more of a slashing or a slicing or a cutting rather than a stabbing.
NARRATOR: And it isn't long before police notice something else that makes them even more suspicious.
The son had injuries to his hand that made us believe that he was possibly involved in an altercation with his father.
NARRATOR: Now Sgt. Brennan is counting on Dr. G to help determine if Damien killed
his own father in cold blood. You know, the police don't know really what to believe at this point.
But they suspect that kid. So they want to know my opinion on what I think happened.
Is it a suicide? Is it a homicide? NARRATOR: The next morning, the body of Jack Harper
arrives at the District 9 Morgue. All right. Let's see here. Let's see here. NARRATOR: As a first step, Dr. G reviews
the investigators' report. We don't know anything about his medical history or social history.
We really don't know what his life was like. Where does one begin here? All I have is that this is a person that's multiply stabbed.
He's got some really significant wounds to his neck and some stab wounds to the chest.
Now everybody always wonders, why do we bother doing an autopsy? By golly, this person's stabbed.
Why bother? We all know why this person died. Well, no! There's more to it. What can we gather from this autopsy that could help
explain what happened that day? Because the only person that's talking is the son,
and he's a suspect. Can we confirm or deny this story that he's telling? NARRATOR: In fact, this particular scenario
is so troubling, Sgt. Brennan decides to sit in on the actual autopsy. We were hoping that the examination would reveal just
exactly how the father incurred his injuries, whether or not they were self-inflicted,
as the son had alleged, or whether or not they were possibly from a homicide. Sometimes the nature of the wounds
internally help us decide whether it's a suicide or a homicide. NARRATOR: For instance, if Jack was stabbing himself,
Dr. G would expect to see only one fatal wound. Typically with the suicides, we have
one wound that's really bad. And we don't see a lot of wounds that are really bad.
He'd be losing consciousness too fast to keep going. So does he have multiple wounds that
would have caused his death? If that's true, we know that he's probably not doing it to himself.
If that's the case, it really looks bad for that kid's story. But we want to see what the forensics tell us.
Even though the police don't believe the son's story, I have to keep an open mind.
I'm going to let the body speak for itself. Yeah. So the first thing I look at is just the general appearance
of the body. And he's got a tremendous amount of blood on him. NARRATOR: Morgue technician Carlo Gonzalez
carefully washes away the dried blood covering Jack's upper torso. Then, wound by wound, Dr. G begins a painstaking
examination of the injuries. Well, the first thing you see is these five stab wounds
that just catch your eye. They go across the chest. They're all angled, all about the same size.
The next thing I do is turn my attention to the neck. I was told there was really quite severe incised wounds.
All righty. An incised wound is longer than it is deep. And he's got two of them.
He's got one that's seven inches long. But that one's fairly superficial. Then he's got one that's gaping, that's about four inches.
That actually goes into and through the subcutaneous tissue. NARRATOR: But surprisingly, neither of these wounds
appear severe enough to be fatal. Next, Dr. G cleans the remaining dried blood from Jack's neck.
And what lies underneath could turn the entire case upside down. It was interesting.
When we removed that blood, something else showed up. Oh, my. [INAUDIBLE]? NARRATOR: Dr. G has just made a shocking discovery
in the external exam of 49-year-old Jack Harper. These two are [INAUDIBLE]. Oh, look at that.
After I wash him off, I notice that he's got five hesitation marks on the left side of the neck.
NARRATOR: Hesitation marks are small, superficial, self-inflicted cuts. This discovery is the first piece of concrete evidence
that could suggest Damien is telling the truth. These marks on the side of his neck
are classic for the father thinking about committing suicide. NARRATOR: And as Dr. G examines these cuts more closely,
she finds yet another clue that points towards suicide. There's kind of a curvilinear pattern to some of those
and suggests that he might have been holding the knife. If a son is standing from behind,
the natural tendency would be to have them diagonal. And if a father and son are having an altercation,
that's going to be a rough and tumble, quick kind of action. I don't think the 15-year-old son is sitting
there torturing the father. Now I'm kind of wondering, hm, maybe he did this to himself.
NARRATOR: But many questions remain. What about the cuts on Damien's hands? And if it is suicide, why?
In over two decades on the job, she's never seen anything quite like it. I can't imagine who would do this to themselves.
NARRATOR: Still, the only way to know for sure if Jack took his own life is to examine the severity
of his other injuries. I need to see what's going on with those stab wounds of the chest.
NARRATOR: With scalpel in hand, Dr. G makes her standard Y-shaped incision down Jack's torso.
When you have all these wounds, you still gotta do your normal procedure or you're going to forget something.
So you still gotta do your tox and your panels. NARRATOR: She carefully collect samples of Jack's blood
and sends them off to the lab for analysis. Is he under the influence of drugs? Is that what caused him to possibly kill himself?
We don't know yet. But you always take tox. NARRATOR: Then Dr. G begins charting the path of each wound
to determine if more than one of them could be potentially fatal. Where are these stab wounds going?
Got something to measure it? Two of the stab wounds go downward. And they go through the diaphragm and into the liver.
One of them goes pretty deep in the liver. Not a lot of blood has accumulated in that abdominal cavity from those liver wounds,
maybe about 100 cc's that I can kind of gather up. You've got the rest [INAUDIBLE]..
NARRATOR: This tells Dr. G that the injuries to Jack's liver were not fatal. He probably could have survived
those stab wounds to the liver. NARRATOR: She then turns her attention to the injuries
in Jack's chest cavity, and with just one glance, she can see that they're the most severe.
Oh, my gosh. Look at that. When I opened that floor cavity up, it has 300 cc's which has spilled
into each pleural cavity. NARRATOR: Dr. G ladles out the blood so she can get a better
look at Jack's heart sac. His pericardial sac has a stab wound through it. And there is a slice through that heart.
He's not going to survive that stab wound to the heart. That really is the one that got him.
NARRATOR: At this point, Dr. G is determined that even though Jack had five stab wounds,
only one was fatal. We've got hesitation marks, as if he's holding the knife. We have no defensive wounds on him.
And there's only one true major wound. And so if you put that all together, it really is making homicide go down on our radar and suicide
go up. NARRATOR: But these findings raise an even more perplexing question. What could have caused Jack to take his own life in such
a brutal and bizarre way? The question is not the cause of death. The question is the manner of death.
Is it truly just a totally impulsive act? Or is it some psychiatric problem? Is it some medical problem?
NARRATOR: And there's only one place left to look for clues, the brain. Believe it or not, there are many things in the brain that
may precipitate some type of abnormal, acute change in behavior. NARRATOR: As a first step, Dr. G cuts across the top
of Jack's head, slicing from ear-to-ear and reflecting the scalp. He does have a contusion or bruise to the scalp,
but it looks like when he must have collapsed, because there's really no underlying
bleeding over the skull. There's no skull fracture. NARRATOR: She then extracts the brain
and carries it to the dissecting table for a closer inspection. And I section the brain.
I don't see anything that suggests any natural disease. I don't see anything there, either.
The brain looks completely normal except pale. But you will see that with a bleeding out.
NARRATOR: With this, the autopsy comes to a close. At the end of this autopsy, it really looks like it's
going to be a suicide. But we still need some information. My job will be getting the medical records
and I'm going to have Sgt. Brennan to ask the son more about the father's behavior
prior to this. Is it truly out of the blue? We may never know why he did this, but we won't know unless we start asking some questions.
NARRATOR: Dr. G had just completed the autopsy of 49-year-old Jack Harper, whose
bizarre death appears to be a suicide due to self-inflicted stab wounds. So at this point, we're kind of looking
at this more as a suicide. But if it's a suicide, I just find it odd that it would be out of the blue.
What's leading up to this? I need to get his medical records. NARRATOR: Several days later, the records arrive
at the District 9 morgue. And they immediately reveal one thing. The father does have a history of depression,
had been seeing a psychiatrist. But what's troubling is, on the last visit, he complained to the psychiatrist
that he really started to think people were after him. He really started to have some kind of paranoid thoughts.
NARRATOR: Jack's son Damien confirms that his father had been exhibiting some odd behavior in the days leading up
to his death. And the son is saying that the father's acting really strange. He's hearing these voices.
And then the next thing he knows, the father picks up a knife and starts stabbing himself.
NARRATOR: While it's extremely unusual Dr. G must now consider the possibility that Jack's underlying depression somehow
led to feelings of paranoia, and ultimately, a full on psychotic break. So possibly, his depression, maybe, was getting so bad
that he did become psychotic. People can have these brief psychotic episodes and may never have one again.
Maybe that's what it is. And unfortunately, he committed suicide because of it. But that's really, really rare.
The only last piece of the puzzle is the toxicology. When I get the toxicology report,
I'm actually quite surprised at what I found. Because I do think it adds another piece to the puzzle.
And I really didn't think it would. He had cyclobenzaprine in him. NARRATOR: Cyclobenzaprine is a muscle relaxant that
is commonly prescribed to help relieve the pain of a muscle spasm. A lot of people are on cyclobenzaprine.
But interesting, his level is very high, really high enough to be toxic. Does that explain what happened?
It certainly could have. NARRATOR: It's a lazy Saturday morning at the Harper home in Orange County, Florida.
15-year-old Damien is trying to enjoy his breakfast, even though his dad Jack has been acting
a little strange as of late. He's had kind of a rocky road with his depression and anxiety.
He also felt that people were starting to follow him. He's really starting to get a little bit paranoid.
At some point, probably a week, a day prior to this incident, he must've sprained his back or sprained a muscle.
[INAUDIBLE]. Then he gets a prescription for cyclobenzaprine. NARRATOR: But as the toxicology results
reveal, Jack's cyclobenzaprine level was exceptionally high. Now the question is why is it that high?
Was he maybe having some more muscle spasm and just took, you know, one's good, 2, 3, 4 may be better.
NARRATOR: Although Dr. G can't be certain, she believes the elevated level caused
a very rare but extremely dangerous side effect of the drug. When cyclobenzaprine gets at that toxic level,
the known side effect of that is to become psychotic, start hearing voices. And probably, that is what then led him to pick up that knife
and started stabbing himself. He first starts hesitating, he cuts his throat. NARRATOR: At some point, Damien tries to step in.
He attempts to grab the knife from his dad and gets cut in the process. Dad! [INAUDIBLE]
The father's able to fend him off and continue stabbing himself. He stabs his liver.
He cuts his heart, loses blood pressure. He collapses on the ground. His son is finally able to call 911.
[PHONE DIALING] Ambulance gets there, rushes him to the hospital. [SIREN BLARING]
But it's too late. They can't save him. NARRATOR: With this, Dr. G reaches out to Sgt. Brennan
to share her final ruling on what is perhaps the strangest suicide she's ever come across.
Dr. G's findings close this case as a suicide. And as a result, the son was no longer a suspect
in his father's death. Even though we've relieved any suspicion on his son, I'm sure the son is devastated with the death of his father.
It was terribly traumatizing to have his dad act in that way. If that father was in his right mind,
I'm sure he wouldn't have done that. Unfortunately he was not in his right mind.
And the person that really pays the price is the son.

A teen is eating breakfast when his dad starts stabbing himself. As the investigation unfolds, police begin to doubt the story. Dr. G must determine if this was a suicide or a murder.

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

Brief Summary

Two deaths reveal the tragic consequences of untreated depression and its physical effects.

Key points

A Mysterious Death. A young father dies under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind a baffling case.
The Shocking Discovery. Dr. G uncovers a shocking medical mystery involving a fecal impaction.
The Role of Depression. Dr. G reveals how depression can lead to physical health decline and death.
Shocking Autopsy Findings. Dr. G discovers hesitation marks on Jack's neck, suggesting a possible suicide.
Unusual Behavior Before Death. Jack's son Damien reveals his father's strange actions leading up to the incident.
Final Ruling on the Case. Dr. G concludes the case as a suicide, relieving the son of suspicion.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Oh, my God.

1:56WatchJun 22, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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