Medical examiner suspected homicide in deaths of pastor's wives | Forensic Files

was there any doubt in your mind as you worked over juel shermer's body in this room that she was murdered that category
was always in my mind homicide was always in my mind and what pattern did you notice on Mrs Shermer that day I
noticed two linear tears to the right side of the head do you get fractures in the pattern that you saw on juwel shmer
from falling downstairs ultimately we concluded no and the reason why we concluded no is we did an extensive
amount of testing the experts pushed the dummies down the stairs what we did was we had Crash Test
Dummies we brought them out beforehand we put chalk all over the head and the chalk is there to help us analyze where
the head strikes occur how did the injuries the injuries that the crash test dummy suffer differ from the
injuries that you found on juel shermer's body the strikes to the Head were different areas than o ju shmer
there's no evidence of a neck injury juul shmer did not have any Orthopedic injuries to her ribs or pelvis
ultimately we conclude she didn't fall down a flight of steps what do you think happened to her well I believe that she
was beaten and my conclusion she was beaten with an object can you say what kind of object I believe it was a long
cylindrical object such as a pipe or maybe um crowbar something along those lines
let's talk about Betty sure how did you hear that Betty Shermer had died well I was contacted by the district attorney
Monroe County Mike manuso so he told you about the circumstances of Betty shermer's death yes he did and what was
your thought obviously my most obvious thought was she had died of traumatic brain injury and it was a
homicide and how could we ultimately figure this out well we did have some photographs but we did not have an
autopsy on unfortunately the body had been crated what we did was we got the CAT scans that she had had done on her
head at the two hospitals well this is an actual three-dimensional reconstruction of the CAT scan of of
Bendy Sherman the right side of her head and these tears are what we refer to as
linear tears which means they look like lines and you'll notice that they're on the right side of the head just like
Joel Shermer how do you think these injuries were inflicted I believe that it was due to an object and the object I
believe was a lone IAL object this sounds like a replay this sounds like a replay from juwel shmer deja vu all over
again

Medical Examiner Dr. Wayne Ross shows "48 Hours" his comparison between the injuries of Pastor Schirmer's first wife, Jewel, who died after a supposed fall down a flight of stairs, and the pastor's second wife, Betty, who Schirmer said died after a car crash.

Brief Summary

Forensic analysis reveals Juel and Betty Shermer were likely murdered with a cylindrical object, highlighting a pattern of violence.

Key points

Murder Investigation Insights. Experts analyze injuries to determine if Juel Shermer was murdered.
Injury Analysis. Crash test dummies used to analyze head injuries in the investigation.
Cylindrical Object Theory. The expert suggests a long cylindrical object was used in the murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I believe that she was beaten.

Discussion about the cause of death.

1:14WatchJan 5, 2014

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