Dr. G: Medical Examiner - Season 7, Episode 1 - Clue Game - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: A retired gentle is found dead on his porch, surrounded by bizarre clues.
DR. G: There are so many things in play that it's almost like a mystery board game.
NARRATOR: And that autopsy, Dr. G is in for the surprise of her life. Whoa. Oh my gosh.
Totally unexpected. Totally out of the blue. Something that trumps everything. NARRATOR: Then a mother and father come face to face
with their worst nightmare. DR. G: Can you imagine, your beautiful daughter, and you
walk in and she's dead in bed? NARRATOR: Now Dr. G is determined to find out what happened to her, but it won't be easy.
Something is not quite right. NARRATOR: Altered lives, baffling medical mysteries,
shocking revelations. These are the everyday cases of "Dr. G Medical Examiner." [MUSIC PLAYING]
It's 8:00 AM at the District 9 morgue and the case has just come in that threatens to shock even a 25 year
autopsy veteran like Dr. G. Oh. Oh. Oh. He's got problems. But I haven't been on that side of the body yet.
We have a 69-year-old man that's kind of a mystery. What is on the back of that one?
There's something funky right there. What's going on here? NARRATOR: It all began 16 hours earlier.
[MUSIC PLAYING] It's 4:00 PM and most of the staff is wrapping up, but Bill Stratton, the medical investigator
is just starting his shift. It's impossible to work a 9:00 to 5:00. We're the ones that respond to the scene to initiate
the death investigation. It's kind of like a waiting game. We never know what to expect.
People don't make appointments to die. We never know when it's gonna occur. There is no way that we're gonna tell when it's gonna
be busy and when it isn't. NARRATOR: This afternoon seems like a slow one, but all
too soon the phone rings. Medical examiner's office, Bill Stratton speaking. The police give me a call.
They have a 69-year-old male and the scene that suggests oddities. Something doesn't add up.
Something's not right. They want me to respond right away and help them get to the bottom of this.
OK. Well, let's go take a look at this gentleman. Bill loves these kind of cases.
He is a great investigator because he's so inquisitive. If anybody is going to see detail, it's gonna be Bill.
And he gets excited about every case. That's the beauty of Bill. That's why I like so much.
He's very enthusiastic. We'll get a better idea once we get out to the scene, but it could be anything.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: On a sunny afternoon in February, Phil Dempsy walks over to visit his neighbor,
retired factory workers 69-year-old, Ernesto Vasquez. DR. G: When he gets up to him, he realizes
something is not quite right. He immediately calls authorities. EMS comes out. NARRATOR: Paramedics arrive right away,
but sadly they're too late. DR. G: He is already clearly dead, and they pronounced him.
And Bill goes out and investigates the scene. BILL STRATTON: As I walked up to the front of the house,
sitting on the porch is a man in a chair dressed in a robe and undershorts. And on the table there was a handgun,
a knife, and three vials of-- of medications and the caps were off. So the scene was just very odd.
DR. G: There's certainly no evidence that he used the knife or the gun, but two of these vials
are pretty powerful narcotics. They're both oxycodone in two different forms. The third one is a benzodiazepine,
an anti-anxiety drug. BILL STRATTON: After looking at the medications and seeing the date that they were prescribed
and the amount that were filled, there were about 60 pills absent from the vials
that should have been there. DR. G: Those prescriptions were just gotten two days ago.
So that's a boatload of pills missing. Something bad is going on. BILL STRATTON: Once I completed my examination,
I was trying to move the body to the medical examiner's office. DR. G: I have a lot of bizarre cases,
but this is bizarre in that there were so many different clues. I don't know why the gun, the knife, and the vials are there,
but this case is starting to become like a Clue board game. [MUSIC PLAYING] What you got, Bill?
Well, we have a 69-year-old white male sitting on the front porch. Natural death maybe.
Suspicious death maybe. Looks like a mystery. - It is a mystery. - All right. Thanks, Bill.
NARRATOR: Dr. G begins by reviewing Bill's report for any information on Ernesto's history that could prove
useful to her investigation. We don't know much about this fellow. He's a 69-year-old gentleman who's retired.
He was a factory worker up north, came here to retire. His wife has died a couple of years ago,
and the only next of kin is an adult son, uh, that lives up north that had little contact with him.
He really doesn't know what had been going on. He just knew his dad was depressed
and trying to work through it. NARRATOR: Based on this history, along with the biggest
clue of all, 60 missing prescription pills, Dr. G can't help but fear the worst.
Was he thinking about how to commit suicide? Probably contemplating the knife? Eh, too messy.
The gun? Oh, but violent. I'll go with the medication. NARRATOR: It's also possible that
Ernesto unintentionally OD'd. BILL STRATTON: An accidental death from an overdose
of medications is possible. You take a couple of pills, pain pills, makes your pain go away.
You take a couple of more, you feel a little bit better, and you keep taking them.
You forget that you took them. Maybe that's why the lids are off. NARRATOR: Even though the scene is a strange one,
she'll have to keep in mind this 69-year-old might have simply succumbed to the effects of old age.
DR. G: Natural disease is something that is a possibility. Certainly a heart attack or coronary artery disease
or heart disease from hypertension would be the number one reason why somebody would die suddenly
and unexpectedly. NARRATOR: Dr. G also considers that it might have just been a tragic fatal accident.
DR. G: I've had people just sitting in a chair and they have brain trauma from a previous fall
earlier in the day, or something happened to them. He could have fallen earlier in the day,
had a-- a head injury that was a very slow bleed, and then finally it caused his death sitting in the chair.
NARRATOR: But on everyone's mind is the specter of foul play. BILL STRATTON: We know there's a weapon right next to him.
There's a handgun and a knife. That's a little suspicious. It's possible this man could have been murdered.
It could be foul play, a homicide. You never know what's going on, and this is a bizarre case.
[MUSIC PLAYING] We do have his height somewhere, right? MAN 1: I put it on there.
NARRATOR: Dr. G is preparing for the autopsy on retired factory worker Ernesto Vasquez.
There are so many things in play that it's almost like a mystery board game. NARRATOR: Meanwhile, his sudden death has left his son
Michael desperate for answers. BILL STRATTON: He felt despondent and emotionally upset about the loss of his father.
DR. G: He was really worried that this was a suicide. There's always that guilt that surrounds people
when someone commits suicide. Could they have prevented it? I think that's what that son was most anxious about.
I feel bad for him. NARRATOR: Now it's up to Dr. G to sort fact from fiction and determine exactly what claimed Ernesto Vasquez's life.
That's why the medical examiner's office exists. I have to do an autopsy and-- and find out what the facts are.
So we'll see what we can find. [MUSIC PLAYING] All right. Let's see. He must be pretty old.
When I first look at him, he looks older than the stated age of 69. He shows some chronic kind of sun exposure,
like he's really tanned himself over the years. NARRATOR: And on his face, Dr. G notices another clue that makes
this case even more twisted. Oh. He's got a scar there. I see little scars at the hairline.
The guy's had a facelift. Facelift? That's just so weird to see that on a man his age.
NARRATOR: Dr. G can tell that this surgery was performed recently, most likely in the last few years.
This is gonna be weirder than I think. Oh god. Then I see he's got these loop earrings in his ear.
He's got a gaudy-- gaudy watch on, and an open back toe ring. Then underneath his clothes, she
discovers an unexpected detail that sheds more light on Ernesto's taste in jewelry.
Oh my god. Look at his nipples. You open the robe and you realize things are really bizarre.
This 69-year-old man has nipple piercings with rings in place, and they look rather fresh.
NARRATOR: Dr. G is surprised these recent piercings seemed out of character for Ernesto.
According to his son, he'd always been quite conservative. DR. G: This guy has some kind of funky lifestyle
after his wife died. Maybe he's trying to cope. It's not your typical grief reaction,
but we all grieve in different ways. NARRATOR: But Dr. G can't let the strangeness
distract her from the goal. She continues searching his body inch by inch for any evidence that might reveal
what happened to Ernesto. Of course I look to see if there's evidence of previous suicide.
Let me see his wrist. He's got a little scar on one of his wrists, but not what we typically see.
It looks like some kind of healed trauma. I look at his head for evidence that maybe he fell.
Still got a-- a full head of gray hair, but I don't see any trauma there. There's certainly no laceration.
Just absolutely nothing wrong. I can't totally rule out foul play, but there's certainly no evidence of trauma externally.
Let me look at the rest and see what else is going on. [MUSIC PLAYING] We're looking for any trauma to his head, bleed to his head,
uh, any kind of natural disease. Are we gonna find anything on this fellow? I remove the calvarium, look at his brain.
Now, his brain shows some mild atrophy. Just a little bit shrunken. It could indicate some dementia, but when I section the brain,
it seems very mild. So I suspect it's just some age related, uh, atrophy. It's not something that would have killed him.
NARRATOR: After the through examination, Dr. G comes up empty handed. We've ruled out all the natural disease
that could occur to his head. The stroke, the bleeds, and we've certainly ruled out a fault for any kind of trauma to his head.
NARRATOR: No closer to Ernesto Vasquez's cause of death, Dr. G will have to dig deeper for answers.
Dr. G does enjoy the difficult cases that are a little more complicated than your routine, sudden, unexpected death
or violent death. I mean, she will get to the bottom of this. All right. [MUSIC PLAYING]
We do our typical Y incision. When I open him up, what we're looking for with our first glance is evidence of trauma,
evidence of bleeding. But there's no rib fractures. He doesn't really have anything.
All right, that's-- there's nothing. NARRATOR: At this point, Dr. G can rule out
foul play as a cause of death. But if Ernesto wasn't murdered, what did kill him?
We need to now take our toxicology because this may be the key. We are really worried that this is an overdose
because I do have 60 pills missing. We're gonna have to wait for tox on that. OK.
Let's see what his liver looks like. When I look at the abdominal cavity, the liver looks fine.
The spleen is fine. Uh, it all looks normal. NARRATOR: Everything inside Ernesto Vasquez's body
is bafflingly perfect, until Dr. G reaches an organ deep inside the abdomen. DR. G: He had a kidney cancer in not just one kidney,
but both kidneys. That's a serious cancer. It was getting advanced. It looks like he would have had problems with it,
but it doesn't look at this point that it's his cause of death. It's hard to say for sure.
OK. So we'll go ahead and take the heart out. Maybe he just has a heart attack, and would be the number one reason why
somebody would die suddenly. Threw it away. It's big. The heart is enlarged. It weighs 500 grams.
I look at the coronary arteries. The blood vessels that supply the blood to the heart,
it was narrowed about 80%. This-- this guy was a ticking time bomb. He certainly could have just sat down and had an arrhythmia.
Why he has the gun, the knife, and the pills next to him, I don't know. NARRATOR: This is shaping up to be even more of a mystery
than Dr. G expected. Is it the cancer? Is it the drugs? Is it the heart? Any one of these things could have killed him.
NARRATOR: But suddenly, she starts a surprising new piece of evidence. That's nasty.
That's nasty. Oh my gosh. Totally unexpected. Totally out of the blue. Something that trumps everything.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: In the mysterious clue game that surrounds 69-year-old Ernesto Vazquez's death,
suicide, cancer, or an arrhythmia are all possible killers. He's got a lot of bad things going on.
NARRATOR: But as Dr. G sections his lungs, she makes a shocking discovery. DR. G: Oh my god.
That one's just full of clot. He's got bilateral pulmonary thromboemboli, blood clots that
totally occlude or fill up the blood vessels that go to his lungs. They look like long worms.
They literally look about the size as my finger. They're dark. It's like a big blood clot, but it's like the cast of the vein.
NARRATOR: Without seeking help, there's no way Ernesto could have survived this.
Incompatible with life. Huh? This trumps everything. So the last thing I do is I have to find
where those clots come from. NARRATOR: Dr. G dissects the legs, the place where blood clots most commonly form.
And lo and behold, that's what I find. He's still got the blood clot, uh, in the calf vein.
So I have a cause of death, but I still have a mystery. I don't know why the gun, the knife, and the vials are there.
The 60 missing pills are a problem for me. And I want to pin this for the toxicology.
NARRATOR: Unfortunately, this means that Ernesto's son Michael will have to continue
waiting for an answer. It's difficult whenever I pend a death certificate. He's still anxious to know what happened, but the son was OK.
I told him I'm just not sure what all these clues are telling me. BILL STRATTON: She's a fantastic doctor.
She's very thorough, very efficient. Uh, she really gets emotionally involved in the cases.
She's very good with the families, and she's gonna get the answers one way or another.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: A few weeks later, the reports finally arrive, and Dr. G settles in at her desk to analyze the results,
and then she flips to the first page. She sees yet another bombshell. When I get his toxicology, I'm really
kind of shocked at what I saw. He's got a potentially lethal level of oxycodone,
but there's some other telltale things going on here. He also had methadone in his system,
another powerful narcotic, and he's got two anti-anxiety medications. He certainly has enough medication
to cause him to go unconscious. So he still could have taken an overdose for suicidal reasons.
Maybe, ultimately, why he has this blood clot is he took the medication and he's just unconscious in this chair
for so long. Being immobile is a risk factor for those blood clots. If he tried to commit suicide with the drugs
and he gets the pulmonary thromboemboli, is that a suicide or is that a natural?
NARRATOR: The only way to know for sure is to find out which came first, the blood clot or the drugs.
I really need to look at the micros to help me with the timeline. NARRATOR: And there in one of the microscopic slides,
Dr. G finally finds the answer. Now I know the chain of events and I can really put this case together.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: In Pine Hills, Florida, Ernesto Vasquez has been grieving
the death of his beloved wife in his own unique way. He gets his ears pierced. He gets his nipples pierced.
He wears gaudy jewelry. He probably is leading a different life than the one he led with his wife.
NARRATOR: But unbeknownst to Ernesto, inside his body, a deadly chain of events is set into motion.
DR. G: There is a cancer growing inside of him within his kidneys. Having those cancer cells in your body
causes blood to clot much more readily. Because of this, a clot starts developing in his leg.
NARRATOR: From the micros, Dr. G sees that days before Ernesto takes the drugs, the blood clots had already formed in his legs
and little pieces started breaking off and lodging in his lungs. He's got multiple emboli.
Not the mass of clots, but little ones that are causing havoc to his lungs. I can tell under the microscope those were there prior to him
taking that medication, at least the day prior. NARRATOR: But Ernesto is unaware of what's happening inside him
and on the morning of his death he begins popping pills. DR. G: He takes several pills of oxycodone.
Maybe three, maybe even four, but not 60. It's a high level. It could kill a lot of people.
It would have killed me, but it didn't kill him. I think what happened is he was tolerant to that medication.
He's used to taking this narcotic. He abuses this narcotic. Because he's not just got oxycodone, he's got methadone,
and he's got two different anti-anxiety drugs, one of which he has no prescription for.
The combination of this medication is something that we often see when people abuse, uh, prescription drugs.
This isn't a suicide. This is prescription drug abuse. NARRATOR: Dr. G doesn't think Ernesto
was trying to kill himself. Instead she believes he was a drug abuser. In fact, the medication doesn't play a role at all.
It only puts him to sleep. Before he even takes the pills, pieces of the blood clot
already started showering his lungs, then comes the fatal blow. DR. G: While he's sitting there, a massive clot
plugs the vessels in his lung, and he dies suddenly. The medication has nothing to do with his death.
He had the clot before he took the medication and the clot killed him. So this is clearly a natural death.
NARRATOR: Now she can finally call Ernesto's son Michael with an answer. He was relieved when I ruled that this was a natural death.
He didn't know what was truly going on down here. And he thought the worse. So the fact that this was really unavoidable, unpredicted,
I think made him feel better. NARRATOR: But for Dr. G, one part of the game still remains.
I still have a mystery. It's just very suspicious that so many pills are missing.
What's going on? Where did the other pills go? And what's with the gun and the knife?
I go to bed thinking about this. This is the kind of stuff I think about at night.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Dr. G has closed the case on Ernest Vasquez, but she's still wondering why he was
filled with a knife, a loaded gun, and 60 missing prescription pills. He's sitting there with 60 pills missing
and he just had those prescribed the day-- a couple days before. So where did the other pills go?
What's going on with that medication? He doesn't have a level high enough that matches 60 pills being missing.
Dr. G reviewed his medical records and all her findings from autopsy and comes up with a theory that ties it all together.
Now it all makes sense. Not only don't I know how he died, I think we know a little bit more about him.
Now we know how this Clue game ends. [MUSIC PLAYING] A couple things were interesting from his medical records.
He is asking for narcotics because he claims he has back pain and he has hip pain.
He's constantly asking his doctor to renew his prescription before its time saying,
I lost the prescription. I need another. So he's clearly got some problems wanting more of that drug, but he certainly
didn't have 60 in his system. So those 60 pills are gone some other way. I suspect he was selling that medication.
He sells them. He trades them. He does something with them besides take them. The methadone, which he didn't have a prescription for,
he probably got, uh, for one of his associates in which he trades or sells pills with.
He's making money. He knows what kind of people buy that medication. That's why he had the knife and the gun there.
Not to think about committing suicide, but to protect him when he's selling that medication
off his front porch. NARRATOR: Dr. G will never know for sure if Ernesto was a drug
dealer, and if so why. All she knows is that in the case of Ernesto Vasquez, nothing was as it seemed.
What looked like this really distraught man, I see as a guy who's abusing drugs and wearing gaudy jewelry.
He's got nipple piercing, selling medication from his front porch. Who would suspect a 69-year-old man?
BILL STRATTON: Things aren't always what they appear to be. The surprising cases are the ones
that make this job interesting and keep us on our toes. DR. G: Never judge a person by their age.
Always keep an open mind. If this case doesn't tell you that, no case would. [MUSIC PLAYING]
TOM HEMPHILL: You need me to cover him back up? DR. G: Yeah, sure. NARRATOR: There's never downtime for Dr. G.
I just got back from court on a guy that was just beaten to a pulp and stabbed. So that took a while, and then, uh,
Dr. Stephanie was nice enough to do the other two autopsies today. NARRATOR: But just when one case is closed,
tragically another opens. Today we have a 28-year-old woman that is just found dead in her apartment.
Didn't look like there had been any kind of foul play. There isn't anything suspicious, and yet, she's dead in bed.
She lives by herself and she works as a marketer with an internet firm. She's very close to her mom and dad.
She's an only child, and her family's devastated. I don't know why she died. And clearly why she's here is clearly
why I'm gonna do an autopsy. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: 28-year-old internet marketer Rebecca Davis
and her parents Mark and Susan get together as often as their busy schedules allow.
It's been a few weeks since they've seen each other, but they're planning on catching up this weekend on Saturday.
She was supposed go out for dinner with her family, but she's not feeling well. She thought she was getting the flu.
So she decides to stay home. They didn't hear from her the rest of the weekend. She didn't show up for work on that Monday.
The firm called her parents to go check on her because they couldn't get a hold of her.
NARRATOR: Mark and Susan call Rebecca throughout the day, but when she doesn't answer their repeated calls,
they become increasingly worried. They go over to the apartment. They use their key.
MAN 2: Rebecca? Rebecca, honey? NARRATOR: As they enter the bedroom, they come face to face with a parent's worst nightmare.
MAN 2: Rebecca? DR. G: They find her dead in bed. Can you imagine being the parents and this
is your only child, your beautiful daughter, and you walk in and she's dead in bed?
It must have been horrible for them. NARRATOR: Now there's only one person they can turn to for answers.
They're devastated. They just don't know what happened to her. They really didn't think she'd be dying at the age of 28.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Dr. G just received the body of Rebecca Davis, the 28-year-old only child
of parents Mark and Susan, who are shocked and grief stricken after discovering her dead in her apartment
earlier this morning. They were very devastated to find her daughter like that. The parents are very concerned.
They just don't know what happened to her. NARRATOR: Now it's up to Dr. G to find out.
She begins by reviewing the case file, on the hunt for anything that might shed light on what brought Rebecca
to the morgue so unexpectedly. The apartment door was locked. Uh, so it didn't look like there had been
any kind of, uh, foul play. Things were in order. So I don't really know why this young woman
is just found dead in bed. NARRATOR: But as she scans the medical report, one thing jumps out.
Eight years ago, Rebecca was diagnosed with Crohn's, a disease that causes inflammation
of the GI tract and affects millions of people around the world. DR. G: Typically the symptoms of Crohn's would
be cramping, abdominal pain, fever, diarrhea. Those would be the classic symptoms.
Certainly what's interesting about Crohn's is some areas of the world Crohn's is very prevalent, and a lot
of people will have Crohn's. Like, in England and some of the northern latitude European countries, there's like seven per every 100,000 people.
We know sometimes what some of the triggers are. Like, smoking makes it worse. Um, some medications make it worse.
But we really don't know why some people get it and some people don't. But Crohn's isn't really what we'd consider a fatal disease.
So chances are we're not gonna see them die suddenly and unexpectedly. NARRATOR: According to the records,
Rebecca was followed closely by a doctor. And other than the occasional abdominal pain,
she's been managing the disease for years with few problems. Her doctor said it wasn't that bad.
She'd been dealing with it. NARRATOR: But there is something related to the disease
that Dr. G must consider. DR. G: People with Crohn's have a higher chance of having a blood clot and thromboembolus.
She's just laying in bed because she's got the flu. She's immobile and she's already got
a predisposition to clotting because of the Crohn's. Maybe blood clots that form in her legs
break loose and then, uh, clog her lungs. NARRATOR: And given Rebecca's symptoms,
Dr. G wonders about something else. Any kind of infection is a possibility with her.
Bacterial pneumonia, meningitis, even an infection of her heart. The other thing I worry about with her
is that she's got chronic pain. She has pain medication. Could it be that she just took more
medication to treat her pain, uh, than she should have? Prescription pain medication abuse
is a scourge of our society. I see it in our morgue at least every other day. NARRATOR: But there's an even more disturbing
prospect Dr. G must consider. DR. G: How do I know she didn't commit suicide with a drug
overdose, intentionally? The parents are very concerned. They're certainly hoping she didn't commit suicide.
All righty. NARRATOR: At this point her death is a total mystery and her grieving parents are counting on Dr. G
to crack this case. That's the beauty of an autopsy is I just don't know what I'm gonna find.
maybe I'll find something totally unexpected. There's-- there's a lot of possibilities on this girl.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Oh boy. This is a sad one. The first thing I look at when I see her is what does she have on?
And she just has her nightgown on. It looks like she had gone to bed. I do look at her general condition.
She's a beautiful woman. She's thin and weighs about 110 pounds. That's not uncommon with Crohn's disease.
Um, they lose their appetite. They sometimes, if it's bad enough, will have problems with, um, malnutrition,
absorbing enough nutrients. NARRATOR: Then Dr. G does a quick scan for any signs of foul play.
There's certainly no evidence of trauma on her. Um, it's something I always keep in the back of my mind,
but in this case, I'm not really thinking of it too strongly. We'll definitely rule that out when we do the internal.
NARRATOR: After removing the clothes, Dr. G looks closer at the body and something else
catches her eye. What you notice mostly on her is that she's starting to decompose.
She's not in the best of, uh, smells. For being so thin, her belly's kind of sticking out a little bit.
It's starting to get green. She's got that kind of darkening of the lips. Her eyes are starting to sink in.
NARRATOR: This is a disturbing but important clue. Since Rebecca died two days earlier,
Dr. G is surprised by the rate of decomposition. A little more advanced than I'd expect--
that's weird. --but there's great variability with decomposition and maybe that apartment was kind of warm.
I hope the decomposition hasn't destroyed any evidence. Otherwise this is gonna be a tough one.
NARRATOR: Dr. G is worried if the inside of the body is also decomposed, it could spell
disaster for investigation. Even a decomposition of two or three days makes that autopsy a little more challenging for me,
but I like a challenge. So I-- I still am hopeful, uh, that we're gonna determine her cause of death.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Have you opened a head before? Yeah? OK. Thank you. NARRATOR: Morgue technician Tom Hemphill opens the calvarium
to expose the brain, where Dr. G is on the hunt for anything that will help her narrow down her laundry list
of potential causes of death. We're gonna rule out everything, from trauma to even
a-- a hypertensive bleed. Hypertension can be a-- a, uh, complication of some of the medication she's taking.
So I removed her calvarium to look at the brain, and it looks fine. There's certainly no evidence of trauma or foul play,
but what I'm worried about more is meningitis because she was feeling ill. But when I look at the brain and the lining,
there's no evidence of clouding of those thin membranes over the brain that would suggest a meningitis.
No trauma. No meningitis. It really looks like nothing going on in the head. I need to do the rest of the autopsy.
I'm not gonna know until I-- I get in. [MUSIC PLAYING] I do my Y shaped incision and remove the chest plate.
No evidence of trauma. She's just got nothing there. Let's get the tox. I think toxicology may be very important in this case,
but it's gonna be harder to get blood because at this point I know she's too decomposed to get it out of her vessels.
Here, let's try this. I got it. But I was able to get some blood out of her lungs.
NARRATOR: Dr. G is eager to test for drugs as an overdose is still on her list of possibilities.
Thanks, Brian. Then I remove her lungs, first of all, to look for pulmonary embolis because people with Crohn's
have about a three to five time increased risk for having a blood clot form. No pulmonary embola.
She didn't have any. No blood clots that I could see, but her lungs didn't look right.
I noticed some discoloration to the lower aspects of the lung. They looked like they maybe even have an infection in them.
So I'm wondering if maybe she ended up with a-- a bacterial pneumonia. I'll do a couple micros.
That-- that lung may have pneumonia. OK. The next thing I do is go to the heart.
Heart's of normal size and shape. It's a little-- it's kind of soft. Looks a little bit soft.
Is that a myocarditis or an inflammation or infection of the heart muscle, or is that just decomp?
She's looking worse on the inside than she does on the outside. So I will look at that under the microscope, uh,
to see if that's an infection of the heart muscle. This decomp is making it a little harder for me.
NARRATOR: As a result, so far Dr. G has no solid conclusions, but she's determined to get answers for Rebecca's parents.
We had no idea why she died, nor did the parents. What could have gotten her at such a young age?
Why her? It's devastating. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: 28-year-old Rebecca Davis' parents are still
reeling from their sudden loss, and they're counting on Dr. G for an explanation
as to what took her life. It must have been horrible for them and they really want to know what happened.
NARRATOR: But the accelerated decomposition on the body is making for a challenging autopsy.
She's decomposing very quickly on the inside. It's gonna be harder to really sort
out what happened with her, but I like a challenge. NARRATOR: Now she heads to the abdomen in hopes
that even the faintest clue might shed light on Rebecca's still elusive killer. Oh my gosh.
When I open up the abdominal cavity, what I see is horrendous. Wow. Look at that.
What is wrong with her? There's spilled bowel contents in the abdominal cavity. And not just bowel contents has leaked out.
Bacteria has leaked out. Oh my god. There is an infection that has taken hold in the abdominal cavity.
it's still coming. Yeah. Was a mess. NARRATOR: Now Dr. G needs to find what caused the catastrophe.
She inspects the 25 feet of intestines inch by inch and finally sees what she believes is the source.
Then I see a huge problem. Oh boy. There is a section of bowel. It's about a little over three feet long.
It was at the end of her small intestine. There is something wrong with that section of bowel.
That is really weird. It's bloated. It's kind of a maroon, almost black color. It's necrotic.
And when I mean necrotic, I mean dead. You can't survive this. It's dead. It's gross.
It's-- it's-- it's gone. It's necrotic. That bowel has twisted on itself. It has strangled itself, what we call volvulus.
It's like you're twisting a hose and the blood supply then gets kinked, and that's not going then
to supply blood and oxygen and nutrients to that bowel, and it starts to die, and then bowel contents
even start to leak out. For people with Crohn's, that's a very unusual finding. We just now have to figure out what's causing it.
NARRATOR: Dr. G is now on a mission to discover how this could possibly happen. Finally, in the abdominal cavity,
she makes a discovery that helps her make sense of it all. Oh. Here it is. It's right in there.
I clearly know why she died, and the reason it occurred is quite abnormal. [MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: 28-year-old Rebecca Davis has been living with Crohn's disease for the past eight years.
She got diagnosed with Crohn's at the tender age of 20. Hers comes and goes. She has the bouts where she's having terrible abdominal pain,
cramping abdominal pain, uh, fever, bloody diarrhea. She's getting used to that.
She was living pretty well with it. NARRATOR: But over the years, Crohn's has damaged her bowels, causing minor scar tissue to form.
And unfortunately for Rebecca, this scar tissue develops in the worst possible area, acting
as a pivotal point on which the rest of the bowel rotates and twists on itself. What she had was scar tissue in the belly,
causing it to twist and it just turned on itself and strangled its blood supply to that portion of the bowel.
This bowel probably was cutting off its blood supply over a period of time. It probably didn't happen all at once.
This strangulation of the bowel is unusual because usually people with Crohn's have so much scar tissue,
it doesn't even have that mobility usually. So it can twist that's more frozen in place.
NARRATOR: Ironically, the fact that Rebecca had only minor scar tissue, but not the typical severe case,
is what seals her fate. DR. G: Her Crohn's probably wasn't all that bad, just bad enough to let it
rotate and strangle her bowel. She didn't know that that night the bowel's totally cut off the blood supply and starts to die.
So she's having a lot of abdominal pain. [PHONE RINGING] NARRATOR: Tragically, Rebecca only
thinks she's coming down with the flu, or at the very least another flare up of her Crohn's, and she cancels
dinner with her parents. DR. G: This is a true surgical emergency, but she didn't really know what was going on.
NARRATOR: And despite the pain, she doesn't seek medical attention. Usually people with chronic pain and a chronic condition,
they get very familiar with that condition. I think she didn't recognize that this was a much worse, uh,
problem going on. NARRATOR: As she tries to fall asleep, the dying bowel causes waste and bacteria
to leak from the intestines, which in turn triggers a massive infection called peritonitis
in her abdominal cavity. The bacteria got out of the bowel and got into her abdominal cavity, which is not where they
should be, and then the bacteria start decomposing your tissues. That's why she was looking a little more decomposed than I
would have expected, because the bacteria had already gotten the upper hand on her with that terrible infection going
into her belly. NARRATOR: The infection soon enters your bloodstream and rapidly spreads throughout her body.
At this point, it's too late. The body is trying to fight that off, and that infection just overwhelmed her.
She eventually loses her blood pressure and dies. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is a rare complication of Crohn's.
Most people don't have this complication, but unfortunately it was the perfect storm.
If you go to the hospital with the severe pain and they take you to surgery to remove that bowel,
well, you have a-- a good chance of surviving it. But without any surgery, it's 100% mortality.
Unfortunately she didn't seek help because she thought she was just having another one of her episodes.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: A few weeks later, Rebecca's toxicology results finally arrived
and they're perfectly clean. Dr. G closes the case and calls Rebecca's parents. I think the family was really surprised.
They knew it was a debilitating disease. They knew she'd have problems with it down the road,
but at least it wasn't a suicide. It was something that was out of her control. And I think they felt a little better for that.
It-- it was a natural death. Sometimes I get cases in our morgue that you're fascinated by because they're so rare,
but then you think about just how random life is. Why her? Why'd she get it? Some people just don't get dealt good hands.
Sometimes we try our best, but just bad things happen to us. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Rebecca Davis is found dead in her bed after she fails to show up for work. Dr. G must race against the clock to find out what took this young woman’s life.

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

Brief Summary

Dr. G investigates the mysterious deaths of Ernesto Vasquez and Rebecca Davis, revealing shocking medical findings and personal histories.

Key points

A Mysterious Death. A retired man is found dead with bizarre clues surrounding him.
Unexpected Findings. Dr. G discovers shocking clues during the autopsy of Ernesto Vasquez.
The Cause of Death Revealed. Dr. G uncovers the truth behind Ernesto's death involving blood clots.
The Mystery of Rebecca Davis. 28-year-old Rebecca Davis is found dead in her apartment, leaving her parents devastated.
Unexpected Cause of Death. Dr. G discovers the shocking reason behind Rebecca's death related to her Crohn's disease.
A Rare Complication. Rebecca's death results from a rare complication of Crohn's disease, leading to a tragic outcome.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Something that trumps everything.

0:40WatchJun 29, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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