Hey, what's up? Everybody? Here? We are in Tribeca the new home of police off the cuff. I'm here with my partner in law enforcement Bill Cannon. What's up, bro? Hey, how you doing? Miss sleeping to be here. Yeah, me too before we shall give a shout-out to our engineer on the ones and twos Richard. What's up Rashad? Give it up for Pam. What's up? Pam's got the grease Port there with her notes and we got a guest today. His name is Kevin, right? He's all Irish and he's in the house from Dublin. He says he's gonna do another podcast. I don't know if I believe it or not. But without further Ado we have a fantastic get guess somebody that we've been trying to get for a long long time. She played hard to get but we finally nailed it down. Let's give it up a barber put your folks. Yeah. I'm leaving make up that name. That's really her. That's really her name. And if you're not from New York City and you don't know who Bob a butcher is let me just give you a little she was the chief of staff at the office of the medical examiner of New York City. I had the pleasure of having her show up to some of my crime scenes possible homicides and let me tell you something. There was nothing nothing like seeing Barbara come through the door man. She and she still looks beautiful. It's been a couple years, but you still look amazing a lot of years old. A lot. Thank you, though. Hello. You were 26 27 years. You were 20. No 24 years 23 years with the chief medical examiner the chief medical examiner New York City and about a little more than half of those years were spent on the streets with you guys. It's Robin cases investigating deaths and having a hell of a good time while we did it. All right. So here's what happens if you have a body a DOA that's it looks suspicious. What do we do Bill we call the Of the chief medical examiner and they send out a team of medical Legal Investigators who actually go after crime scene all crime scene unit does their act first film the scene they do whatever they do and then the medical Legal Investigators come they do the forensic investigation, which is taken the temperature check in for wounds looking for petechial hemorrhages pretty fucking smart guy here. Yeah. He's pretty good at the Monroe College in case you missed the bus. So yeah, so used to basically showed up at the crime scenes and you determine whether it looked like it was a suspicious death, right? Yeah, we used to, you know, make the determination. Like I always saw at the scene belonged to you guys and the body belonged to us, but you know most of the time I try to work with crime scene Absol so I could see what things they did they can see what things I did it, you know make it worked. It made it work better. Yeah, we did God how many thousands of scenes in the city? It says you went to 680 homicide scenes. That's right. Wow, that's amazing. It's 680 homicides and my total case count is five thousand. Oh my God, but those weren't all scenes. So do you have nightmares? No kidding. Yeah, but you wouldn't tell us anyway, you gotta have you gotta have some PT. But yeah, but yes, we're jumping the gun here. Wait, let's build. First of all, let's just start in the beginning. Where you from born in Brooklyn raised on Long Island in Massapequa Park, I grew up in Levittown. We were almost neighbors. That's right. I was probably over there looking for no not that upset trouble trouble trouble trouble a good student even early on I was good lazy but smart and did you have a curiosity for because you worked basically a job was you're always running Dead things that people actually as a little kid I started very very young. I like to dissect dead animals to see what happened likes it. So that's one of the size of a serial killer killed Emily. I know serial killer a medical exam the same, you know continue. So, how do you go about that? They sexting animals? Well, you know, I told one of my my uncle's who was like a into biology. I told him I want to dissect these animals. See what's inside him. See what happened. Him so he gave me a scalpel tweezers and I told my parents that first I started when I was about ten. Okay, and I told my parents for Christmas. I want some dead animals. Wow honest to God. So they actually there's a catalog where you can get these little dead animals like frogs and stuff preserved in formaldehyde side got him and I cut them up then they got me a microscope so I could look at them. I was a strange little dude. You know, what you did you start to learn what you're looking at. Also studying that part of it or you just I don't know. But yeah, I just wanted to see what was inside there. We must have been heaven when you get to high school and you started dissecting frogs you do it. This is nothing. You gotta see what I do in my backyard. Yeah, you know and I told my father he said what do you want to be? I saw I want to be a doctor. I want to find out what makes things tick. He said Jesus Christ. I'm a cop if you think you're going to college you got another thing coming. It's on the job where he was in. He was a deputy inspector when he when he went out on this show. Yeah, Adam butcher, but this is way before you have to before you were born. Even. Yeah, he started out in Brooklyn. He was Captain at a77 your brothers and sisters. Yeah, but nobody went into the job. Some of my cousin's did. They also did this they help you dissect your animals? No, I was the oldest of nine kids and they were scared of me 9. Yeah, of course. Look what she has wanted. I was the third of a no kidding. Smoothies cops. They don't know how to put that thing away, you know exactly they don't have any money but they got a lot of energy. Let's just keep having kids. Yeah who's messing with her older sister when she said they write they said would ask a poem like, yeah. So you start this curiosity. I guess it just kept blossoming, right? Yeah lost interest in it. Yeah. I did a lot of different things. I was working as a physician assistant working as surgery, of course. Well, I cut and stuff and your PA. Yeah, so that was your first job out of college. No, I had I kicked her out with a few more things. I did a little bartending which would a college I went to Long Island University. Umbrella you yeah, Liu welcome play baseball for them. Yeah. It's a great I was a fun school and then I went to yes, then I went to Columbia for the for the Master's Degree. How do you need to be an ml? I do you have to be a physician's assistant back then you had to be officials that mli medical-legal investigate, okay. Back, then you had to be a physician or a physician assistant. We had guys in Staten Island in the Bronx who were Physicians doing this part time and that's a lot of education for a job. That doesn't pay a whole lot of money, right? Yeah it but now they've relax the rules a little bit was so hard to get people to do it. So, you know now they allow forensic anthropologists to be invested. They had a lot of them on the World Trade Center member found some bones and they go. Oh, no, that's it. Turkey, yeah, that's right. I was one of the terminations was whether it was a human piece or I'm an animal. Yeah, so let's go back. So now you're you were in high school. Did you go to college and then you become efficiencies assistant and none of this was satisfying you still wanted to get back to the science part of it dissecting part of it. Well, you know, I it was weird. I was after being a physician assistant. I Came like a hospital administrator, but I was bored all those things. So I go to a career counseling service and they said we'll give you all these tests and figure out what you be good at what you should do and I think Minnesota multiphasic and preferential and blah blah blah the end of it. They said you should be a poultry veterinarian or a corner. Let me pull I know working on chickens. That's exactly what I said. I said, why should he narrow field? It's a white chick. They said well if you work with puppies and kittens, you know, you get upset when they die. It's too much. So motions you give Frank Perdue a call. Now, let's say I said chickens what you know, so he says they chickens have beady little eyes and you won't get attached to them. Nobody cares about chickens. I said, you know what I'll take that guys so they said call the person in New York had has that absolute best job you can think of Culturals Hirsch I said would you talk to me about your job? They said how did you know what you know him beforehand. I'm sorry. If you hear about any noise in the background, we got construction going on here in the building. They're redoing the whole studio for us. I'm killing this. Yeah, but you knew trousers beforehand. Well, I knew the name, I mean he's he was a papers and things so I called him. He said sure I'll talk to you and I came in and Cinema had shot before him. I was wondering what So I sat down at that time, right? Yeah. Yeah, and he introduced me to all his staff. I went and looked at an autopsy and they said how'd you like to work for us? Luciano Chief Charles hers was he was the chief medical examiner of for the medical examiner said yeah. Was he was a lot of four years, right? I don't know. What is 30 years. Who knows but it he was use a gentle snow and he had a great sense of humor. Very very dry wet when I used to bring them up at the speak at the homicide course a lot of you know, you got 250 300, you know investigators from all over the country there and sometimes they're chatty in between speakers and he one thing I loved about him was he never raised his voice he started off at a nice. Even Pace where most speakers would you want to be, you know over the top so you grab everybody's attention. He would be very subtle and soft spoken until every the room dropped. I learned a lot from him the room dropped and he listened to and the first thing that he said at the end it was a joke. It was a punchline. He like. Oh my God, this guy's funny. Yeah, and then they had to listen more so they would quiet down even more and before you know it he had the whole room in his palm of his hands. He never raised his voice and he was brilliant. Well, that's because his audience never talk back to I was waiting Mark film about was the deputy chief Fang then because they gave the most fascinating lectures on 9/11 not mine. But I mean he spoke about the reason they didn't find a lot of the bodies was because they were turned. It to gas basically they just vaporized. Yeah, and that was people I would imagine if you lost a loved one. That way you wouldn't want to hear that right but scientifically that's what happened is that there was never ever in the history of mankind that amount of force dropping down. Well there actually was but that was a cataclysmic event here with Shannon. No. No, I mean when when the floods or whatever you believe in the meteorite that hit the earth and cause of floods like six and a half thousand years ago. I mean that Is the magnitude to do of his degree in astrophysics now, but I listened to and I've read up on it. Anyway back to back to back to Hirsch. So you went in the had this meeting with Hirsch and he offered you a job right there on the spot. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that too. I thought I was kind of a happened to you mark what you walked in to get a job on the spot and that and I did. Me neither. So so you started working on what capacity there. I started out as an investigator. I was a trainee, you know, you had to have the medical background but they put us through three months of following everybody around and working cases or working autopsy that I went to the homicide course and ypd. Then I went to the FBI course that they have good old good courses amazing. I couldn't get any of that shit. The way to get a hot blonde on the stair, right? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah Cooper the homicide course, you're the fucking course, we have that other guy can fuck him. So now you're ready. And you start working there was like I can't imagine what the first couple days were they the called the meat wagon, right? Is that what they call it? Well, you guys did wait I never said that. I read there's a truck and that truck or van and it says oh Oh CME on it and when that's parked in the neighborhood, it's not a good son. Somebody's dead. Somebody's dead and you what you guys would go out in the in the van and you'd call the your your homicide scenes and I would imagine it takes a little bit of getting used to well. There's so many things that like the smell at a homicide Mmm. Yeah, the body said even though you were dissecting out animals at the time when you were there were there were in from aldehyde. When did you start getting really exposed to dead bodies often? You know, right right from the get-go when I was in my training they sent us down to see some autopsies. And the first time they did a decomposed body that they flushed out of the river. I just yes goodness. Just leave that smell and it's does the autopsies the forensic pathologist, but we had to participate observe learn and there is no smell on earth like that and that was hard to get used to but it's really, you know, what else was hard to get used to. To like I go back to what 92 is when I started the job. That's when I got on the gym and walking into a scene full of detectives mostly male officers and I'd come in and I'd say hi the medical examiner coming to you. That's nice honey. Yeah, wait over here that took some getting used to like letting those guys know. Hey, I know what I'm doing here, too. I'm here to help I'm here to work with you, you know, let's work together. Detectives have such a huge huge egos because I was a boss of detectives as a sergeant and even though your sergeant they don't really consider you in there in there in there team. Well, I'd say team but then you're not a detective your boss, you know. Yeah, and so many of them have these what I would call it would hypothesize and theorize on homicide before anything was clear and I would say shut the fuck up and stop hypothesizing and theorizing and start type of roads in your reports, right they use To her. She used to tell me take your hands off your ears. Put them all over your mouth. Don't get theories. Just just listen observe. Listen, it's not the truth at all. What are you listening to what two detectives are talking about what other family members? Okay. Now, I mean how much information did we get from people just standing there chatting right? And you know, let's face it. It was a dick waving contest there was there was a lot of good. I you know what, To work with you and you showed up in our scenes by that time. You've already had that veneer that very very tough paneer you came in there. You would like in complete control. It wasn't the shy timid girl. I mean you'd walk in it was almost like a TV or movie character red high heels on you has record on at the only thing that differentiates you from like being like a businesswoman or like, you know, just some of lady walking down Fifth Avenue was the fact that you had that that windbreaker on this hit ocme on. On it. That was the only thing and you little faggot Trix. Yeah. Well demanded a designer Tyvek suit Calvin Klein. I tell you what she demanded a lot of respect. There was a lot of respect everybody. Okay, but that's the irony of it. If you're going to film this it's the beginning of it when you get there and it was like stand over here, but and then at the end not the end but right in the middle, why don't you started really having control of it? You get there and everybody back up Let It Go Let Her Go Let Her Go to this part Let It Go. It I mean I have enormous respect for detectives for and for NYPD one and it's always my job and your job is the hardest damn job. But yeah, I mean it was it was pretty quick that we started really working together and everybody cooperating and they said all right. She knows something letter read. Yeah, and it was wonderful. Absolutely. Wonderful. Well, you're the work you do though is sort of its prepping it for the pathologist. East who's going to come up with the final determination? I mean you're going to come up with this is a homicide or this is looks like a suicide or strange or whatever it is. But the pathologist is ultimately going to come up with the yeah, but you know, the pathologist is seeing that body on a table just a naked body on a table with a gunshot. You can't tell if it's a homicide or suicide or an accident, you know those guys that playing with their guns shoot themselves and right between the eyes so his first shot is his last shot as his best shot, but they We established whether or not it was suspicious. First of all, not a natural death than whether or not it needed an autopsy. And what were the circumstances of the death homicide suicide accident or natural then you do the autopsy and get the exact cause of death and then the manner of death based on our investigation to give you a rodents just a little bit example, I had a case and when we get there, I definitely thought it was a homicide. It was a when you looked at. At this guy this guy was face down in his living room. It looks like somebody beat the crap out of him. His face was so badly disfigured and beat up when you get there. Will you look at the body? There was no bullet wounds. There was no stab wounds then he will she go. Hey fellas. Can you give me a hand turning over the body which nobody wants to have it so we turn it over and he look at his face. And that was the thing that his face was just destroyed like wow somebody and then you start looking around and there was No evidence of Foul Play in the apartment. Nothing was moved. There was no sign of a struggle nothing like that. And then you looked at his arm. I remember and he had track marks. He was obviously a heroin junkie and he look at the size of his belly because this guy had this big belly and he looked at the chair that was turned over and you said you go to us. You know what I think I think he you know, how you do that heroin not like this. It was so top heavy that he fell over and he landed right on his face and and then I I was like, wow, that was pretty great. And the the worst part of it all it's just this is the way this is the way thing nobody did this on purpose but when we put the body back his face, it was already like just it just hit the back to the apartment floor like like that it made this sound like but the nose was inside the head already. So it made that sits just a flush sound that I'll never forget in my head, but that that's exactly what it's like you came there. You made that determinant. We all thought it was a homicide we I thought and I was catching into as I was already getting nervous. I was like, wow, this is gonna be my case right now. I'm gonna how many times did we go to one apartment where you'd see like a bloodbath look like a butcher shop that was excuse me. There was blood everywhere and then you find that you'll accept we examine the guy and we see that, you know clearly he's an alcoholic because he's got 72 empty bottles in the doorway and he you know got the garbage full of beer and you looked as a tiny little cut on the side of his head, but how Alcoholics bleed like hell when they get cirrhosis and we go around the apartment and see that it was all his handprints his footprints that he was just walking around the apartment drunk and bleeding to death that happened. I can think of like three cases with the apartment look like it was a slaughter house turns out to be just another poor drunk tell us about a case that wasn't so easy to solve maybe one of the maybe something that's maybe even bothers you or still troubles. You too. Today, you still not a hundred percent sure about something that tells about one of those cases God there's so many of those there was one that really bothered me. This guy. He's riches all hell and he buys his wife like a nice little Boutique that she can run and she's she's a beautiful younger woman dressed in like a Chanel suit, and apparently he commit suicide by injecting maybe some insulin into himself. And they can first of all is he diabetic and she said yeah, he was a little diabetic a little bit and then I said who called 9-1-1 she said well, I called his doctor his psychiatrist who told me to call 9-1-1 I said, oh who's a psychiatrist? She said here Here Comes this really good-looking young guy sharp suit really hot in the Tulips the fuck. They got major chemistry I can. Let these two are in love this wife and this psychiatrist. So I sit down in my little like Columbo raincoat, you know my cheap suit, my little heels I said, you know, so don't tell me about this guy I said, did you treat his depression or something? He says no, I treated his diabetes. I said, oh, are you an endocrinologist now? I'm a psychiatrist. I said, why would you treat his diabetes? Because I understood him. Oh good perfectly. Well capable of doing these things, you know, very and the wife was at yes. He was most favorably disposed toward. Dr. So-and-so and I just knew that there was something going between these with science collides with common sense, right? Yeah. It just it made no sense but on the autopsy. Yes, he had an overdose of insulin, but I couldn't find where he injected himself. Why he did this he had a little girl, like maybe he found out about his wife and the psychiatrist doing each other. I don't know but I could never prove a thing. I think it went out as a cuppie right circumstances undetermined pending police investigation. Exactly. I don't know whatever happened to those two. I wish I could remember their name. I was thinking about a lot of these TV shows and movies that we watch the always. Like if you watch CSI and looks like the crime scene people of the one solving the case if you watch I don't know if you used to watch Quincy with member jackw Club got yeah, but you would think that the medical examiner's are is the one serving the cases but here you're telling us you actually do kind of sort of step out of your boundaries a little bit and you actually did you're doing some investigative work. They're having an interview with somebody sure. I mean that was the most fun. Did you document that on a 500 that will DigiTech just were right there with me. Okay, good. We were doing this together. Oh, no, I would never question a witness on my own. Uh-huh. No, I had the guys with me and we're just you know back and forth with them. They'd ask a question. I'd ask a question back and forth and we sort of tag-teaming but that's that's why it's so important for you to have a good relationship with the detectives and work together not work against each other. Oh, yeah. No. No, I loved I like, you know. No, I wanted to be a cop but back then when I was the right age, I wore glasses and I was to be male at the time it was going to ask you that. How come you just didn't become a cop detective 1969-1970. It wasn't a whole bunch of women on the first it wasn't. Yeah, so she probably would have had to wear the skirt and stuff. Yeah. That was the uniform. Yeah, right. I wanted to be like a real do you know and my father told me so she's stalker one that Force they'll break your heart. They'll rape you and kill you and ruin your whole life. He was right. I was a tough even when when I came I came out in 1985 the old-time cops. We'll all I'm going to say all because nothing's all but they were overweight. Yeah, they smoked cigarettes. Like they were healthy. They drank coffee like it was out of control. Yeah, and then they would want to give you advice on economics. And they were they were all idiots with their own economic. So take a punch alone every 6 months. It's your money which was exactly the wrong the wrong thing. But listen to these guys because these guys Call the my hair back. I love that. You know, this is what you want to do kid, right? So you're after how long does it take for you to get it back? You might start getting your confidence on these scenes. I think within about six months. I started feeling it and you know, the reason I wore a skirt suit and heels was because you got a dress for success success, you gotta you gotta dress like you look like you're somebody like an authority. I still tell those investigating. Those who wear jeans and khakis and you know old shirt don't do that makes you look like a little technician or something, you know, if you're a professional dress like one thing this way societies going right now. Anyway, though. Nobody wants to would lose in the getting dressed up or for an occasion people get like it's not even ironic anymore that you're wearing sneakers with your tuxedo and whether that's like every let's do it everybody you may have to run What about having a leather sole in your shoe that makes you stand up straight. Yeah rubbish too comfortable. You know your man you should have ever loved is so let's you and keeps you upright. It keeps you know what I'm saying? You like a madman. He got to go have a couple of martinis at lunch. This is all goes together. Yeah. I'm more of a professional. I don't know what I'm saying. Well, you know detectives always dressed beautifully. I some of those guys had some really nice. Maybe you worked a lot. He worked in Manhattan. Yeah. Well, you know, what is the South they Had the French cuffs and they just really good and they didn't have that much violence in the north. We had DNA and blood all over us suits mobile blood in the north and I used to say you guys eating quiche going to the best places to eat and what catching all the murders exactly. How long did it take before you can actually get used to the crime scene that that does not the people now forget that but I mean just so many horrific things that you walked into man. It's like the slug we talked about the smell. This is the one time I had a case with The guy he died in his another guy that it was everyone but apparently he had cancer or something like that. We thought he had a dog. Because we just saw like mounds of shit everywhere and place stunk so bad between the dead bodies and shit and and I'm like, I don't see a dog. Where's the dog the dog that to like not on its human shit. Yeah, and so the whole place stunk so freaking bad now all of a sudden you showing up, uh-huh, you know it yeah you little high heels is turn. Hey guys, what's up? Has then every time you smell Vic's you think of decomp. I think it does. Wow. Yeah, so no, I never did anything like that. I just tried to get used to it. Try to breathe shallow. It was horrible. Remember if you smell that on an empty stomach sick as a dog single day it gets in your clothes it gets in everything. So it's good to eat right before you get to a black disgusting crime scene as I was saying that was the stench of loneliness and her she used to say, you know, what is the sense of Home decomp someone dying alone if somebody dies. Hello also sell. Yes. Nobody checks on you for two weeks. We had one one that the guy was there so long that you know his body, I guess it liquify then it seep through the bed and then it seep through the floor and the only way that people knew downstairs was because there was a spot looked like it would there was a leak coming from there and there was like dripping into their apartment. That was yeah. That was yeah close this what used to be his skin that's called putrefaction, right? That's right. Purge is the liquid comes out of the body it just every all the liquid start running out. It's just that's a smell you cannot describe. It's unbelievably bad worst thing I've ever smelled the smell of what was it again? The smell of what the stench of lonely the sense of loneliness is so sad. Yeah, but yourself, I want to go out with the odor of partying this still smell the skies above the ranks of everybody else now though because how many are there how many I think that when you were 20 of us when I left but throughout the whole city. Yeah. Yeah, maybe 25 now. I'm going out in these Vans and in every Borough a you you centralized in New Could use every barrel have their own little ocme dispatch every Borough had their own ocme office with you know, autopsy sweets Bronx Queens Staten Island, Brooklyn all had their own offices now, I think there's a bit more consolidation Bronx doesn't have on they go to Manhattan and the Staten Island people go to Brooklyn their autopsies. So yeah, we all you know, we dispatch out of our individual Burrows. I always worked Manhattan I insisted on that because I Ali wanted to see nice Apartments, you know, you know, we just wanted to smell the stench of loneliness and nice million dollar apartment. But you know we use as a better chance that you're gonna get it almost a little bit a better scene. Yes, that's you in Manhattan and are is what saying the Rockaway? Sorry, you're sitting in the South Bronx, but I loved looking at I mean apartments in the buildings and the places we would go you don't crawling around on rooftops climbing through. Garbage and stuff and and and some of the apartments. I mean from the richest people in the world and art collections of stuff and I remember going to a scene we always play jokes on you guys and O is a go to the scene is a this one officer standing watch outside the apartment. So I put my jacket took my jacket off and I took my case put it behind the door. I said, oh hi. I understand this an apartment available and it's rent stabilized. Can I I see it. He said I'm sorry lady but you're talking about is somebody died here. I know and I heard it's a really nice apartment awfully quick. Can I just have one little look this poor guy was so confused and I can't come on come on your little pink. And finally, he said all lady, please go away. You're really upset. So I said medical examiner. That's great. Excellent. Let me know what you probably want the first one there that day, right exactly. Me some is there a national protocol for homicide crimes seen response from the office of the medical examiner and some of these small towns? Obviously, they have a problem with because they don't really investigate many murders, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's a huge problem in the United States 60 percent of the population is served by an elected corner and the rest are by medical examiner's. So for instance upstate, New York. Go to be a corner and to investigate deaths. All you need is a high school diploma a driver's license and to be 18 years old. Wow. These guys don't know anything so you can really get away with murder in a lot of areas. So good little towns that have coordinates but you know, and the so there's this national movement to train people from all jurisdictions up to the standards of like an NYPD and a New York City medical examiner level. So remember you know that author Patricia Cornwell. She gave me 1 million dollars to establish an academy forensic Academy. Then I got a grant from the feds for a million and we started bringing people from all over from Podunk. I feel like Vegas how much money is not that much but we did we've established that out of the ocm and of the ocme. Yeah for I think it was for you as I still doing that now nah once I left, you know, they probably ran out of money too, right? Yeah, they ran out of money and And what imagine that you're in a small town and there's a murder and people go there and they have no qualifications whatsoever whatsoever to investigate solve. It happens all the time. And it's so they call unusually the state troopers, right the state and state troopers have a better knowledge, but there's still not MediCal examiner's and a lot of times the autopsy is done by a regular pathologist from a hospital the same person who reads pap smears and we have a wart removed and now all of a sudden they're Can 14 bullets through some guy's body and a you know in a shooting and flat blah blah. So the bodies the bodies. You used to those right? And you used to is there anything that scares you like? He's scared of roaches or a spider or some no you ever pretend like you are just so people know sometimes I'd be sitting at a kitchen table snakes. You're not scared of snakes. I don't like them, but I'm not particularly scared. What am I scared of that is so I don't know there is something you swim. No, that's you know what it is. I'm a I'm a safety security freak Lynn lover a landlubber. If I see like I check the smoke alarms every month everywhere not just my house, but my friends yeah, I'm always afraid things are going to blow up go on fire. If you see dead people every single day dying in these horrible ways. You start to think that's the norm. That's how everybody is going to die. So I'm wary of strangers. I don't walk close to the subway Edge, you know, because I know somebody's I don't trust you either. Yes. Um, He's got to push me, but I'll do that. So I'll check the smoke detectors. I don't know about that. No do that do that. You got to check your smoke detectors. I also don't when I'm crossing at the walk. I always stand back. I stand behind a poll just because he's coming up here hits me and I was have a body at to on the side. I could just thrown away. If I have to this way, you know I'm saying make sure you stand in the crosswalk lines because if you do get hit you get more money on the lawsuit because you're in the crosswalk. Yeah, if you're outside the crosswalk then your That's not good. So that's why I don't do that either. I don't you. Okay, and I told my kids that I was walk to the corner. Yeah, make sure I get to the corner you make much more money that way well, I mean if you live could you there was a really interesting case in in the wire and I took because forensically this really interested me and the the scene was in prison a guy strangles a guy and then he hangs them from the doorknob with a piece of Rawhide. Yeah, and to make it look like he hung himself. Yeah, but the problem is and you know Oh this dead bodies. Don't bruise. That's right. So the Rawhide should have made a bruise if he was alive when he was right. So I was like, that's great because like months later. They Revisited that destination women. There was no bruising on his neck with that Rawhide, right? He must have been murdered right? I thought that was so cool because talk about a case like that. Well, you know what speaking of that tell us what your opinion is on Epstein. So we're going to talk about a case like that. I'm calling the Epstein case. A semi assisted suicide. I I know it was a suicide because I know the people who went to the scene. I know the autopsy person who did the autopsy. I know everything about it. It is a suicide but it was I call it semi assisted because the two Corrections Officers went away for eight hours and they sat in the general area and surf the Internet they didn't check on them for eight whole hours and goes to check out of my finger was like every every half hour then his roommate got transferred out that day. They said they were busy know they were yours. So something that videotapes. I'm just saying, that's what they were saying. Burano they worked overtime or something like that and were exhausted. That was the initial excuse. I remember yeah. So how come on that day for eight whole hours. They didn't check. They didn't do one little safety check. Plus they got rid of his roommate. Yeah, his roommate was gone. He ran with the most powerful people in the world. Yeah prince Andrew Bill Clinton all the Saudi Arabian Sheiks. And the last thing on earth they wanted was to have this guy test. Testify because he had everything on them. So you think somebody put a gun to his head and said no, I think he had already tried to do it himself two weeks before and he the news broke he fell he's on the ground with bruises. Somebody held them up this time. Yes this time. So he absolutely should have been on suicide watch. So not only were they negligent fall asleep, but they were supposed to be watching this guy. He was on suicide watch for I think five days maybe six and then they're like, yeah, he's okay. Let him go which is bull. Anyway, you can't do that, right? That's not protocol that sense. It has to mental illness in the thinking about committing suicide last longer than a week two weeks sure does and this guy sit in a like a 4x6 cell that was had roaches and it was disgusting. So he goes from the top of the world living at a private island and sleeping with 17 year old girls. Now, he's sitting there like a miserable bastard and the food stocks. The roaches are running around on his feet and everybody says to him, you know, Jeff you'd be better off if if you just want to buy so I think it was encouraged and the assistance was that the guards went away. I gave him his moment to take care of it eight whole hours. How many times you think he's trying to do it in front? Come on, Jeffrey. His metal sheet time out Jeff Jeff listen to you not doing it. Right how many times you got to tell you? Yeah, you know and he had paper sheets originally and then all of a sudden he's got a real sheet enough to hang himself. So is that what you used the sheets of the paper sheets that they're made to break apart if you gotta suck a sheets to man. Yeah something special how many how many special you must have silk threads. Do you think those sheets were he had sheets made? Out of virgins hair. Oh my God, he with this guy. So Corrections Officers and it's up to you know, what kills me is when they bring the FBI in what the fuck does the FBI know about homicide investigation how many murders that I respond to a year Well, I want to kill this Premier law enforcement agent. They don't know shit the FBI. My guys investigate hundreds and hundreds of homicides and if they see an FBI agent to like Kill Ya, he's got a bone to pick with I do I'm a little bit not homicide homicide investigators you need boots on the ground for that man. Yeah there to see them do a canvas Up In Harlem, they'd be with their ivy league suits be shitting their pants they pull up they pull up and they get there. They got to get the flak jacket out of the trunk and then the clock we go home at 4:00. XU FEI will going home. It's four o'clock. So an assisted and assisted suicide that semi assisted suicide. I'm Chloe. Yeah, man, it's well, it's opposite than obviously a Kevorkian thing. Yeah when you talk about assistance, but you saying a semi so they encouraged and abetted they enabled you think they might even got some extra cockroaches and let them loose in this cell just a little bit. I wouldn't be surprised if they you know, whoever came to visit him said Jeffrey. This is gonna get bad. Dad, you're going to get like gang raped every day or something. Who knows? Who knows what the music they said it was messing with a mentally. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, that's I tell you man. That's the best excuse that I've heard Still Clinton. I heard chemicals. I feel your pain. You see that I forget what I'm going to say. But anyway, yeah, well prince Andrew last night. So prince Andrew was one of his very close friends. So the royal family is having a fit last night. He does an interview and they said do you regret having partied with and stayed with a convicted sex offender after his release said well to tell you the truth. I wouldn't say my friendship. I found it. Very interesting. A fellow plus he had 17 year old girls had but yeah, he's trying to fix the the didn't go. Well probably shouldn't I think you should have left over they could have had a rehearsal and then he could have like a drill. Tape out. Let's do it again. What are you watching that thinking? It's going to be okay, but don't you love when the Press calls it a homicide? It's just a homicide thank press called it. They know or they pick a guy with a heart attack. You know, he's like, he's running down the street screaming my heart my heart. I've got heart disease and I've got a heart attack and I'm gonna die and I know all of a sudden he collapses forward and dies and they say the medical examiner will determine the exact cause of death. like the heart attack wasn't good enough doesn't matter how many Clues and then they'll speculate on everything else with no knowledge what I love when they would say time of death and you know with the body temperature everything goes down 3° the first hour an hour, but also depending on the temperature of the room as for the best determination of time of death is witness as far as mistakes I've ever made Large large family this like 20 people the 92 year old great grandfather's dead. And the wife the daughter comes to me and says, can you please tell me what time he died? Exactly. I want to have a mess said at that time for his soul. Please please I said, oh yeah sure. So I go in the room and I'm examining the guy and I'm doing my little calculations, you know, 3 goes into 4 and gets into consent there x 7 rigor mortis alchemor distemper modest. Urban Waters come out and I said he died at approximately 11:30 p.m. No, I saw him at midnight. What do you mean? How can he be dead? I talked to him. I forgot the most important question was the last time anybody saw a guy alive. Yeah. I took all my little scientifical calculations. Let's throw him out the window. Yes to show your comments. It's kind of actually made a phone call that yeah, probably exactly it was a lot of those things guy gets shot like in the head, but he died of like something else like a heart attack of some lead poisoning. So yeah, you know boys and go to an emergency room of a hospital guy shot eight times and it's a dock is is he likely and he'd say nice gonna be fine. That's why the military found out how to do it on the battlefield and emergency rooms are practicing a that's right stuff. They shoot into the wound. That's amazing. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Get the glue. Yeah, that's incredible. And now with the nowadays with all the opioid overdoses actually bombarded with that maybe not so much in New York City, but the other states and then they also have that thing that you can dark head. Narcan can give them so these people are basically technically a dead until you give them the notch. All right. I mean, they're very close to dad. Usually they were exactly somebody they come back to life in the middle of it. It didn't happen to me, but it happened to Kenny Dodson in the Brooklyn office he was This is woman. She took an overdose of Valium and they EMS pronounced her dead and they're hanging out Kenny gets there and he he's examining her he's doing this and doing that and then he's turning her over because he's going to take the rectal temperature and she goes up. She had that'll wake you up. She goes. Oh Kenny, you know, it's bad to touch somebody you think is alive and find out. Dead but it's much worse. If you think they're dead man's right to be alive. Oh my God, that's horrible. So they revived a jump EMS jumps on it reviver blah blah blah. Can he leaves he saw shake a nice? Oh my God. I can't believe that they call it back half an hour later and say she's dead again said are you sure? You know, you guys make up your mind for Christ's sake glories of the morgue and this always This like there's gases that get out of the body and the body tends to move like a lot of times after it's dead. Those things scare you the first time I saw that a guy died in a van and he decomposed he was homeless living in the band van in the poor. The poor guy is living in Israel ratty looking thing. So I was pretty new when the police were having a good time with me and they go up Marburg a going the fan will be out here. I said I wanted you come in with me Nana. Two small go on in I go in there and this guy is crawling with maggots. So so decomposed that is flies and it's everything and as I step toward him I hear I didn't and I screamed and I leaped out of the van into their arms. It turns out you know, the gases Escape it makes them grown and when his face call him with the maggots it looked like his face was moving and he groaned and I almost died. I lost it and they like they're all laughing and they go what is it Barb what I said, um, nothing I thought I saw a spider. Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. You can tell how it when the eggs are laid turn into poop about the dark. You scared of the dark now. No, in fact, I'm good. And you aren't you get did you get trained in the Firearms? No, but a couple of the guys used to take that you hold it Runge and yeah, oh my God a couple of guys they take me out. I never wanted you could have you kind of could have got a license really easy you think see now? I need one now. I don't think the end would have been. Hard because they change them see no. No, why not? Because they don't want anyone getting a gun permit Source he carried now I'm talking about but back in the day. Everybody would give it out to well. No, we had to sign a paper Hirsch made us all sign a paper that we would not carry a gun. Well really? Well, that's interesting. Why because we're all crazy. There was no need for a gun instead what they bought us was bulletproof vests. Well, that's not going up to the three four back in the day. You'd want one on Three four in the be people in the streets screaming because some kid got shot. They don't know who you are. You just you got the jacket and looks like a cop jacket right here some stupid girl and she's touching my friend Desmond, you know, and so they were used to get a little speaking of that. You have a we talked a lot about scenes that are inside apartments and inside dwellings. You still get cold two scenes that happen outside in the street, right? Oh, yeah, and the weather is inclement weather that's got to be a pain in the butt to yeah the high heels and stuff in the show. No, the heels are good for traction and the ice. Yes, and the water to him. If you have you got probably going through with a pool of bodies out of the water everything. Oh, yeah, many many a time. Does The Source floaters popping up in the spring? You know, that's how you know what it's when it's springtime in New York is all of a sudden this loaders pop up from the bottom of the springtime in New York. That's a great scene to shoot the movie. I know what a lovely but you know, we struck me. About outdoor scenes is that if it was specially if it was a some big shooting or something and a bodies on the street and it was cameras around, you know, the inclination is when you see a guy haven't seen in a couple of weeks. Hey Bill, how you doing? Good to see you. Hey, how's your kid doing is still getting that college and you're all talking and smiling at each other you turn around. There's a TV camera right looking at Shannon. It looks like you're having a hell of a good time at this homicide. It's just work. This is my job. You know, I'm seeing my friends. He's having a good time and we're talking now. I'm going to get down to business but people used to get out. We got to be where that bitch what the hell you laughing at out there. And then the Press would actually try to get evidentiary stuff before we did. Oh, I would go off on them. Like they would go to get the video that caught the shooting. Yeah, I'll be like dude. What are you doing? Yep? Oh, I want to slap the guy, you know, yeah that brings up another interesting thing. You're out here, you know doing your p's and q's on what you believe is. Homicide what happened and then all of a sudden they still could be collecting tapes. Yep, and you don't want to come up with a hypothesis. So this is this is the way it's done and then all of a sudden they tape comes out and it was like nothing like that, you know, well, you know that's changed homicide investigator investigation over all greatly is that there's video everywhere. Yeah, because now you have a point to start what gives you time stamps gives you all kinds of things. Yeah a video has really really changed the murder game between In DNA and video, I think it's kind of hard to get away with murder has anything cell phones to and cell phones cell phones the third. Yeah, I mean leave yourself own home. You want to do murder? Yeah, exactly. If you want to kill somebody attracting everywhere you go, you know, it's best to go out to the beach or the country or someplace way way far away take someone hunting. That's the easiest way to kill somebody. Yeah. I saw this could be the Scribe to especially nowadays. I mean if you if I had you on a case. And all of a sudden I can I can prove a pattern of you carrying yourself on everywhere. You never lost it you never left behind and all of a sudden today. You left your phone behind, you know for three hours. So I forget I'm saying you have to explain that. When did you notice that your cell phone was missing? Did you left it at home? Well, I got I got a burn it now officer will your case out of the water? So when you're watching TV and the TV and movies I said hard for you to watch whenever the medical examiner off it comes up and then and they're doing it wrong. Yeah, it just pisses me off it just especially when they have there was one of female medical examiner and she'd say I see dead people she would when she got near the body. She intuitively imagine. She see what happened to them. Come on. I was so ridiculous or they'd be like, you know sure bill that's an entrance wound from about 18 inches away. I love it and I see the trajectory is up into the Toward that that tree and if you look at that tree, I think you'll find a bullying bill, you know, probably that became a huge thing with something known as CSI effect. Absolutely and you know, it destroys jury pools because they think the police Can Do Magic shit that they can't do but they do it on TV. Yeah. Yeah. I mean you could you could you could shoot a guy in the middle of Fifth Avenue with 27 Witnesses three of them priests for them nuns and it goes to goes to trial and the jury says well, what about it? There's no DNA. Where's the DNA evidence the hell you talking about? There's no contact between them but people think you got to have DNA off of everything. If it's not there you didn't do it. Yeah, they think it absolutely no proof. They must not have done it. So that's yeah that that ruined a lot of people also because you work you also do some work as a consultant now on TV shows and stuff like that. I did I was a police consultant on the show. Do you give them the real answers? Oh, yeah, I never did. I wanted to stay on as a writer. Do you always believe it or not? This shows far-fetched. Anyway, it was going to be a great show because the the head writer was and the breckman and the show is based off of hocus-pocus a woman who could solve Crimes by reading handwriting. Oh, right. Yeah graphology. Yeah. She was she wrote a book. So I for 17 weeks I sat there and you know every time they wrote apart and they always ask me because this could this happen I would absolutely what are you kidding me? Because the writers the writing, you know, there was spending all week writing. I come in one day a week though you that kid had evaluate that and I think I'm gonna piss them off. They're gonna have to write more I figured this out real quick. So I have whatever they wrote. I was like, yeah that could happen. Yeah. No I can so I'm giving you advice for yeah, she Consulting work. He used the magic spray that tells you what kind of blood it was. Okay. Yeah. Look, we got a kick out of the luminol video. You will see that one the crime scene one. Yes without looking on the sweater. This firm is again. I think what are you guys gave that to me? It's a matter of fact that I think I know what kill excerpt EV every time first of all Law and Order when they make the arrest they always read Miranda Right on the scene. I cringe when I see that and the second thing is when the detective no matter how dangerous the seniors he goes in before ESU. Oh, yeah, that is like but you know, you would never allow that because the detectives got to go through the door first, you know, yeah, and that's doesn't happen. I consult with a lot of authors and mystery writers and a couple of TV shows. I did everybody's dying to develop a forensic game show. So they had me on three different shows where they have contestants investigating a scene and trying to come up with the answers, but it made no sense it just Make any sense these people they were like regular citizens. They didn't know what to ask. So they'd be like amateur sleuth. Yeah, they thought they knew a little something because talking about that the other day about an article that he read and it was written by somebody who basically was critiquing online detectives, right? Yeah. They do all their investigative work from the luxury of their living room. Right? Well there was that's how they do to me talking to people. So other people show and they were talking about the The guilt go through killings all that case. And yeah, it's amazing to me and it will touch upon that in the next hour. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. I mean you believe an hour went by they could know it's tough. But yet it's still unsolved. That's a crazy but you'll go. Oh, there's like ten bodies 11 times bodies and maybe more because they also there was Manorville bodies. Yeah, because and some of the bodies were found years before So that would dump job. Think about this case. We had I want to hear more about this is the best case there is all right. So we're going to start off with the next hour with Gil case. But in the meantime, we're going to take a break. I'm going to refill my mighty here and I want to thank you for sitting with us for the first hour. And then that would flew by was it hard? No, that was very easy. You guys like having the conversation imagine. We were drinking in a bar be the same thing. I have a funny feeling the second. I was going to be even better suited to take a break now.
Barbara Butcher is an expert in medicolegal death investigation and mass fatality management and is currently a consultant for medico-legal death investigation, working with forensic pathologists, attorneys, educators, television producers and mystery writers.She is now writing a book about her most interesting cases. She is the former Chief of Staff and Director of the Forensic Sciences Training Program at the NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner, where she was responsible for Medicolegal Investigations, Disaster Planning, Fatality Management, WTC 9/11 Victim Recovery, Identifications, Evidence, and Missing Persons. As Deputy Director she coordinated the remains recovery effort after WTC 9/11 and helped manage the response to the crash of Flight 587 that resulted in 265 deaths, and investigated the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. In 2007 she consulted for the World Health Organization in Geneva, working with an international committee of experts to formulate policy and plans for mass casualty/fatality events. Following the 2004 Tsunami, she went to Thailand on behalf of W.H.O. to assist in Victim Identification strategies, and returned to speak on Fatality Management to an international audience convened by the United Nations and W.H.O. In 2011 the Hong Kong government invited her and OCME colleagues to put on a symposium in disaster management for more than 300 officials. As a medicolegal death investigator at OCME, she investigated more than 5500 death scenes and 680 homicides. She created the Forensic Sciences Training Program at OCME, a National Institute of Justice-funded academy for national training on best practices in death investigation. 