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[Music]
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a young man has a fatal seizure
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and the hospital believes drugs are to
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blame
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the hospital saying hey he's got the
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amphetamine his mom
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says otherwise it was like no you know
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no
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then insights from dr g on how car
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crashes kill
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just using the lap belt isn't going to
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cut it and and we can get terrible
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injuries that way and
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later a small town tale of jealousy and
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resentment becomes an
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investigation into a possible murder did
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somebody push him did somebody
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bop him on the back of the head or did
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he happen to just fall down the stairs
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[Music]
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altered lives baffling medical mysteries
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shocking revelations these are the
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everyday cases of dr g
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medical examiner
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as a mother of two boys dr g knows that
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every moment with her family
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is precious
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[Music]
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and one particular case from her days as
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an me in san antonio texas
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stands out as a powerful reminder
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[Music]
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an untimely death is always devastating
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to the survivors
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but there's an added poignancy when the
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cause of death appears to have been
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avoidable
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edward mcduffie a 32 year old cab driver
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and skateboard enthusiast living in
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southwest san antonio
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was known as a charismatic mentor to
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local teens
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he taught young people and he's so
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skated and he was a
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real involved in the community about
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getting skate parks
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that are safe you know instead of having
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the kids skate on the streets
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one night after watching tv he complains
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of chest pains
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an hour later he walks into a san
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antonio hospital
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while alone and waiting for treatment in
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a triage room he suffers a violent
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seizure and collapses on the floor
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after being rushed to the or doctors
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discover that edward has sustained a
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myocardial infarction
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commonly known as a heart attack because
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edward is so young
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and seemingly healthy the hospital and
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his family are
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baffled by the sudden attack a few hours
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later
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his mother rushes to his side
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when i went in he he was already you
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know in the emergency room in a bed
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and on a respirator it took a long time
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to get his rhythm and
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that he would probably have brain damage
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and i prayed that
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the brain damage part was not true
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[Music]
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friends and family then receive another
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shock
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hospital tests on edward urine reveal
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traces of an illicit and dangerous
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stimulant
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amphetamine i thought that's
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totally wrong i said no
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edward mcduffie never regains
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consciousness
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after a week in a coma he passes away
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the hospital's final diagnosis a heart
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attack
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likely caused by amphetamine use on the
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death certificate the cause of death
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was going to be heart attack and
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seizures due to amphetamine abuse
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it was like no you know no i know that
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he didn't
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you know do that kind of stuff
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mcduffie's body is delivered to the
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medical examiner's office
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where determining who is right the
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doctors or the man's grieving mother
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will be up to dr g okay i'll uh
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can you get your blood yet no the bottom
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line is i really don't know what's going
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on and i'm not sure they knew what was
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going on
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dr g is all too familiar with drug
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related deaths
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in fact a staggeringly high percentage
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of all the bodies that enter the bear
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county morgue
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test positive for drugs and alcohol
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alcohol abuse kills 85 000
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americans annually and illicit drug use
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causes the deaths of seventeen thousand
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more
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but are illicit drugs the cause of
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edward mcduffie's fatal heart attack
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the hospital says yes edward's family
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says
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no only dr g scalpel
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and her examiner's eye can reveal the
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truth behind this man's sudden death
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this is a 30 year old man that you know
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collapse and goes the er
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and they resuscitate him and they say he
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has an an mi
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or myocardial infarction at some point
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though at some point he starts seizing
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but they're all blaming this all on
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amphetamines because they tested his
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urine while he was there and he was on
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amphetamines
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amphetamine commonly called speed and
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its sister drug
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methamphetamine are highly addictive
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stimulants that traumatize the central
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nervous system
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it is the number one cause of drug
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related emergency room visits in the
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united states
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with the stigma of a drug-related death
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hanging over her son's memory
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edward's mother hopes her son's name can
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be cleared
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he already died but why
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you know put a stain on his character
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you know
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my elderly aunt's thinking he was such a
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nice boy
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we didn't know he was a drug addict you
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know it i was angry
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deals with wife does this man die
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suddenly and unexpectedly
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at the age of 32.
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to begin dr g conducts a thorough
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external exam
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searching for any evidence that might
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indicate drug use
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such as fresh needle tracks tiny bruises
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or skin ulcers on the arms or feet
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she finds none just looking i mean i
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don't see any vascular scars on him he
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doesn't look like he's a big time drug
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user
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you know his mother made the comment if
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it's in him it was the first time ever
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dr g must next look inside the body
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where other signs of drug abuse
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might leave some fatal clues
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next dr g makes a startling discovery
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and oh my gosh there we got something
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here
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when dr g medical examiner continues
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[Music]
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dr g prepares to begin the internal
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examination of a 32 year old man
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whose fatal heart attack has two
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competing explanations
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the hospital asserts it was caused by an
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amphetamine overdose
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his mother says that can't be true now
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it's up to dr g to discover whether
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edward mcduffie is a victim of bad
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health
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or a bad decision this could be a drug
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overdose this would be
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a stroke in his head it could be heart
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disease we're going to have to look at
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our drug
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tests and kind of have to wait to put
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this one together
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it's not a classic amphetamine overdose
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because those people tend to have
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really high body temperatures and start
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to seize but
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the thing is they're attributing
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everything to this
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amphetamine and all we've got is a
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positive urine so i really think we need
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to look at his heart and look at his
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brain
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and see after making the y
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incision dr g inspects each of edward's
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organs and takes samples of body fluids
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she is particularly interested in
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examining edward's heart
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amphetamines can elevate the blood
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pressure to dangerous levels
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which can lead to a rapid irregular
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heartbeat
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she cracks open the ribs to remove and
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weigh edward's heart
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and what she finds is a seriously
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damaged organ
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his heart's enlarged a normal heart for
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a young man like this should be
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and you know he's not that big a guy it
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should be maybe 320 350
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grams and this heart weighs 470 grams oh
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you know
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a lot his heart has a massively enlarged
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left ventricle
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which could be a sign of chronic
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amphetamine abuse
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or heart disease
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a lot of times we see that with high
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blood pressure because the left side has
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to work harder
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he does have some natural disease here
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edward mcduffie was a victim of high
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blood pressure
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unusual in someone his age she wonders
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if this elevated blood pressure is due
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to chronic amphetamine abuse
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and if this could have led to his heart
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attack
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to find the answer she must cut open the
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heart to look for damage
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inside the blood vessels that supply the
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organ this is an artery one of the main
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arteries
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that supplies blood and oxygen to the
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heart muscle comes right off the aorta
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it's coming down
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now when that gets clogged that part of
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the heart can't get the blood and the
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oxygen
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danny do we have a little tiny uh probe
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then dr g makes a surprising discovery
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oh my gosh there we got something here
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and this little fella he actually has a
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little clot
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you really see the end of that blood
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clot here
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this is a clot that caused this heart
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attack because it he only had a pinpoint
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opening remaining and then he's got a
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little
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clot there he had severe narrowing to
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the
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coronary artery the blood vessel that
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supplied the blood and oxygen
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this discovery of atherosclerosis
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suggests that the hospital was wrong
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edward had a defect in his heart a
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narrowed artery blocked by a blood clot
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caused this young man's heart attack
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this chronic condition had caused high
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blood pressure and other minor symptoms
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in the past
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that it's simply been ignored that's not
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going to happen overnight
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with amphetamine so we knew that he had
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natural disease
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but what about his positive tests for
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amphetamines at the hospital
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to solve the riddle dr g has her
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technicians locate the original
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week old urine sample we have a sample
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of urine that they saved
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from the day he came in and we're gonna
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recheck that for amphetamine
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and then she calls edward's mom to find
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out more about his medical history
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what she learns corresponds to the
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conditions she observed in his body
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sometimes you have to listen to the
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family because we do we're the ones that
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that know our history we have a family
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history of young
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young people having heart attacks and
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and some of them
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dying you know from the first heart
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attack what's more
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edward had complained to his mother of
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chest pains and she'd urged him to seek
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medical care
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his mother had suggested he go to the
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doctor but he kind of
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was ignoring his symptoms his autopsy
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and his history
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clearly point to heart attack and when
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the urine test results
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come back dr g knows she's got the final
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piece of evidence in her hand
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we retested that urine and it was
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negative for amphetamine
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edward's mom was right all along how
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could a hospital make such a mistake
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the hospital screen sometimes cannot
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distinguish between the stimulants and
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some cold medicines
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and amphetamines hospital staff may have
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made a hurried assumption
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in an emergency with her autopsy
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in the test results dr g can now
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reconstruct the series of events
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that led to edward mcduffie's death
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he'd been having chest pains and had
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been kind of blowing it off
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i think a lot of young men would do the
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pain is caused by an almost completely
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blocked coronary artery
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that prevents blood from reaching his
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heart muscle
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one night the pain is too intense to
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ignore
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and he goes to the hospital on admission
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he's given routine tests
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he came into the hospital and uh tested
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positive on a urine screen for
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amphetamines
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edward's chest pain is due to a blood
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clot that is formed where plaque
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ruptured into his artery
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the clot blocks his already narrowed
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artery that is now struggling to fuel
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his heart muscle
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the heart muscle begins to die and
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edward goes into cardiac arrest
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doctors spring into action and they
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brought his heart rate
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back i had
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then went into an arrhythmia
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but at some point he falls off a gurney
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and then starts having seizures
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edward's seizures occur because his
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brain has been without oxygen for so
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long
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but the hospital believes the seizures
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are caused by amphetamines
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but it seemed like they really jumped to
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the conclusion right from the beginning
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as soon as they saw
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the amphetamine screen was positive in
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the urine that all his problems seemed
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to be due to that
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when edward's mother arrives doctors
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have restarted his heart
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but because his brain is irrevocably
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damaged from lack of oxygen
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he remains in a coma
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then they did the eegs and stuff and
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well you know you never lose hope
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but things happened that
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and that was um
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i believe part of you know the plan you
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know the big plan the big picture you
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know that god
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has for all of us after a week with no
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improvement edward mcduffie dies
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rosa is forced to accept the loss of her
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son
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but she cannot accept the hospital's
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explanation
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so she is very grateful that dr g's
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findings
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have confirmed what she knew in her
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heart all along
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i think she's 7 cent i thank god
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that she decided to really look into it
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when dr g called me and said that it was
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that it was not the case
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it was like it just makes all the
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difference in the world to me
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well in this case the mother knew her
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son and he didn't use amphetamines
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i knew i was right i knew my son
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next after thousands of autopsies dr g
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has learned a thing or two about car
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wrecks
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well i mean i've learned a lot these are
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dr g's pearls of wisdom that i've
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learned in the morgue
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her insights into how accidents on the
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road can kill
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when dr g medical examiner continues
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saturday 2 a.m
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[Music]
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a young driver heads home from a night
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of drinking
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his blood alcohol level is at 0.16
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twice the legal limit in florida
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the road markings are hard to follow
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he's drifting between lanes
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20 miles over the speed limit and off to
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sleep
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every 15 minutes somewhere in the united
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states a car accident kills
00:15:50
for the victim's loved ones each crash
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is a catastrophic
00:15:53
personal tragedy but there are some who
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must tackle those tragedies
00:15:58
from a professional point of view
00:16:02
one two three saturday morning and we've
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got three auto accidents
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that's typical every day we come down
00:16:10
here
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and we're looking at that at the orange
00:16:13
osceola county medical examiner's office
00:16:15
in florida
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about one in every five cases is from a
00:16:19
car crash
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we're gonna have to look at a spinal
00:16:22
cord i have to kind of piece all the
00:16:24
parts of the puzzle together with to
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come up with what happened
00:16:27
bad weather high speeds failing breaks
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alcohol heart attacks seizures a suicide
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wish
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a murder attempt every wreck has a story
00:16:40
we want to know if it is truly the car
00:16:43
accident that killed him
00:16:44
and the final discoveries of both dr g
00:16:47
and police investigators
00:16:48
can influence insurance claims criminal
00:16:51
charges
00:16:52
and even future auto designs a car crash
00:16:55
may mean the end to a life but for dr
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g it is just the beginning of a new
00:17:02
investigation
00:17:04
every car accident is a scientific
00:17:06
journey
00:17:07
one that begins not in the morgue but
00:17:09
out in the field
00:17:10
uh all of us told we got a pedestrian
00:17:13
walked across out of the parking lot
00:17:14
crossed over the roadway struck by the
00:17:16
uh by the station
00:17:17
florida highway patrolmen investigate
00:17:19
over 3 200
00:17:21
fatal crash scenes per year one of the
00:17:23
first things they must do with such a
00:17:25
scene
00:17:26
is sort through the wreckage you have to
00:17:28
switch into uh
00:17:29
into the investigative mode and your
00:17:31
objective at that point is
00:17:33
is to try to help the deceased and be
00:17:35
the mouthpiece for them
00:17:37
the highway patrols homicide unit is
00:17:39
expertly trained to map a scene
00:17:41
taking critical photographs and
00:17:43
measurements
00:17:45
the purpose of gathering all the
00:17:46
information in the investigation is to
00:17:48
confirm or deny certain things
00:17:50
that may have or have not caused the
00:17:52
crash things like speed
00:17:55
somebody accelerated through red light
00:17:57
we can use that
00:17:58
to make the charges for who caused the
00:18:01
crash
00:18:02
the skid marks the damage to the
00:18:03
vehicles and the gouges on the road
00:18:05
all that together will tell us what
00:18:07
happened but to be accurate
00:18:09
the investigators have got to move fast
00:18:12
a rainy night for example
00:18:14
may wash away portions of a skid mark
00:18:17
at times the crash site is spread over
00:18:20
hundreds of feet
00:18:21
even the bodies may no longer be in the
00:18:23
car sometimes when everybody is
00:18:25
killed in a crash and ejected also we
00:18:28
have no idea who's driving
00:18:30
we'll seize the entire vehicle and have
00:18:32
it taken to the crime lab
00:18:34
and they can use the occupants of the
00:18:36
vehicle's clothing
00:18:37
to try to match that back to the
00:18:38
driver's seat the seat belt
00:18:40
the dash whatever they impacted even
00:18:43
their blood
00:18:44
to put them in the seats each piece of
00:18:47
evidence
00:18:48
helps to get at the truth behind the
00:18:50
cause of every accident
00:18:52
but nothing leaves the scene until an
00:18:54
investigator from dr g's office gets a
00:18:56
first-hand look
00:18:58
they can't clear the wreck until my
00:19:00
investigators get there
00:19:01
and our responsibility is to go ahead
00:19:05
and put the perspective of the
00:19:08
environment
00:19:09
surrounding the body so that the doctor
00:19:12
knows what
00:19:12
what's going to be affecting the body
00:19:14
what kind of vehicle was it
00:19:16
was an suv was it a pickup truck it puts
00:19:18
the doctor at the scene
00:19:20
all that information arrives with the
00:19:22
deceased at the morgue
00:19:23
this is a 55 year old struck by a pickup
00:19:27
truck
00:19:28
then it's up to the medical examiner to
00:19:30
determine the true cause and manner of
00:19:32
death
00:19:36
when we hear about someone dying in a
00:19:38
car crash it's easy to assume he or she
00:19:40
died from the injuries
00:19:42
but in the morgue many autopsies of car
00:19:45
crash victims have a multi-layered
00:19:47
mystery to be solved
00:19:48
and a lot of people think why bother why
00:19:51
bother doing them
00:19:52
for example many auto fatalities are
00:19:55
actually the result
00:19:56
of natural causes why did his heart stop
00:19:59
we don't know yet
00:20:01
did he have a natural disease did he
00:20:02
have a stroke did he have a heart attack
00:20:05
all of these things we can help answer a
00:20:08
medical examiner must also look for
00:20:10
other influences on the driver's body
00:20:12
we always draw toxicology ooh nice big
00:20:15
bladder he's been drinking at the party
00:20:17
you know at least 40 percent of people
00:20:19
who die in traffic accidents
00:20:20
have alcohol in their system the other
00:20:23
60 percent
00:20:24
include a few surprises i had a fellow
00:20:26
that a poor thing
00:20:27
a bee flew in his cab of his truck and
00:20:29
he ended up in an accident
00:20:31
i like the stories putting piece putting
00:20:32
the pieces together
00:20:34
making a difference in the process dr g
00:20:37
comes face to face with the reality of
00:20:39
what a car accident can do
00:20:41
to a person's body the most common fatal
00:20:44
wounds
00:20:44
just blunt trauma of the head all sorts
00:20:47
of type of head injuries
00:20:49
followed by multiple internal trauma
00:20:51
when an aorta is totally cut in half
00:20:54
when your diaphragms are totally ripped
00:20:56
in half and all your abdominal organs
00:20:58
are in your chest
00:21:00
looks like a bad horror picture
00:21:04
an accident victim's death speaks
00:21:06
volumes to dr g
00:21:08
their injuries can also tell her how to
00:21:10
avoid ending up in the morgue herself
00:21:16
i mean i've learned a lot these are you
00:21:18
know dr g's pearls of wisdom that i've
00:21:21
learned in the morgue
00:21:22
and i just use them for my own how i
00:21:25
live my life i guess i'll share
00:21:26
with you dr g's first pearl of wisdom i
00:21:30
don't speed i see
00:21:31
you know a lot of the accidents are
00:21:33
caused by
00:21:34
excessive speed where the your chance of
00:21:37
dying
00:21:38
goes up every 10 miles faster you go
00:21:42
exponentially dr g also has a unique
00:21:45
take on the improper use of a familiar
00:21:47
safety device
00:21:49
the seat belt you've got to use them the
00:21:50
way they're constructed
00:21:52
putting half the seat belt behind you
00:21:54
not using the harness belt and just
00:21:56
using the lap belt
00:21:57
isn't going to cut it and and we can get
00:21:59
terrible injuries that way
00:22:01
a person's body is at the mercy of
00:22:03
inertia when a fast-moving car crashes
00:22:05
with no harness belt the body will hit
00:22:08
the wheel or dashboard and suddenly stop
00:22:10
while the organs keep moving at 60 miles
00:22:13
per hour
00:22:14
what's happening is you're decelerating
00:22:16
very quickly
00:22:18
and your chest stops but your internal
00:22:21
organs continue
00:22:23
and then it tears the anchor point
00:22:26
of your aorta you stop quickly but your
00:22:29
internal organs haven't quite
00:22:30
kept up the harness seat belt helps to
00:22:33
keep the body and organs in sync
00:22:35
and off the dashboard we just recently
00:22:37
had one where they
00:22:38
they didn't use the seat belt correctly
00:22:40
and it didn't help them often
00:22:42
car accident victims are also simply in
00:22:44
the wrong place
00:22:45
at the wrong time i never ever stopped
00:22:48
my car on the side of a freeway
00:22:50
they stopped their car on the freeway to
00:22:52
discuss the accident it's a fender
00:22:54
bender
00:22:54
and then somebody comes along and
00:22:56
rear-ends the cars and somebody gets
00:22:58
killed
00:22:59
i've had a officer get killed that way
00:23:02
at least
00:23:03
two i've had people who have just
00:23:05
stopped
00:23:06
to fix the tire get killed that way so i
00:23:09
actually had a time where my engine
00:23:11
light went on and i can remember you
00:23:13
know stop the car stop the car you
00:23:14
shouldn't be driving with the engine
00:23:15
light on you know i think it's my
00:23:16
husband's little voice
00:23:18
and and i just didn't feel comfortable
00:23:20
stopping the car until
00:23:22
on the side of the road until i could
00:23:24
get an off ramp because i was not
00:23:25
that engine light wasn't going to kill
00:23:27
me at that point but stabbing my car on
00:23:29
the side of the road i wasn't so sure
00:23:32
car accidents violent crashes
00:23:35
everybody at the scene is affected by it
00:23:37
unexpected injuries
00:23:39
what do you think about this break i
00:23:41
need to see his foul though wait
00:23:43
wait a moment i needed to look at that
00:23:44
and i didn't look at it good he was i
00:23:46
was given philosophy
00:23:48
shedding new light on life it is very
00:23:50
sad
00:23:51
but i have some questions to answer and
00:23:54
i don't i have to get past the sad part
00:23:56
pretty fast
00:23:57
i need to go change and start work
00:24:03
coming up next a suspicious death in a
00:24:06
small town leads dr
00:24:07
g down a path of possible homicide did
00:24:11
somebody push him did somebody
00:24:12
pop him on the back of the head or did
00:24:15
he
00:24:16
happen to just fall down the stairs when
00:24:18
dr g
00:24:19
medical examiner continues
00:24:35
[Music]
00:24:44
dr g's next case involves jealousy
00:24:47
intrigue and suspicions of murder in
00:24:50
small town america
00:24:51
okay well today we've got an interesting
00:24:54
case it comes from a rural
00:24:56
area and
00:24:59
this man is dead at the bottom of the
00:25:02
stairs
00:25:03
he's working in kind of an old
00:25:06
historic hotel the case comes from a
00:25:09
county nearly 300 miles from the morgue
00:25:12
and the decedent's name is alexis jones
00:25:15
a man who had been trying to put the
00:25:16
pieces of his life back together
00:25:18
after a painful divorce
00:25:23
in communities too small to afford a
00:25:25
medical examiner's office coroners
00:25:28
investigate unexplained deaths
00:25:31
so i'm the first one that is called out
00:25:34
to determine the cause of death or
00:25:36
determine whether or not
00:25:37
there's an autopsy that's needed so i'm
00:25:39
at her mercy
00:25:40
to getting the information according to
00:25:43
the investigation report
00:25:45
it all started when a hotel employee
00:25:48
noticed something ominous
00:25:49
outside of the manager's living quarters
00:25:52
immediately
00:25:53
he called shirley williams the local
00:25:55
coroner
00:25:56
he actually noticed a pool of blood
00:26:00
up underneath the door the person at the
00:26:03
scene said there was blood
00:26:05
williams arrives at the hotel to start
00:26:07
her investigation
00:26:08
as the caller had reported she finds
00:26:11
blood seeping out from under the door
00:26:13
leading to the hotel manager's apartment
00:26:16
and when she opens the door
00:26:17
she finds his dead body at the bottom of
00:26:20
the staircase
00:26:21
he was lying down and there was
00:26:24
a garbage around it looked like he was
00:26:27
probably
00:26:28
either taking garbage out or had fallen
00:26:31
into
00:26:32
some garbage uh he is at the bottom of
00:26:35
the stairs did he just trip and fall
00:26:38
dr g notes that williams performed a
00:26:40
preliminary exam of the body at the
00:26:42
scene
00:26:43
and carefully reads through her findings
00:26:45
there is a lot of
00:26:46
head trauma i mean which would not have
00:26:49
been
00:26:51
very unusual for someone that had fallen
00:26:54
you know the distance that he had fallen
00:26:56
or you know someone that had taken a
00:26:57
tumble down in the staircase
00:27:00
at first glance it appears that the
00:27:02
manager innocently slept
00:27:04
fell down the stairs and banged his head
00:27:06
on something sharp
00:27:07
causing the massive bleeding so then why
00:27:10
did williams request that dr
00:27:12
g autopsy the body i don't know i don't
00:27:14
know what's going on here
00:27:17
but as dr g reads on the reasons become
00:27:20
clear upon further inspection of the
00:27:22
body
00:27:23
williams notices several wounds wounds
00:27:26
she feels could be
00:27:27
inconsistent with an accidental fall
00:27:30
down the stairs
00:27:32
there's blood on his face there's some
00:27:34
swelling in his eye
00:27:35
and that made her suspicious suspicious
00:27:39
that an assailant may be responsible for
00:27:41
this man's death
00:27:42
or was there an altercation was it an
00:27:45
accident
00:27:46
or was there something just a little bit
00:27:49
more to this
00:27:50
that's very unusual to fall down the
00:27:52
stairs and die
00:27:53
we don't see that very often it's not
00:27:55
common in this case she
00:27:57
rightly determined that she needed
00:27:59
autopsy
00:28:01
i think it's intriguing though that he's
00:28:03
uh he lives there he's the general
00:28:05
manager and there's definitely
00:28:07
quarreling going on nobody seems to like
00:28:08
the guy
00:28:10
suddenly an apparent run-of-the-mill
00:28:12
accident has turned into a small-town
00:28:14
murder she wrote
00:28:16
and now dr g must try to find evidence
00:28:18
to solve the mystery of what
00:28:20
or who killed this 50 year old man
00:28:24
did somebody push him did somebody pop
00:28:26
him on the back of the head or
00:28:28
did he happen to just fall down the
00:28:30
stairs this will be interesting to see
00:28:33
if we can figure out what happened to
00:28:34
him
00:28:35
[Music]
00:28:39
i can see the big old scar going down
00:28:41
the center of his chest as dr g begins
00:28:43
the external exam
00:28:45
she immediately finds evidence of
00:28:47
previous surgeries
00:28:49
we undress him and i see a big scar on
00:28:52
his chest going straight down his chest
00:28:53
from his
00:28:55
kind of the base of his neck all the way
00:28:56
down that usually indicates
00:28:58
that he's had heart surgery typically
00:29:01
bypass surgery and he's got a matching
00:29:04
scar down his leg so he's it's
00:29:06
consistent with
00:29:07
that he's had a bypass surgery clearly
00:29:10
joan suffered from heart problems in the
00:29:12
past dr g
00:29:14
wonders if his weak heart could have
00:29:15
failed again contributing to his death
00:29:18
she'll need to wait for the internal
00:29:20
autopsy to explore that theory further
00:29:22
but as she continues her external exam
00:29:25
dr g finds several other wounds on
00:29:27
jones's body that point to foul play
00:29:30
he certainly could have been struggling
00:29:32
with somebody he's got
00:29:34
the smeared blood on his face i don't
00:29:35
you know could have been
00:29:37
the eye could have been from a blow
00:29:40
and it certainly has the confusion
00:29:42
abrasion on his back of his hand i mean
00:29:44
it could have been a struggle
00:29:45
there was also a deep cut on the side of
00:29:47
his head possibly the result of another
00:29:50
blow
00:29:51
so he hit his head or somebody hit his
00:29:53
head and it's about one and a half
00:29:55
inches in length
00:29:56
but evidence of violence does not stop
00:29:59
there i also found some little petechiae
00:30:01
or
00:30:02
broken blood vessels in his conjunctiva
00:30:05
you know we classically we would see
00:30:07
that with strangulation
00:30:08
but dr g will have to wait for the
00:30:10
internal exam to explore this theory
00:30:12
further
00:30:14
with all of jones's external injuries
00:30:16
suggesting foul play
00:30:18
she prepares the body for the y incision
00:30:22
[Music]
00:30:23
[Applause]
00:30:25
coming up next shocking internal
00:30:27
findings throw the murder investigation
00:30:30
for a loop
00:30:30
and he could have died at any moment
00:30:33
when dr g
00:30:34
medical examiner continues
00:30:36
[Music]
00:30:53
we have a lot of activity going on in
00:30:54
our work
00:30:56
dr g and her mortex prepare the body of
00:30:59
hotel manager
00:31:00
alexis jones for the internal exam
00:31:03
earlier that morning jones body was
00:31:05
discovered at the historic country hotel
00:31:08
where he worked
00:31:09
and based on wounds on his body dr g
00:31:12
wonders if he may have been the victim
00:31:14
of foul play he certainly could have
00:31:16
been struggling with somebody
00:31:19
then midway through the autopsy coroner
00:31:21
shirley williams calls dr g from the
00:31:23
hotel
00:31:24
she's just uncovered a possible motive
00:31:26
for murder
00:31:28
according to interviews that williams
00:31:29
conducted with local residents jones was
00:31:32
not the most popular man in his
00:31:34
community
00:31:35
he'd moved to town just six months
00:31:36
earlier and a mere two months later
00:31:39
he received a huge promotion they just
00:31:42
made him manager
00:31:43
and other people didn't like it he
00:31:45
wasn't well liked and he'd been having
00:31:47
some quarreling
00:31:49
with some other employees but did they
00:31:52
hate him enough to kill him
00:31:54
you know could someone have gotten in
00:31:56
there and you know whacked him over the
00:31:58
head and then
00:31:59
you know pushed him down the staircase
00:32:00
to make things look like an accident
00:32:02
i don't know if they're taking justice
00:32:04
in their own hands or not i mean that he
00:32:06
was not the
00:32:06
man for the job at least in their eyes
00:32:09
dr g
00:32:10
has unsubstantiated external evidence
00:32:13
and a possible motive that could point
00:32:15
to murder
00:32:16
but before she can rule this case a
00:32:18
homicide she must find tangible forensic
00:32:21
evidence
00:32:21
inside jones's body
00:32:26
well dr g opens the body of alexis jones
00:32:30
with the standard y
00:32:31
incision cutting through scar tissue on
00:32:33
his chest
00:32:34
a result of previous bypass surgery to
00:32:37
his heart
00:32:38
as a first step she removes his heart
00:32:43
375 for the heart when we look at the
00:32:46
heart first of all we actually
00:32:48
see the little bypass we see the blood
00:32:50
vessel
00:32:51
that has been sown from the aorta to the
00:32:54
coronary artery
00:32:56
it looks fine dr g notices that the
00:32:59
bypass surgery looks perfect
00:33:02
however she doesn't dismiss jones's
00:33:04
heart yet and rightly so
00:33:06
when she cuts into another artery that
00:33:08
supplies blood to the organ
00:33:10
she makes a grim discovery one of his
00:33:13
coronary arteries
00:33:14
was completely narrowed completely
00:33:17
occluded
00:33:18
he's had a previous heart attack the
00:33:20
whole back of his heart was dead
00:33:22
uh and scarred down despite the success
00:33:26
of jones bypass surgery
00:33:28
his heart remains hopelessly diseased if
00:33:30
you continue to smoke and you continue
00:33:32
eat bad and
00:33:33
continue to keep your cholesterol up
00:33:36
those
00:33:37
the bypass grafts can get narrowed and
00:33:40
thickened
00:33:41
just like your regular coronary arteries
00:33:44
he could have died at
00:33:45
any moment from that diseased heart
00:33:49
it now seems possible that no one
00:33:51
assaulted jones
00:33:53
and that he simply had a heart attack at
00:33:55
the top of the steps
00:33:56
and came tumbling down hitting his head
00:33:59
on something sharp along the way
00:34:01
so at this point i don't know but dr g
00:34:04
does know how to find out if he suffered
00:34:07
a heart attack at the top of the steps
00:34:09
jones's internal wounds from the fall
00:34:11
would not bleed
00:34:13
this is because wounds only actively
00:34:15
bleed if the heart is pumping blood
00:34:18
but if dr g finds a large collection of
00:34:20
blood around the wounds
00:34:21
his heart must have been beating when he
00:34:23
fell thus
00:34:24
ruling out a fatal heart attack at the
00:34:27
top of the steps
00:34:35
[Music]
00:34:39
looking for signs of internal bleeding
00:34:41
dr g's texts now opened
00:34:43
jones's cranium
00:34:47
as she removes the brain she makes two
00:34:49
critical findings
00:34:52
[Music]
00:34:54
this is interesting i reflect the scalp
00:34:57
and then i notice there is a lot of
00:34:59
contusion or blood
00:35:00
collecting in the scalp itself based on
00:35:03
this
00:35:04
dr g now knows that jones was bleeding
00:35:07
internally when he fell down the steps
00:35:09
this reveals a very important clue about
00:35:12
his heart
00:35:13
i can say that that heart was at least
00:35:15
still beating
00:35:17
when he got the head trauma and that
00:35:20
means he did not die from a heart attack
00:35:22
but dr g's next finding is even more
00:35:25
revealing
00:35:26
as she looks inside jones skull right
00:35:28
away she sees the
00:35:30
injury that did kill him a bruise on the
00:35:32
left hand side of his brain
00:35:34
the definite bruise he died from the
00:35:36
severe head injuries that he received
00:35:38
yet dr g notices that the bruise on his
00:35:41
brain is not directly beneath the cut on
00:35:43
jones's scalp
00:35:45
an injury that she documented in the
00:35:47
external exam
00:35:49
i know it's an odd thing the scalp on
00:35:52
the right side has one laceration about
00:35:54
a one and a half
00:35:55
inches in length
00:35:58
lo and behold the contusion is on the
00:36:01
opposite side
00:36:02
where there's no trauma over the scalp
00:36:06
this type of injury is referred to as a
00:36:08
contra coup
00:36:09
literally meaning opposite the blow it
00:36:12
occurs when a body is in motion
00:36:14
and the head strikes a hard surface the
00:36:17
abrupt impact causes the brain to shift
00:36:19
from side to side in the skull
00:36:22
the brain comes back and hits the inside
00:36:24
of the skull
00:36:25
on the opposite direction yeah this is
00:36:28
interesting
00:36:29
often a bruise will develop opposite the
00:36:31
site of impact as a result of the
00:36:32
shifting brain
00:36:34
as opposed to a blow and you're
00:36:36
stationary
00:36:38
the contusion is right underneath the
00:36:40
blow the presence of a contra coup on
00:36:43
jones's brain
00:36:44
indicates that he was moving when he
00:36:46
sustained the injury
00:36:47
and provides dr g with the evidence she
00:36:49
needs to determine how he died
00:36:52
so at this point i can definitively say
00:36:55
that
00:36:56
the trauma which is why he died
00:36:59
is from a fall and not a blow to the
00:37:01
head
00:37:02
coming up next one central question
00:37:04
remains
00:37:06
now the million-dollar question is was
00:37:09
he pushed
00:37:10
okay when dr ge medical examiner
00:37:15
[Music]
00:37:20
continues
00:37:24
[Music]
00:37:35
dr g now knows that alexis jones died
00:37:38
from severe cranial injuries
00:37:40
after falling down the stairs but
00:37:42
because she still hasn't determined if
00:37:44
his fall was an accident
00:37:46
the case remains far from closed
00:37:48
captioning
00:37:50
not
00:38:03
of what's available on
00:38:13
but in this case the toxicology report
00:38:16
only raises
00:38:16
further questions when i get the talks
00:38:19
back uh
00:38:20
he ends up having a very elevated blood
00:38:23
alcohol
00:38:24
of a .22 very highly intoxicated
00:38:27
then dr g's attention is quickly
00:38:29
diverted to a far
00:38:30
stranger finding jones blood also
00:38:33
contains
00:38:34
a large quantity of a chemical called
00:38:36
quinine
00:38:37
it's typically associated with treating
00:38:39
malaria a potentially
00:38:41
fatal mosquito-borne disease found in
00:38:43
the tropics
00:38:44
and i was like why would he have quinoa
00:38:46
and quinine is a chemical that you
00:38:48
uh can use to treat malaria or maybe leg
00:38:51
cramps
00:38:52
uh there's not a lot of call for quinine
00:38:54
anymore and
00:38:55
uh you know i i didn't quite understand
00:38:58
why he'd have that
00:39:00
was jones suffering from malaria if so
00:39:04
dr g should have picked up on one of the
00:39:06
many physical signs
00:39:07
small skin hemorrhages swelling of the
00:39:10
brain
00:39:11
an enlarged spleen and anemia but jones
00:39:14
exhibits
00:39:15
none of these and because malaria is
00:39:17
rarely seen in the united states
00:39:19
dr g doubts that he was infected with
00:39:21
this disease
00:39:23
so what explains the high levels of
00:39:25
quinine in jones's blood
00:39:28
there is a quinine poisoning and quinine
00:39:30
poisoning is really quite severe
00:39:32
there is a whole syndrome of having too
00:39:34
much quinine and you
00:39:36
actually get dizzy and nauseated and you
00:39:38
can actually lose your eyesight
00:39:40
struggling for answers dr g turns to
00:39:43
coroner shirley williams
00:39:45
to see if she observed anything at the
00:39:47
scene that could shed light
00:39:48
on this strange finding as it turns out
00:39:52
williams remembers seeing something
00:39:53
during her examination of jones
00:39:55
apartment
00:39:56
that could provide an explanation i did
00:39:59
notice
00:40:00
that there was a bottle of dry gen
00:40:03
and also a bottle of tonic there
00:40:06
and they were open while quinine is used
00:40:10
for treating leg cramps and malaria in
00:40:12
third world countries
00:40:13
it is best known stateside as an
00:40:15
ingredient of tonic water
00:40:19
he was really drinking and his blood
00:40:22
alcohol was high and his quinine
00:40:24
level was high so he liked his gin and
00:40:25
tonic
00:40:27
with a lack of evidence supporting foul
00:40:29
play at the hands of jones fellow hotel
00:40:31
workers
00:40:32
and no forensic evidence that he had a
00:40:34
fatal heart attack
00:40:35
prior to falling down the stairs dr g
00:40:38
can now replay what
00:40:39
likely happened to alexis jones on the
00:40:42
night of his death
00:40:52
perhaps celebrating his promotion to
00:40:54
manager
00:40:55
or may be stressed about another day of
00:40:57
bitter quarreling among his colleagues
00:40:59
jones indulges heavily in his favorite
00:41:01
cocktail
00:41:02
gin and tonic we know that he was
00:41:05
drinking his gin and tonic
00:41:06
prior to going downstairs we know he's
00:41:09
highly intoxicated
00:41:12
now suffering from impaired balance and
00:41:14
blurred vision
00:41:15
jones inexplicably makes a fatal
00:41:17
decision
00:41:19
to take his trash out the effects of the
00:41:22
alcohol in his system cause him to
00:41:24
stumble on the steps
00:41:28
he falls down the stairs hits his head
00:41:30
very badly
00:41:31
as jones falls he lacerates the right
00:41:34
side of his skull on the steps
00:41:36
the impact causes his brain to bounce
00:41:38
back and forth
00:41:39
slamming against the opposite side of
00:41:41
his skull
00:41:42
as a result of the trauma his brain
00:41:45
begins to bleed and to swell
00:41:48
after just a few minutes oxygen can no
00:41:51
longer reach his damaged brain
00:41:53
and he dies he died from the severe head
00:41:55
injuries that he received
00:41:57
dr g assures shirley williams that she
00:42:00
found no evidence that jones was
00:42:02
murdered they ruled it as an accident so
00:42:04
we went ahead and
00:42:05
just closed our files but while the case
00:42:08
is officially closed at the morgue
00:42:10
an unsettling incident a year later
00:42:12
causes shirley's town to relive the
00:42:14
tragedy
00:42:15
all over again
00:42:18
wasn't too long after that then the next
00:42:22
hotel manager shows up dead
00:42:24
this death was eventually ruled a
00:42:26
suicide
00:42:27
but shirley williams remains astonished
00:42:30
by the coincidence
00:42:31
i mean what are the odds in such a small
00:42:33
community
00:42:34
that two people in the same position
00:42:37
would show up dead without a confession
00:42:41
or a witness dr g stands by her ruling
00:42:44
and the case remains filed as accidental
00:42:48
i'll never prove that he wasn't pushed
00:42:51
we don't well unless we have a witness
00:42:54
now
00:42:55
if someone you know years from now comes
00:42:58
and says you know i pushed him down the
00:42:59
stairs and i pushed him on purpose
00:43:02
there's nothing i could say it's just
00:43:05
one more tragic accident
00:43:07
one more life cut short that dr g sees
00:43:10
every day in the morgue being in the
00:43:13
morgue you realize you have a finite
00:43:14
amount of time here on earth
00:43:17
when you face that every day to realize
00:43:19
that hourglass is
00:43:21
constantly moving you don't turn it over
00:43:23
in mid-stream
00:43:26
and you gotta go and you
00:43:30
try to find happiness in life
