00:00:18
NARRATOR: A 25-year-old man is rushed to the ER
00:00:21
with a mysterious illness.
00:00:22
He's got this skin disease that's expanding
00:00:26
in front of their very eyes.
00:00:28
And within hours, he's dead.
00:00:30
NARRATOR: Now Dr. G is forced to consider
00:00:33
a catastrophic possibility.
00:00:35
It's one of those things that terrorists
00:00:38
could use to wipe out a large part of the population.
00:00:42
Like, wow.
00:00:44
NARRATOR: Then, when a man answers a knock at the door,
00:00:47
he's shot dead in cold blood.
00:00:51
There's no rhyme or reason to this world sometimes.
00:00:55
NARRATOR: And police are counting on Dr. G
00:00:57
to help them track down the perpetrator
00:00:59
before it's too late.
00:01:01
Everyone in the system is working so this killer
00:01:05
is no longer out on the street.
00:01:07
[THEME MUSIC]
00:01:11
NARRATOR: Altered lives, baffling medical mysteries,
00:01:14
shocking revelations--
00:01:16
these are the everyday cases of "Dr. G, Medical Examiner."
00:01:27
It's after closing time at the District 9 morgue,
00:01:30
and Dr. G is finishing up some paperwork from the day's cases,
00:01:35
when she receives a surprise call from a doctor in the ICU
00:01:39
at a local hospital.
00:01:40
I remember distinctly.
00:01:42
It's about 7 o'clock at night.
00:01:44
[INAUDIBLE] that certainly doesn't happen every day.
00:01:47
It looks like it's--
00:01:48
NARRATOR: He informs Dr. G that one of his patients
00:01:51
has just died mysteriously less than 24
00:01:54
hours after being admitted.
00:01:56
Unfortunately, they weren't able to get a diagnosis,
00:01:59
and they really felt that this needed
00:02:01
to be diagnosed because it killed him so quickly.
00:02:05
He was worried that this was a public health concern.
00:02:09
And now they're asking, could I do the autopsy?
00:02:12
I am worrying.
00:02:14
Most of the time, we can come up with an answer,
00:02:16
but sometimes we don't.
00:02:18
But I like a mystery.
00:02:29
NARRATOR: It all started about a day earlier, shortly
00:02:32
after 25-year-old Johnny Tran arrived in Orlando
00:02:36
on a flight from Los Angeles.
00:02:39
He'd been looking forward to spending
00:02:41
a long weekend with friends.
00:02:44
JAN GARAVAGLIA: As soon as he got off that plane
00:02:45
and he met his friends, they realized that something
00:02:50
is clearly wrong with him.
00:02:54
He had a cough, and he was getting
00:02:56
rapidly short of breath.
00:03:00
His friends realized that he was very sick.
00:03:06
NARRATOR: They rush Johnny to a nearby hospital,
00:03:09
but his condition continues to deteriorate rapidly.
00:03:13
Within an hour or two of him coming to the emergency room,
00:03:18
he's innovated and on a ventilator.
00:03:22
NARRATOR: A team of ER doctors scramble
00:03:24
to find out what's going on.
00:03:26
But it isn't long before a chilling new development stops
00:03:30
them dead in their tracks.
00:03:32
JAN GARAVAGLIA: He's got this skin lesion that's going down
00:03:36
his neck onto the upper chest.
00:03:39
He didn't have that when he came in.
00:03:43
His skin disease started expanding
00:03:46
in front of their very eyes.
00:03:51
They put him in an isolation room in the ICU.
00:03:54
But he has a rapid downhill course.
00:03:57
Within less than 18 hours, he's dead.
00:04:06
It's always a tragedy when somebody dies so quickly
00:04:08
and at such a young age.
00:04:11
NARRATOR: The 25-year-old had moved to the United States
00:04:13
from Vietnam just six months earlier.
00:04:17
And when authorities contact his parents back home,
00:04:20
they are absolutely grief stricken.
00:04:23
They're devastated by the news,
00:04:25
and they just wanted to know why he died.
00:04:45
NARRATOR: This morning, the atmosphere at the District 9
00:04:48
morgue is unusually tense.
00:04:51
It is?
00:04:52
I know I'm testifying on it.
00:04:53
I just didn't know.
00:04:54
That's not until November.
00:04:55
Why would it be in my office?
00:04:56
I don't know.
00:04:57
It's not in the file.
00:04:58
I got bigger fish to fry.
00:05:00
This poor fellow is a tragedy.
00:05:03
But he's got everybody on pins and needles
00:05:06
because it might be something infectious.
00:05:08
You know, coming off of an airplane,
00:05:11
immediately getting sick and dying
00:05:14
relatively quickly with this huge rapidly
00:05:17
progressing skin necrosis.
00:05:21
Like, wow.
00:05:22
Do we know anything about this?
00:05:24
Let's get some info, and I'll be right back.
00:05:28
NARRATOR: Now it's up to Dr. G and her team
00:05:31
to figure out exactly what happened to Johnny Tran.
00:05:35
And her first order of business is
00:05:37
to review his hospital records.
00:05:40
All right, let's see here.
00:05:42
NARRATOR: As she reads through the file,
00:05:45
she notes right away that ER doctors ran a battery of tests
00:05:49
on the 25-year-old.
00:05:50
When he's in the ER, one of the things
00:05:52
they do is a chest X-ray.
00:05:55
And they could see that he had a bad pneumonia.
00:05:59
NARRATOR: Pneumonia could explain his coughing,
00:06:01
but it doesn't account for his strange skin lesions
00:06:04
and extremely rapid decline.
00:06:07
Something else was going on.
00:06:08
He got a lot of symptoms.
00:06:11
NARRATOR: Digging deeper into the medical records,
00:06:14
another notation catches Dr. G's attention.
00:06:18
One of Johnny's doctors had come up
00:06:20
with an alarming but plausible theory.
00:06:23
He was worried that this was anthrax.
00:06:26
Anthrax was a bacterial disease,
00:06:28
and usually, it's spread through contact with soil
00:06:32
or hides of certain animals.
00:06:35
And it's very, very rare to see this in the United States.
00:06:38
JAN GARAVAGLIA: This is not something we normally see,
00:06:41
but he had a rapid death and he's got skin lesions.
00:06:45
So that kind of fits this fellow.
00:06:48
NARRATOR: With this new finding in play,
00:06:50
Dr. G knows that there's a lot at stake.
00:06:55
If the 25-year-old died from anthrax poisoning,
00:06:58
an untold number of others could be at risk.
00:07:02
It's one of those diseases that you worry
00:07:04
about as a weapon of mass destruction, as a way
00:07:09
that terrorists could use to wipe out
00:07:12
a large part of the population.
00:07:15
NARRATOR: In fact, back in 2001, a terrorist
00:07:18
sent several packages containing a powdered form of anthrax
00:07:22
through the US Postal Service.
00:07:25
The bacteria made 22 people sick and ended up killing five.
00:07:30
I don't have anything.
00:07:32
NARRATOR: Now Dr. F wonders if Johnny
00:07:34
could be the first victim in another terror attack.
00:07:38
Is this some kind of terrorist bioterrorism?
00:07:41
And he's the first case that we're seeing.
00:07:44
I mean, who knows?
00:07:46
We really needed a look at him.
00:07:50
NARRATOR: Dr. G informs her chief medical investigator,
00:07:53
Steve Hanson, that a body needs to be
00:07:56
retrieved from the hospital.
00:07:58
As with all cases where there's a possibility of contagion,
00:08:02
he must follow strict safety guidelines
00:08:04
to protect himself and others from any risk of exposure.
00:08:09
Nobody ever handles a body, be it
00:08:11
the investigators or transport service,
00:08:13
without wearing gloves.
00:08:15
If it's appropriate, they'll wear gowns and masks.
00:08:19
Our transport people will put the body in a body bag,
00:08:21
seal it, bring it into here, and we will get the body
00:08:24
into refrigeration as soon as we can
00:08:26
because that's going to help mitigate
00:08:29
the potential of exposure.
00:08:33
NARRATOR: Back in the morgue, the entire staff will be taking
00:08:36
preventative measures as well.
00:08:38
We're definitely going to take precautions.
00:08:41
First of all, I'm going to limit who's in that room with me.
00:08:46
I will ask which tech wants to volunteer for the job.
00:08:49
OK, Tom.
00:08:51
Are you ready?
00:08:52
TOM: Yep.
00:08:53
JAN GARAVAGLIA: I will make sure we're gown head to toe.
00:08:56
We've got the face shield.
00:08:57
We've got the N95 masks.
00:08:58
So we're going to need sterile stuff.
00:09:01
We get a game plan on how we're going
00:09:03
to limit any type of spray or any type of splashing.
00:09:07
Better safe than sorry.
00:09:20
All right, let's see.
00:09:22
Oh, boy.
00:09:24
Brother, he looks sick.
00:09:26
He looks thin, almost debilitated.
00:09:29
Oh, he's a skinny little kid.
00:09:31
OK.
00:09:32
Let's see what's going on here.
00:09:35
NARRATOR: Dr. G's first priority is
00:09:37
to examine the unusual lesions on Johnny's neck.
00:09:41
Wow, this is a sick, sick [INAUDIBLE]..
00:09:45
It was one of the more disturbing things
00:09:47
I've seen on an external exam.
00:09:50
This guy's got problems.
00:09:51
Oh, boy.
00:09:52
Something terrible is going on here.
00:10:11
That is just nasty looking.
00:10:13
NARRATOR: Dr. G is reeling from the gruesome sight
00:10:16
of skin lesions on 25-year-old Johnny Tran's neck.
00:10:20
I've never seen anything quite like that.
00:10:24
Let's see-- oozing.
00:10:25
Let's see what it's oozing.
00:10:26
He clearly has some type of rapidly
00:10:28
developing skin infection across the neck
00:10:33
and onto the upper chest.
00:10:35
You get the sides of the neck, too?
00:10:36
Did you get this?
00:10:37
Yep.
00:10:38
My question is, what's causing this?
00:10:41
Maybe this is anthrax.
00:10:44
NARRATOR: Sores on the skin are one of the telltale signs
00:10:47
of anthrax.
00:10:50
But as she examines the lesions more closely,
00:10:53
she isn't entirely convinced.
00:10:56
JAN GARAVAGLIA: With anthrax, you would expect
00:10:57
a black [INAUDIBLE] scab on it.
00:11:01
He had more of a red ulcerated lesion.
00:11:03
So it doesn't look like anthrax.
00:11:06
But I can't say for sure till I get inside.
00:11:11
NARRATOR: Dr. G collects tissue samples from the lesions
00:11:14
to send to the lab for analysis.
00:11:17
The results could shed light on what was
00:11:20
causing Johnny's skin necrosis.
00:11:22
We don't know what that's going to be.
00:11:25
But we certainly need to culture it.
00:11:28
NARRATOR: In the meantime, she continues
00:11:30
scouring Johnny's body for anything out of the ordinary.
00:11:35
And right away, something odd catches her eye.
00:11:38
He's got these large lymph nodes.
00:11:41
NARRATOR: Lymph nodes are usually tiny rounded glands
00:11:44
found throughout the body and vital to the proper functioning
00:11:48
of the immune system.
00:11:49
He had almost a lumpy, bumpy neck.
00:11:53
It was quite a sight.
00:11:55
What is causing them?
00:11:56
I'm not going to have this answer by just
00:11:58
looking externally on him.
00:12:01
We'll see what the internal shows.
00:12:10
You want iodine or alcohol or anything?
00:12:12
That's OK. I'll just got for a--
00:12:13
Gimmie, oh, like, you just give me the sterile scalpel.
00:12:21
NARRATOR: Dr. G makes the standard Y
00:12:23
incision across Johnny's chest.
00:12:25
JAN GARAVAGLIA: When I open the body,
00:12:26
I look for anything that could help me explain
00:12:30
how he got into this state.
00:12:33
NARRATOR: Based on Johnny's diagnosis of pneumonia,
00:12:36
her first stop is the lungs.
00:12:39
He's got a bad pneumonia.
00:12:40
I can already feel it.
00:12:42
So we know his lungs are going to be bad when I get there.
00:12:47
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
00:12:49
Lots of adhesions.
00:12:50
I have seen bad lungs in my life,
00:12:54
but I have not seen lungs this bad.
00:12:59
NARRATOR: In fact, Johnny's lungs are so severely damaged
00:13:04
that instead of floating freely within the chest cavity,
00:13:07
they have actually become stuck to the chest wall.
00:13:10
You know what the problem is?
00:13:11
It's not so much the adhesion as his lung
00:13:14
is disintegrating every time you touch it.
00:13:16
I couldn't get the left lung out in one piece
00:13:19
because it was so necrotic.
00:13:20
This guy's lungs are really bad.
00:13:23
This wasn't a typical pneumonia.
00:13:26
NARRATOR: But as with the lesions on Johnny's neck,
00:13:29
Dr. G knows that this type of lung damage
00:13:32
could not have been caused by anthrax.
00:13:34
With anthrax, we're expecting to see
00:13:36
hemorrhage in the mediastinum, that area
00:13:38
between the two lungs.
00:13:39
But you don't see anything in the lungs.
00:13:41
So clearly, this wasn't anthrax.
00:13:44
Whoa, look at that.
00:13:46
But I do see something very odd.
00:13:48
Do you see these? - Oh, geez.
00:13:49
Gosh.
00:13:50
His lungs have areas of little white spots all over.
00:13:57
NARRATOR: These white spots are a telltale sign
00:13:59
of something both lethal and highly contagious.
00:14:03
That's not good.
00:14:04
I really strongly suspected what this was.
00:14:09
That lung pretty much gave it away for me.
00:14:32
Oh, wow, his neck is stiff.
00:14:34
NARRATOR: Dr. G believes that what she has just discovered
00:14:37
in the lungs of 25-year-old Johnny Tran
00:14:41
holds the key to the case.
00:14:43
Those little white speckles in the lungs gave it away.
00:14:47
I've never seen it that bad.
00:14:49
I am pretty sure it looks like tuberculosis.
00:14:54
NARRATOR: Tuberculosis, or TB, is
00:14:57
a deadly and extremely contagious
00:14:59
disease that is spread through the air.
00:15:02
You know, TB is probably the number one infectious disease
00:15:06
killer in the world.
00:15:08
We don't have a very high rate of TB in the United States.
00:15:13
Some countries, it's rampant.
00:15:17
NARRATOR: And despite the lower incidence rate in the United
00:15:19
States, Dr. G is beginning to suspect that Johnny
00:15:23
may have contracted TB.
00:15:25
But TB didn't explain everything.
00:15:29
We still have the skin lesion, which doesn't fit with TB.
00:15:33
So I really think something else is going on here.
00:15:38
NARRATOR: She sends the cultures of the skin lesions and lung
00:15:41
tissue off to the lab to test for TB
00:15:44
and any other bacterial, fungal, or viral infections.
00:15:49
Now all Dr. G can do is wait for the results of the lab work
00:15:53
and hope that it can help her put the pieces of this puzzle
00:15:55
together.
00:15:57
So I was interested to see what the cultures would show.
00:16:00
I can't wait to figure out what's going on.
00:16:11
NARRATOR: One week later, Johnny's lab
00:16:13
results are finally delivered to the District 9 morgue.
00:16:17
Now Dr. G is pinning her last hopes on Johnny's cultures.
00:16:23
And the culture has confirmed that it was a tuberculosis.
00:16:29
But when she reviews the cultures of his skin lesions,
00:16:32
they reveal something completely unexpected,
00:16:35
something that finally solves the mysterious death
00:16:38
of Johnny Tran.
00:16:40
He really had the double whammy.
00:16:42
It was just fascinating to put these pieces of the puzzle
00:16:46
together.
00:17:05
NARRATOR: Dr. G has just reviewed
00:17:07
the bacterial cultures of the skin lesions and lungs
00:17:10
of 25-year-old Johnny Tran.
00:17:13
And they contain a vital clue that finally makes
00:17:16
sense out of his sudden death.
00:17:18
Once I get everything back, you know, things start
00:17:20
really falling into place.
00:17:33
NARRATOR: On September the 21st, Johnny Tran arrived at Orlando
00:17:37
International Airport.
00:17:40
He's looking forward to being reunited with some old friends,
00:17:44
but he's also been struggling to ignore some troubling symptoms.
00:17:49
He was ill.
00:17:49
He's losing weight, slowly getting more debilitated.
00:17:54
NARRATOR: The primary culprit--
00:17:56
tuberculosis.
00:17:59
It was probably breathed in when he was in Vietnam.
00:18:02
This guy had probably been infected for years.
00:18:04
For most people, they can get what's called a latent disease,
00:18:09
and it's living dormant in your body.
00:18:13
NARRATOR: All the while, Johnny's immune system
00:18:15
has been suppressing the infection.
00:18:18
But eventually, it can no longer fight it off.
00:18:21
Over probably a period of months,
00:18:23
it became active tuberculosis.
00:18:25
And he went on to develop this terrible disease.
00:18:27
JAN GARAVAGLIA: His TB spread through his bloodstream.
00:18:30
It ended up going into his lungs, causing a pneumonia.
00:18:35
NARRATOR: Johnny's friends realize
00:18:37
right away that he's extremely ill
00:18:39
and rush him to the emergency room.
00:18:42
They could see that he had a bad pneumonia,
00:18:45
but they didn't know what was going on with him.
00:18:48
NARRATOR: Unfortunately, the infection has already
00:18:51
spread into Johnny's lymph nodes,
00:18:53
causing them to become enlarged and inflamed.
00:18:57
The TB keeps growing in those lymph nodes
00:19:00
to the point where they put pressure on the skin
00:19:03
and eventually erode through the skin.
00:19:08
NARRATOR: Eventually, the skin becomes
00:19:10
necrotic and dies, which, in turn,
00:19:13
creates open sores on his neck.
00:19:16
And the cultures of the lesions reveal
00:19:18
that a second deadly infection entered his body
00:19:21
through these open wounds.
00:19:23
He didn't have just TB, he had a necrotizing skin infection
00:19:28
from staph aureus bacteria.
00:19:31
Staph aureus, this was a common bacteria that
00:19:33
causes a lot of infections.
00:19:35
NARRATOR: And the addition of the staph infection
00:19:38
spells certain and swift disaster.
00:19:41
This staph aureus bacteria is probably the coup de grace,
00:19:45
just the final insult. He was already well on his way
00:19:49
from dying of TB.
00:19:51
That just tipped the boat just a little bit.
00:19:56
That bacteria took hold in his skin,
00:19:59
and then spread through his bloodstream,
00:20:02
and then spread very quickly to his already weakened lungs,
00:20:06
to the point where he has to be intubated,
00:20:08
but his lungs are so necrotic from the TB
00:20:13
that those lungs were well beyond repair.
00:20:19
And he quickly dies.
00:20:23
NARRATOR: With the definitive cause of death in hand,
00:20:25
Dr. G immediately reports her findings
00:20:28
to the state health department.
00:20:30
They did a great job tracking down his contacts,
00:20:34
and all of his friends were tested and treated.
00:20:40
NARRATOR: Her next call is to Johnny's relatives in Vietnam.
00:20:44
The family was a little flabbergasted.
00:20:47
They are still in shock that he died so quick.
00:20:51
I think the mystery of this case is why this guy
00:20:54
didn't do anything about this.
00:20:56
It's always unbelievable to me the way people
00:21:00
can walk around being so sick and not do anything about it.
00:21:05
It's a totally unnecessary death.
00:21:08
This man could have easily been treated with medication.
00:21:12
Some TB is drug resistant in certain pockets of the world,
00:21:17
but his wasn't.
00:21:18
It's sad that he wasn't listening to his body.
00:21:31
NARRATOR: Unexpected deaths are nothing new to Dr. G.
00:21:35
But when a grisly homicide comes into the morgue,
00:21:38
she finds herself facing a whole different set of challenges.
00:21:42
All right, let's see here.
00:21:43
Let's see here.
00:21:45
We have a 49-year-old unfortunate
00:21:47
fellow dead on his kitchen floor with multiple gunshot wounds.
00:21:51
That is just a shame.
00:21:53
There's no rhyme or reason to this world sometimes.
00:21:58
I don't understand the senseless killing.
00:22:10
NARRATOR: It's a cool October evening in Orlando, Florida.
00:22:15
Newly divorced Karen Douglas has been
00:22:17
living with her older brother, Keith,
00:22:19
for the past three months.
00:22:23
The two are enjoying a relaxing evening at home,
00:22:27
when suddenly, they're interrupted
00:22:29
by an unexpected knock at their back door.
00:22:32
He goes to answer the door.
00:22:35
She says, all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose.
00:22:38
[GUNFIRE]
00:22:41
She hears gunfire, multiple gunfire.
00:22:46
She ducks for cover, takes off through the front door,
00:22:52
and calls 911.
00:22:55
EMS is dispatched.
00:22:57
Police are dispatched.
00:23:00
And they find him dead on the kitchen floor
00:23:04
with multiple gunshot wounds.
00:23:10
NARRATOR: Police immediately secure the area,
00:23:13
and their first call is to chief medical investigator Steve
00:23:16
Hanson at the District 9 morgue.
00:23:19
They contacted the medical examiner's office
00:23:22
so that an investigator could go out to the scene
00:23:24
and collect as much information as we can.
00:23:27
JAN GARAVAGLIA: Now when we have a case like this,
00:23:29
the body is the jurisdiction of the medical examiner.
00:23:33
So the police aren't going to touch
00:23:35
the body until my representative gets there.
00:23:40
NARRATOR: Once on the scene, the medical investigator
00:23:43
examines and photographs the body,
00:23:46
while police launch a full scale homicide investigation.
00:23:50
Really, the only thing the police knows
00:23:53
is that this fellow went out to his backdoor,
00:23:56
and gunshots were heard.
00:24:00
NARRATOR: And although the victim's sister, Karen,
00:24:03
is overcome with grief, detectives must question her
00:24:07
in hopes of gleaning any information that
00:24:09
could lead to the perpetrator.
00:24:11
The only thing she provided is that there has been
00:24:14
a dispute between her ex-husband and the decedent, her brother.
00:24:22
NARRATOR: According to Karen, there
00:24:23
had been some tension between the two men since the divorce.
00:24:28
But she insists to investigators that her ex-husband
00:24:31
isn't capable of murder.
00:24:34
Things somewhat point to this ex-husband, but you know,
00:24:38
at this point, they don't know.
00:24:39
There's really no evidence.
00:24:42
NARRATOR: With few clues to go on,
00:24:44
police must consider a number of possible scenarios.
00:24:48
Maybe it was an attempted robbery, which he interrupted.
00:24:52
There's a lot of gang activity.
00:24:54
It could be drugs.
00:24:56
It could be just a cold blooded random murder.
00:25:00
We have to keep all options open.
00:25:04
NARRATOR: Unfortunately, at this stage,
00:25:06
only one thing is certain.
00:25:08
A killer is on the loose.
00:25:10
And there's no telling where or when he'll strike again.
00:25:14
We need the truth of what really happened.
00:25:17
That's why we do an autopsy.
00:25:18
The whole point is to make sure this killer
00:25:21
is no longer out on the street.
00:25:42
NARRATOR: The body of 49-year-old Keith Douglas,
00:25:45
a construction worker gunned down at his home last night,
00:25:49
has just arrived at the District 9 morgue.
00:25:52
Do we have labels on that guy yet?
00:25:55
NARRATOR: And police are counting on Dr. G for much more
00:25:58
than just a cause of death.
00:26:01
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out it
00:26:04
looks like he died from gunshot wounds.
00:26:07
But we need more information than that.
00:26:09
The police need to know what happened
00:26:11
and who did this to this person.
00:26:16
NARRATOR: And as with all homicides
00:26:18
that come through her door, the clock is ticking.
00:26:22
The whole point is to make sure this killer
00:26:24
is no longer out on the street.
00:26:27
So that's why everyone in the system
00:26:29
is working so this doesn't happen again to someone else.
00:26:42
All right, we're ready, right?
00:26:46
Oh, gosh.
00:26:47
So when I first see him, he's covered in blood.
00:26:51
The thing that strikes you first is that he's got a huge hole
00:26:56
in front of his left ear.
00:26:59
Oh, Lord.
00:27:01
And there appears to be multiple holes in his clothing.
00:27:05
So we've got a lot of holes.
00:27:10
Besides gunshot wounds, I have to look for any other evidence
00:27:15
of trauma.
00:27:16
Are there other signs of struggle?
00:27:19
I'll be looking for trace evidence.
00:27:22
That's why his hands are bagged, so the evidence in his hands
00:27:25
won't be contaminated.
00:27:28
Do you have his X-ray somewhere?
00:27:30
Yes, ma'am.
00:27:31
In the back, OK.
00:27:34
NARRATOR: As with all cases involving gunfire,
00:27:37
Dr. G orders a full body X-ray.
00:27:40
JAN GARAVAGLIA: The police are always hopeful that I
00:27:42
can find bullets in the body.
00:27:44
So we do x-rays, pretty much head to toe.
00:27:48
Interesting.
00:27:49
And sure enough, he does have projectiles in him.
00:27:52
He's got five.
00:27:56
NARRATOR: But this doesn't mean that Keith
00:27:58
was only shot five times.
00:28:01
While some bullets get lodged in the body,
00:28:03
others pass straight through.
00:28:06
Sometimes they exit the body, and they can't be found.
00:28:09
OK, let's see what we're doing over here.
00:28:11
NARRATOR: Now Dr. G must determine exactly how
00:28:14
many times Keith was shot and analyze
00:28:17
each of the gunshot wounds.
00:28:19
What's the distance between the end
00:28:21
of the barrel and the skin?
00:28:23
What are the angles?
00:28:25
NARRATOR: This information could shed light on the circumstances
00:28:28
surrounding the crime and help police develop
00:28:31
a profile of the killer.
00:28:33
What can we tell about those wounds that
00:28:37
might help the investigation?
00:28:40
It's really a puzzle.
00:28:41
Because you really have to figure out
00:28:43
which is the entrance, which is the exit.
00:28:47
NARRATOR: An entrance wound is usually small, round,
00:28:49
and surrounded by an area of scraped skin,
00:28:53
while an exit wound is irregular in shape.
00:28:56
But every gunshot wound is just a little bit different.
00:29:00
And there's always exceptions to the rules.
00:29:03
All right, let's see.
00:29:04
You do a lot of diagramming-- where the holes are,
00:29:09
what they look like, what its size is,
00:29:12
and where it's located on the body.
00:29:16
NARRATOR: But after a careful examination,
00:29:18
Dr. G is able to isolate each and every one of Keith
00:29:22
Douglas's bullet wounds.
00:29:26
And the final count is staggering.
00:29:29
At the end of the external, we know that he's got at least 10.
00:29:34
Why would somebody shoot somebody 10 times?
00:29:39
NARRATOR: At that moment, the autopsy
00:29:41
is interrupted by her chief medical investigator Steve
00:29:44
Hanson.
00:29:46
So during the course of Dr. G's autopsy,
00:29:49
I got a call from the police department.
00:29:50
Told me they found a gun.
00:29:54
NARRATOR: Now Dr. G will need to retrieve the bullets
00:29:57
from Keith's body so senior firearms examiner and longtime
00:30:02
colleague, Ed Love, can try to match them to the gun found
00:30:06
near the scene.
00:30:07
Dr. G and I worked a lot of cases together.
00:30:10
I love working with her.
00:30:12
The success rates in IDing a bullet back to a gun
00:30:16
actually is very good.
00:30:18
You can't really assume anything.
00:30:21
So now the most important is going
00:30:23
to be recovering those bullets.
00:30:38
NARRATOR: With scalpel in hand, Dr. G makes a standard Y shaped
00:30:42
incision down Keith's torso.
00:30:45
She knows from the X-rays that he
00:30:47
has one bullet lodged somewhere in his upper chest
00:30:50
cavity near the neck.
00:30:53
See it, that hole?
00:30:54
When I opened up the body, I can see
00:30:58
that the path of the projectile went through the lung,
00:31:02
and there's blood there.
00:31:04
NARRATOR: This is a critical finding.
00:31:06
The blood is a sign that Keith's heart
00:31:09
was still pumping at the time that bullet entered his body.
00:31:13
JAN GARAVAGLIA: So he would have still been alive
00:31:16
when he got that gunshot wound.
00:31:19
There it is.
00:31:20
Now when I recover that bullet, I
00:31:22
find that it's a medium caliber, consistent with maybe a 9
00:31:27
millimeter.
00:31:30
NARRATOR: Dr. G carefully places the bullet
00:31:32
on an evidence tray and zeros in on the three
00:31:35
located in Keith's hip.
00:31:37
One of those wounds actually goes to the iliac artery.
00:31:41
That's a main artery in the pelvic region,
00:31:44
but there's no blood associated with it.
00:31:49
So he clearly was already dead by the time
00:31:53
he got that gunshot wound.
00:31:57
NARRATOR: Gently, she turns Keith on his side
00:32:00
and painstakingly dissects his pelvic bone
00:32:02
to retrieve all three bullets lodged inside.
00:32:07
When they're embedded in bone like that,
00:32:09
it's very difficult sometimes to retrieve the bullet,
00:32:12
because you want to cut near the bullet
00:32:14
to be able to get it out, but you don't
00:32:16
want to scratch it at all.
00:32:18
NARRATOR: And as Dr. G carefully pulls them out,
00:32:21
she makes a key discovery.
00:32:23
Well, look at that.
00:32:24
The projectiles I found in the hip
00:32:27
were large calibers, like a 45.
00:32:31
NARRATOR: The presence of two different caliber
00:32:32
bullets inside the body can only mean one thing.
00:32:37
I have got two different guns being fired into this fellow,
00:32:42
two people doing a shooting.
00:32:45
NARRATOR: This unexpected finding sends the homicide
00:32:48
investigation into overdrive.
00:32:51
It now appears there are not one,
00:32:54
but two killers on the loose.
00:32:56
The perpetrators are still out walking around.
00:33:00
They need to be caught.
00:33:20
NARRATOR: Police are in the midst
00:33:21
of the full scale murder investigation
00:33:24
of 49-year-old Keith Douglas.
00:33:27
And Dr. G has just uncovered surprising evidence
00:33:31
that promises to turn the case on its head.
00:33:34
Definitely call the police to let them know that there are
00:33:38
two individuals involved in this shooting
00:33:41
and two different guns.
00:33:44
It could be drugs or an angry neighbor.
00:33:47
It could be just a random murder.
00:33:49
You just don't know what's going on.
00:33:52
NARRATOR: But so far, despite investigators' best efforts,
00:33:56
they haven't come up with any solid leads.
00:34:00
They're up against the clock.
00:34:01
They need to know who did this.
00:34:04
NARRATOR: Now, police are depending on Dr. G
00:34:07
more than ever to uncover additional clues
00:34:09
from Keith's body.
00:34:11
So we need to gather as much forensic information as we can.
00:34:26
NARRATOR: Dr. G begins the cranial exam
00:34:28
with a careful examination of the gunshot wound
00:34:31
to Keith's head.
00:34:32
See all that soot on there?
00:34:34
Uh-huh.
00:34:34
There's soot and gunpowder all within
00:34:37
that wound, a lot of soot.
00:34:39
Soot deep in the wound and soot on the edge,
00:34:41
a little bit of searing.
00:34:43
Oh, that's nice.
00:34:44
NARRATOR: The soot is a telltale sign that one of the killers
00:34:47
pressed the muzzle of his gun directly against Keith's head
00:34:51
as he pulled the trigger--
00:34:53
a clue that offers revealing insight into the perpetrator.
00:34:57
Here, this is clearly a contact wound to the side
00:34:59
of the head on the right side.
00:35:02
Oftentimes when we see a contact wound,
00:35:05
somebody is angry at somebody.
00:35:07
This sounds like a premeditated murder to me.
00:35:12
NARRATOR: Using an oscillating saw,
00:35:14
morgue technician Tom Hemphill cuts through Keith's skull.
00:35:20
JAN GARAVAGLIA: All right.
00:35:21
NARRATOR: And as Dr. G steps in to examine the brain,
00:35:25
the metal projectile comes into view.
00:35:27
JAN GARAVAGLIA: Yeah, there we go.
00:35:29
That projectile was also a medium caliber,
00:35:33
like a 9 millimeter.
00:35:34
Here, take a nice picture of this.
00:35:37
NARRATOR: And based on the severity
00:35:38
of the internal damage, she can tell right away that this
00:35:42
was the shot that killed him.
00:35:45
The wound to his head clearly killed him.
00:35:49
You couldn't survive that wound at all.
00:35:53
NARRATOR: As the autopsy comes to a close,
00:35:56
Dr. G relays her findings to homicide detectives.
00:36:00
I can give them the number of wounds in the body, which ones
00:36:05
roughly in an order that occurred,
00:36:07
and I can give them five projectiles, five bullets.
00:36:12
First thing I received in this case
00:36:14
was the five bullets from autopsy from Dr. Garavaglia.
00:36:18
And those were in very good condition.
00:36:20
So we really had some good firearms evidence to deal with.
00:36:26
NARRATOR: Now, it's up to Ed Love to compare these bullets
00:36:29
to the only gun they have, a 9 millimeter discovered
00:36:33
near the scene of the crime.
00:36:35
When a bullet extends down the end of the barrel,
00:36:38
there are unique nicks and imperfections on that barrel
00:36:44
that will impart unique characteristics
00:36:46
on the edge of the bullet.
00:36:48
So we can look at those individual marks that are left
00:36:52
and match those back to a gun.
00:36:55
NARRATOR: And in this case, it doesn't
00:36:57
take long for him to make a positive firearms match.
00:37:01
The good news was that the projectiles
00:37:03
I recovered from the body actually matched that gun.
00:37:08
NARRATOR: Armed with this information,
00:37:10
investigators begin a search of Florida's gun database.
00:37:15
And within less than an hour, they have a name.
00:37:18
And guess whose gun it was?
00:37:22
NARRATOR: The 9 millimeter gun used
00:37:24
to shoot Keith Douglas is registered to a man named Gary
00:37:28
Hernandez, Karen's ex-husband.
00:37:31
JAN GARAVAGLIA: The police got a warrant for the arrest
00:37:34
of the sister's ex-husband.
00:37:37
NARRATOR: It doesn't take long to track their suspect down.
00:37:40
And by the end of the day, police have him in custody.
00:37:44
He's going to have some serious questions to answer.
00:37:46
NARRATOR: After intense interrogation,
00:37:49
Gary confesses to the shooting.
00:37:51
I have no doubt that they got their man.
00:37:56
NARRATOR: But when it comes to the identity
00:37:58
of the second shooter, Hernandez is evasive.
00:38:02
Using the evidence Dr. G discovered at autopsy,
00:38:06
along with the findings from the firearms examination,
00:38:09
police continue to press him on specific details.
00:38:13
They confronted him with all the evidence.
00:38:16
NARRATOR: Boxed into a corner, Hernandez ultimately cracks.
00:38:21
And after a week long investigation,
00:38:24
detectives finally learn the truth behind the brutal murder
00:38:27
of Keith Douglas.
00:38:29
He gave details of the crime that perfectly matched
00:38:33
what I found at autopsy.
00:38:43
NARRATOR: Karen Douglas has been living with her older brother,
00:38:46
Keith, since the recent divorce from her husband
00:38:49
of five years, Gary Hernandez.
00:38:52
And ever since, there's been escalating
00:38:55
tension between the two men.
00:38:57
And it came out that the decedent
00:38:59
had said a derogatory comment to his sister's ex-husband.
00:39:05
That's the reason the ex-husband is mad at the decedent.
00:39:11
NARRATOR: In fact, Hernandez is so
00:39:13
mad he decides to put an end to the dispute once and for all.
00:39:19
And on the night of Keith's death, he and a friend
00:39:22
named Mark Edwards come up with a plan.
00:39:26
They come to his back door.
00:39:27
They knock.
00:39:31
The decedent comes, opens the door.
00:39:34
It looks like they probably fired once at his chest
00:39:38
at a distance which is about right for him opening the door
00:39:42
and them being at the doorway.
00:39:45
They continue shooting.
00:39:46
He drops.
00:39:48
And then somebody comes up to him
00:39:51
and shoots him close range in front of his left ear.
00:39:56
NARRATOR: This shot kills Keith instantly.
00:39:59
But the bloody rampage isn't over yet.
00:40:03
The other fellow, meanwhile, is shooting
00:40:06
him more towards his feet.
00:40:09
NARRATOR: Three of these bullets lodge in Keith's hip,
00:40:12
but by this time, he is already dead.
00:40:18
JAN GARAVAGLIA: These two perpetrators run out
00:40:19
of the house, and ultimately, within eight days of me
00:40:25
completing the autopsy, they were
00:40:27
arrested and booked for murder.
00:40:36
NARRATOR: A trial date is set, and both Dr. G and Ed
00:40:39
Love present their evidence to the jury,
00:40:42
I'll testify to my findings, and of course, Ed Love
00:40:45
will testify to his findings of how he matched the projectile
00:40:51
to the specific gun.
00:40:53
The jury saw fit to convict them,
00:40:57
and each got 30 years in jail.
00:41:01
NARRATOR: After the trial, both men appealed their convictions,
00:41:05
but were denied.
00:41:07
In the end, Dr. G and her team at the District 9 morgue
00:41:11
played an integral role in making
00:41:13
sure that justice was served.
00:41:16
The importance of Dr. G can't be overstated.
00:41:19
It is so important that you have a good pathologist
00:41:22
there to do the work and someone that cares about what they do.
00:41:27
So when I was done with my part of the puzzle,
00:41:31
I had a lot of information.
00:41:33
And when Ed was done with his exam,
00:41:36
he had a lot of information.
00:41:37
And it all came together, and these two criminals,
00:41:42
murderers, are off the street.
00:41:46
NARRATOR: But for Karen, it's small compensation
00:41:49
for her loss.
00:41:50
JAN GARAVAGLIA: The sister is devastated.
00:41:52
I can't imagine what she's going through.
00:41:55
But I think I was able to close that chapter for her.
00:42:05
It is unbelievable how many cases I do because somebody
00:42:11
insults or disses somebody else.
00:42:14
What a stupid reason to kill somebody.
00:42:18
Check your emotions.
00:42:19
Nothing is worth killing somebody over.
00:42:23
You run the risk of spending either your life
00:42:27
or 30 years in jail.
00:42:28
And I can guarantee you'll be dissed in jail, too.
