May 28, 2024 • 47 mins
Missy Bevers was murdered inside a church before 5 a.m. while she was preparing for her morning fitness class. Her body is found by a student and Missy is pronounced dead at the scene. On this episode of Body Bags, Joseph Scott Morgan will discuss the possible weapons used to kill Missy Bevers and Dave Mack will dig into the possible suspects in an unsolved murder where the main suspect is caught on camera wearing a police swat kit and walking the halls of the church with an unusual gait, waiting for Missy to arrive.
Transcript Highlights
00:00:24 Introducing Missy Bevers
00:01:51 Discussion of unsolved murder
00:04:12 Talk about Camp Gladiator
00:08:38 Discussion of murderer seen on video
00:12:28 Discussion of odd gait
00:17:13 Talk about suspect, man or woman?
00:21:13 Discussion of SWAT disguise
00:26:09 Talk about new kit
00:30:13 Discussion of long hammer as a weapon
00:34:31 Discussion of injuries matching weapon
00:39:05 Talk about coverage of case in media
00:43:20 Discussion of no gun belt
00:46:44.Conclusion
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. I've worked out throughout
my life for any number of reasons, either you know,
in sports or military or just to try to stay
(00:29):
in shape or get back in shape. And it's hard
to stay the course. I'm sure that y'all. Y'all know this.
Everybody knows this. It's hard some days just to get
out and take a walk. I've always been fascinated by
people that have a level of commitment where they will
(00:51):
get up at four a m. You know, even in
the Army, we didn't get up until I think for
forty five. To get up at or show up at
four four am, that means that you would have had
to have started prepping, you know, at three point fifty
(01:13):
maybe if you're going to throw in your workout clothes
and then to lead to show up motivated. That's the
thing about it, to show up motivated, to drive people
to get in shape, and not just that, but call
you know, call this this program that you're involved in.
Camp Gladiator. Today, i want to discuss one of the
(01:35):
most baffling cases that has come down the pike in
a long long time. I've been covering it for years.
It's the first time I've ever done a body backs
on it. We're going to talk about, at least to
this time, the unsolved homicide of Missy Beavers. I'm Joseph
(01:55):
Scott Morgan and this is body Backs tell you about Joe.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Let me jump in real quick. Missy Bab's case exploded
in twenty sixteen because when it happened in a church
when she was all alone before five am, but two
because police released surveillance video of the person they believe
committed the murder. In the minutes before the murder took place,
we see a person walking throughout the church in mid Lothian, Texas,
(02:25):
wearing a police swat outfit, including a helmet and a vesta,
says police. On top of that, this video shows that
the person has an unusual walk, an unusual gait, and
police released the surveillance video for everybody to see it,
expecting somebody to go, I know who that is. That's
how unique the walk is. That's why this story went viral.
It's still not solved eight years later. That's why we're
(02:46):
digging into the story today now, Joe. She was there,
as you mentioned, to lead a workout, and I'm kind
of curious. A lot of us had to do chores
when we were kids. Do you look at working out
as entertainment or do you look at working out as
a show.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
This to me is a chore. I mean, God, God
bless me. Missy Beavers and all those people that would
come and where I'm sure she she impacted people's lives
or that. We've heard this over and over and over again.
And David, look, I'm going to just throw this out
there just to begin this conversation. Given everything that she
(03:24):
did to help other people relative to their physical life,
all right, to try to improve them. Look, I'll take
the reins of it. I'm going to go out there.
I'm going to set this thing up. You know, you
show up. I'm going to be there every day, come
rain or come shine. By the way, it had been
raining hard that night. She said, we do not cancel,
(03:47):
and they were going to do it indoors.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Well, and you know all the plan was they did
it in the parking lot, the arrangement for Camp Gladiator
that Missy Beavers did. And by the way, her husband
actually Brandon talked to about the people who did this,
who joined Missy Beaver's class. They were called campers. That
is the way they related to them as their campers,
and they referred to them, I mean Brandon as well
(04:10):
as Missy called them our campers. And so the campers
would arrive at five am, which means that you know,
Missy had to be there forty five minutes to an
hour beforehand to get things set up. As you mentioned,
they normally did it in the parking lot, but because
of the torrential rains and by the way, it was
severe enough in mid Lothian, Texas where it had, the
(04:31):
weather had actually changed people's behavior because it just wasn't
something that they were used to having, you know, in
several days of nasty, rainy weather, and so moving it
indoors was something that Missy was able to arrange. And
that's where we begin, and you and I both started
talking about this show, this particular case when it happened.
We're talking about April eighteenth of twenty sixteen. That's when
(04:55):
you and I first heard of this case and by
the way, saw the video. You have a case where
Missy Beavers arrives at the church to set things up
and a camper finds her just after five am, finds
her body dead. Well, she was declared dead by the
(05:18):
paramedics that showed up. But the first call to nine
one one was at five point ten and it was
somebody's hurt, bad show up, you know. And then the
police as they're investigating, they released the video that we saw.
The video surveillance was from inside the church, and the
first thing we all saw a we know Missy Beavers
is dead. B we have video of a person walking
(05:42):
through this church that is not just the suspect. This
is the probable killer of Missy Beavers. And how often
do we have video of that medicine?
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Never That's and you know I'd mentioned to you I've
had these weird confluences, David, through throughout my uh my
contact with Nancy Grace. For some reason, I don't know
why it happened. But going back to our hl N
days where I would appear as her forensics guy, there
(06:15):
were there are a number of these cases where I was.
I was on air with her the first night a
particular case was presented. This is one of them. And
that's why it's so baffling because, uh, you know, in
our off air discussions, I was telling you, look, that
night after I had covered this with Nancy, because this
(06:37):
is the first night we had the video, and it
was the first night that I heard Nancy use the
term slew footed, and I'd heard slew footed my entire life.
You know, for people to turn turn me, well, it
means that you you turn your feet out. It almost
looks like a duck walk. You turn your feet out
as you're as you're you know, ambulating along. It's very
(07:00):
distinctive posture. And there's all kinds of things that forensic
foot where people look at relative to how feet strike
the ground, wear patterns on shoes and boots, and all
these sorts of things. The impressions you live leave in
the mud are in fact, and not to mention that
(07:21):
you think about the weight distribution of people. So it
really stood out that night. That was just one of
the little indicators that for me all these years seven
years day is it seven years? It is seven years?
I think seven years since this eight years there you go,
since this occurred, and I just I knew that night, Look,
(07:45):
this is going to be somebody that is going to
be found out. Going back to the original you know,
I don't know underlying thesis here. If you think about
what she's doing who's gonna's going to kill this woman? Right?
And that sounds here, Yeah, that's the thing, because.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
You're looking at a woman who's forty five years old,
has three kids, married and has been for a while,
and she's murdered by at her before her class is
set to begin. So the first thing that you and
I and everybody else that was working on we saw
the video of the positive probable murderer walking through a
church building with a long hammer. And we'll get into
(08:27):
this in a minute, but we see the video of
the possible suspect, the person that committed the murder, and
we know, well, we've got a lot of evidence here
pointing at who's guilty of this crime. But we also
have an individual that is walking through the church wearing
an outfit that looks like well not it looks like
it actually says police across the front best and it
(08:48):
appears to be police swat tactical gear including a helmet
that this individual is wearing. So back up, it's for
sixteen in the morning when Missy Beavers arrives at the
church and the video shows her unpacking things from her
truck and bringing it inside the church. We have the
(09:09):
video of the surveillance video of the person walking through
the church, and then we have the student the camper
arriving and calling nine to oneint one Our instructor is down,
and police arrive. She is pronounced dead at the scene.
Now we have the surveillance video that police released right away,
(09:31):
mainly because this is pretty big evidence and they didn't,
you know, in the first day or so, they hadn't
figured out who did it yet, so they released this
portions of it because the individual, and you said slew footed.
The person that is in the video has a very
distinctive gait gai t And it's not a term we
use very often to describe something, but it means the
(09:54):
way a person walks. I have an odd walk sometimes
because of my back. Some people have an odd walk
because they have an injury that it's only a temporary walk,
and that was something that investigators had to consider. Is
this a person who has this weird gait all the
time or are they recovering from an injury that has
(10:16):
created this gate. The whole thing the police are thinking
is somebody will notice this. Somebody will see this video
and say, hey, that looks like Joseph Scott Morgan I
saw him at the grocery store the other day. He
was walking like that. Somebody's going to call that in.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, that's very it's very distinctive. It's one of these
things that you know, you could say, how many let
me ask you something. Okay, we go to any you know,
any box store or anything like that. I won't mention
any names, but you know, like their initials are Walmart. Okay,
So you go to someplace like a Walmart or you
(10:53):
go to your local grocery store. How many? How many
times do you pay attention to the way people walk.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Only when they won't get out of my way?
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, you're right, and you're wondering, Well, the first assessment
that you do is like, well are they encumbered by something?
Is there something to be? And so you're you're wondering,
You're wondering here is this? Is this how they normally
(11:24):
you know, walk? And the interesting thing and we you know,
I uh, full credit to Nancy here because she had
me on just this past week talking about this case.
She had brought up the potential for an injury, you know,
relative to how this person was stepping, and it was
fascinating she she actually had a forensic pediatrist on air
(11:49):
with us. This guy is fascinating and forgive me, his
name just flew out of my brain, but he his
assessment relative to this was quite was quite fascinating. And
I'm not saying that the totality of the evidence rest
in a way somebody might happen to stride on any
(12:11):
particular day or strike the ground with their heel or
their toe or maybe the arch area of their foot.
But I know this, this case, with all of the
evidence that we're about to talk about, and with this
strange gait, remains open and unsolved. I personally, I have
(12:49):
never put on any kind of tactical police gear in
my life. None. You wear stuff or back in my
day when Sorcer on the earth, he wore stuff in
the army that you know, I guess could be considered
was combat gear. What tactical gear?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
You know that consisted of a couple of suspenders, you know,
a web belt as they called it, with m O
pax and all that stuff. But this is something different,
you know. I'm looking at at the clothing that this
person on the videography is wearing, and the pediatriss that
(13:30):
I mentioned just a few months ago that did an
assessment on this, on this this outfit, that this individual had.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
A doctor's name, the pediatrist show that you were looking for.
His name is doctor Michael Nyrenberg.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Doctor Nunberg. Hey, that's why I love you, Dave. You're
always there, You're ready with the ready with the info.
Thank you, because he deserves a lot of credit here.
I got to tell you. He you know, he went
to his local police department and asked if he could
videotape people that were dressed out in full kit as
they call it, and then he put the kid on.
(14:07):
You know what he said the same way, Dave, it
approximated forty pounds. Well imagine that, can you? Yeah, because
it's got a tactical vest which I guess has probably
got plates in it, you know, like bulletproof plates that
you find on the post ear and the anterior aspect.
And then not to mention, you know, any kind of
med kits, ammo, all the stuff that they flashlights, all
(14:30):
this stuff. And he said, and that changes the gate.
One of the things that Nancy's talked about is height comparison,
which is fascinating to me, where you know, how agencies
can take a rendering or can take a snap of
an individual in front of a doorframe. A doorframe is
a known it's a known, it's you get an idea
(14:54):
of height and width of this thing, and so they
can approximate heights with this. This pediatrist actually stated that
based upon the weight, it's going to perhaps compress your height.
So it might actually alter your height to a certain degree.
(15:17):
Now you know he deals with this sort of thing
every single day, you know, where they're having to make
adjustments to the feet and all these sorts of things,
special orthotics and all of that, and I'm sure that
he's probably worked with all manner of ostia pass out there.
When you think about this, that it could alter the
(15:40):
height of somebody if they divested themselves of this rig
that they're wearing, could their height change by half an inch? Maybe?
I don't know. I mean, you know they say that
astronauts get shorter when they're when they go into space.
I don't know, but they get taller or I'm thinking
about divers people that go that dive at deep desks
(16:03):
for depths for a protracted period of top.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
But the suit you're talking about weighing the kit weighing
forty pounds itself. Yeah, in the pictures of the surveillance
video of the individual. That by the way, police released
certain videos right a couple of days into the investigation,
when they didn't have a suspect, they didn't put a
name to a suspect. In a couple of days they
released more of the video. I want to add two things. One,
(16:30):
the surveillance video only is from the inside of the church.
The surveillance cameras outside the church were not working, but
inside the church police did see how the individual got in.
Now we know that Missy Beaver's arrived around four to
sixteen am, and police have told us that they saw
cameras on the inside showing this person breaking into the
(16:54):
church at three point fifty am in full tactical gear.
And I keep I'm saying this person because at first
police were certain it was a man, as I was
the first time I watched it. It's only in watching
the video a couple of different times that you look
at this and think this might be a woman. Now
(17:16):
police were able to determine that he or she the
person broke into the building. They're not telling us how,
just saying that it was a forced entry, right. And
we also are going to tell you that police have
never released the attack on Missy Beavers.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
I think it's there though, isn't it day? Yes, it is.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
They have the video. It just serves no purpose to
release it to the public, right and you know, furryan
interest don't need to be served. They're trying to find
out the suspect. Anything other than that would just be
damaging to her children, her family and people who cared
about her. I didn't know what happened. So anyway, they
do have that though, and I'm imagining at some point
(17:59):
if it comes up at that that could be brought
in because it would have something to do about the
injury sustained by Missy Beavers, the height, the weight of
the individual that did this crime. But Joe, as we
were watching this video of the surveillance video, it appears
(18:20):
that the person that comes into this building is breaking windows,
is looking around at door opening doors and things like that.
Does it appear to you that this individual is waiting
for Missy Beavers to arrive, that this person knows she's
going to arrive before five am, And does person is
(18:41):
lying in wait by creating a mess?
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yeah? And look, how in the heck do you Okay,
this has been my contention all along, Dave, if you
have an individual that knows and you have to you
kind of have to factor this in to the equation.
They have to know that Missy is going to be
going there. They have to know that. And here's the
(19:08):
chilling part that I think that the workout had been
moved from outdoors to indoors. Okay, that's very intimate knowledge, day,
but how can you how do you how do you
marry all that up and and not narrow your field
(19:31):
any further than it's been narrowed. Because it's interesting to
know that this message had been had been sent out
relative to relative to visa Facebook, you know, and it
was You wonder if it's a hidden group, protected group,
you know, that that sort of thing where it's it's
(19:53):
only limited to or could the public see this? And
if so, who in that group that would have and
going might have passed that information on not knowing that
they had passed it on to someone that had an
in for Missy. Is it a randomized attack? I can't
(20:13):
imagine that it is, because the person showed showed up
prior to Missy's arrival. So the new timeframe, they're going
around their checking this. They're casing the joint, if you will,
to try to assess if there was anybody else in
the building. But boyd, did they really take a risk
by knocking a window out, you know, to gain access
(20:35):
in that way? That gives you the idea of how
motivated they were in order to do this. I'm going
to break something in order to make entry. But they're
being very safe in the sense that they've got this
their kit on their faces obscured, they're wearing gloves, you
(20:56):
never see who they are, and and the fact that
they're all kitted up. There's two things to take away
from that. First off, if you're wearing police gear, which
the thingk says police on the chest and the back,
are you looking to blend in? Are you looking to
be in a garment that is not going to make
(21:19):
you more suspicious? Or maybe taking her unaware? Hey I'm
with the police. We got a call here, and you
can creep up on her. You know, you can take
the victim, you know, by surprise. Even more, you're adding
another layer of the unknown there also, did they have
knowledge of indwelling cameras inside of this place, so they
(21:41):
have to protect their face, so they would have knowledge
of not just the timetable, but also points of view
in this environment. And the fact that the cameras were
not working outside. Oh my gosh, that is I can
only imagine that when when the police heard that, their
(22:02):
heart must have sunk, and the people that are in
charge of the cameras, they're probably like, oh my gosh, yeah,
why do we even have these things on the outside
of the church.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I never really thought about the kit, wearing the kit
inside Joe, but you know, wearing that full kit. If
somebody was in the building for some reason other than
Missy Beavers and he or she came upon that person,
they would be wearing, you know, the full body kit
(22:31):
and would actually have the upper hands say we got
a call and we came to check it out, sorry,
you know, and then they could kill that person. That
person would be if I saw somebody in swat tactical
gear with police written across the front, I would give
it a second look of oh, okay, I'm good, you know,
I'm not worried. If it's a person that just comes
in there swinging a big hammer, you know, dressed in
(22:51):
regular gear. Yeah, I'm immediately defensive, but somebody in a
swat that says police, I'm not really taking it back.
I'm kind of comforted by the fact that I've got
cops on hand in case there is something that went wrong.
I didn't that did not occur to me till now.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I got to throw something else at you too. That
that's that's fascinating to me about this. Now the video
is okay, I mean it's not. We've certainly seen worse,
haven't we. I mean, you know, for a goodly portion
of my career, shameless plug coming up here, I wore
five to eleven gear, which is a uh it's it's
(23:29):
clothing that is made for people, for people in uh
police work. It's got interesting positions for pockets. You can
carry all kinds of things in it in you know,
in the pants. They have shirts, and they're they're made
for people that are going out kind of in the
rough and tumble world of working cases. They're you know,
(23:54):
it's it's like a it's they're almost they're made out
of the same thing. Well, they appear to be made
out of same thing as like many of them that
come in a variety of but just think old military
khaki uniform forms. But they come in multiple colors. You know,
you got forest green, you got blue, the police blue,
You've got black, khaki colored, all these sorts of things. Dave,
(24:17):
I got to tell you, I wore five to eleven
pants for a long long time. It takes a while
to break these things in. And I got to tell
you when I'm taking a look at this clothing, this
this gear looks new. It doesn't it doesn't have wear
on it, you know, like if you if because I
(24:39):
think some people have entertained the idea, well, is this
a police officer that just happened to have this gear
and they just pull it out of their unit, put
it on, and they go and assassinate this woman and
one of the most brutal methodologies that you can bring
to bear. You look at that and you begin to think, well,
did is it a police officer? It looks like something
(25:01):
that has been ordered recently. And again that's another thread
relative to this tactical gear. There are limited numbers of
places that you can purchase this from. And knowing what
I know of the FEDS, Okay, and we've talked about
this clothing with the FEDS, they do a big focus
(25:22):
FBI Lab does on identifying clothing, you know, button collections,
zipper collections, specific brands of clothing. And I really wonder
how deep down that rabbit hole they went relative to
all of those items that are being worn and going
back and tracing all this stuff. Now, I know that
(25:43):
other people have commented on this, but I think that
that is certainly an area that would narrow narrow your
field down here thinking about thinking about the origin of
this and this is a small unity. So if you
can extrapolate, you know, from that image specific branding, considering
(26:10):
that it might be new and did someone go to
a shop because you know they're only they're only twenty
five miles from Dallas Dave. There are police supply stores
all over the place. All right, did they roll into
a store or did they have it delivered to their house?
(26:30):
And you're going to draw attention this way, So you know,
that's another fascinating area of evidence here. And I think
that when this case, hopefully it's eventually solved, we're going
to find out a lot about that that we don't
have to this point. But to that end, when you
(26:52):
look at this gear that they're wearing, you know what
I don't see. I don't see a pistol belt. I
don't see a weapon that is there that would end
Missy's life in a quick and efficient manner. The weapon
I do see is perhaps one of the most ghastly
(27:15):
implements that you could use to perpetrate a crime like this.
(27:36):
I cannot imagine what it would be like to be
the finder, and a finder in our terms in the
medical legal world, we actually have a place on most
of our documents. There's kind of a standard sheet that
you fill out in a medical legal death investigation, and
there's a place that's listed on these documents that say finder.
(28:00):
Some will say finder of remains. I cannot even begin
to imagine being the finder of Missy's remains, particularly given
that it was one of her, as you said, Dave,
one of her campers, students who you know, let's face it,
Missy was probably driving her very hard. She probably respected
(28:21):
Missy and was trying to help her get better physically.
I can't imagine what it would be like to walk
in and you're there prepared that day to work out,
you know that it's been moved inside, you're ad to
rock and roll, and can you imagine just looking down
at the floor and seeing seeing your instructor's body, a term.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
That we used, stumbled stumbled upon, that's the term that
is used. And because we don't know what we know
so much about this crime and so little about the
actual act of the crime. And I don't know if
time I've ever seen the video of a suspect before
(29:06):
the act took place like we did on this one,
which is why you and I are many many others
who covered the case thought, surely this is going to
be solved quickly. You've got a married woman working out
people early in the morning hours, and there are going
to be plenty of suspects. You're going to be able
to filter those out and boom, we're going to have
this solved in forty eight hours. But it didn't happen.
(29:29):
And when police released the video of showing her his
or her gait the tackle gear, you said it looked
like maybe it was brand new. It didn't look like
it had really been worn much the outfit that the
suspect is wearing. But when the camper stumbles across the
body of Missy Beavers, the chaos that ensued in that
(29:52):
person's mind and calling for help calling nine one one.
There are actually two nine one one calls made. We
don't know the content of either one, except that there
was chaos in finding the body of Missy. Beavers and
police were on the way right away and she was
pronounced dead at the scene. But what we were told, Joe,
is that while we saw the suspect walking through the
(30:17):
halls of the building, that the suspect had a long hammer.
Is what it was described as a long hammer, and
that's what we were led to believe, was not led
to believe, actually told that was the murder weapon. But
around Missy's body, we haven't seen pictures of this, just
so you know, I know they exist, but we haven't
seen them. Around her body were other tools, and all
(30:41):
of the tools were from the church, meaning that this
suspect did not show up, as you mentioned, did not
have a gun belt on. But this suspect did not
show up with the tools that were found around Missy's body.
We don't know how many, but we know that it
was plural tools and it appeared that she had been
(31:04):
hit in the head and chest with the hammer. But
they talk they being the police and medical professionals, and
the autopsy at least the parts that we've seen, they
refer to puncture wounds. Joe, and having done this show
with you long enough now I know that what some
(31:27):
people call a puncture wound is not necessarily how you
refer to a puncture wound. And I certainly couldn't figure out,
other than using the claw end of a hammer, how
to create a puncture wound into a person's body or
head for that matter. So I'm hoping that based on
the limiteds off that we have about the death scene,
(31:48):
that you can explain what happened.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
You know, when we talk about tools that are laying
about the body, let's start there just for a second,
because that gives you an end cation. If they're approximating
the body and they were from the church, then that
means that those implements are not burglary tools, because when
people burglarize a structure, people don't know this maybe, but
(32:19):
you know, it's just like a carpenter. If you're a
professional thief, you have a tool set that you use.
You get used to those tools. You know what they
feel like. You can actually find them in the dark,
just feeling the contents of a bag, and they'll have
a kit that they carry with them. So if this
is something that was acquired within the church, that goes
(32:40):
out of all the ways that this person was seemingly
prepared as far as timeline, clothing, all of this sort
of thing, they didn't show up. They acquire tools from
inside this place. Well, how would you know where in
the world to go into this Church of Christ, this
(33:00):
kind of far flung area, even though it's twenty five
miles from Dallas, it's out. I mean, once you get
out from Dallas, there's a whole lot of out Okay,
if you've never been there, there's a whole lot of
out out there.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Which means mid Lothian is a like from a community standpoint,
Oh yeah, it's self content is not just a suburb
of Dallas. It is a self contained area that when
you live in this area, you're not really required to
drive a whole lot of distance to find whatever you need.
It can all be done with right there. But you
have access to the big city life of a top
market like Dallas for it worth.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yeah, yeah, you do. And you know any basic basic
needs can probably be met there. Okay, but you know
you think about why were these other tools there, and
then that goes to this idea of this so called
long hammer. When they're saying long hammer. Now I can
only base this upon what I am visualizing in in
(33:57):
the videography. When you consider this long hammer, it looks
as though when you say long hammer, or you wonder
if they're saying the handle is long, because it does
look longer than you would normally see for a hammer,
you know, a standard claw hammer that you know a
carpenter might use, or that you just use around your
(34:20):
house just to hang pictures with hammers come in all
shapes and sizes. But Dave, you know what really struck
me about the structure of this thing. It was not
the long handle. It was the head of this thing.
When I saw this, and I remember thinking about this
many years ago, it looked to me almost like a
(34:40):
geology hammer that you would see out in the field.
That was my first blush, because it looked like it
had the regular head of a hammer, the business end
of the hammer, as you will, but on the backside
where you would normally have a claw. I swear, Dave,
this thing that looked like it had a pick on
the end of it. It did, you know? And I
(35:01):
can't I can't appreciate it fully. And you know, if
you've never seen a geology hammer, they're used for chipping
away stone, all right, and for accessing particular areas that
are different difficult for geologists to get in. And they
need both a wide a wide surface to strike with,
(35:24):
and then they need a very pointed surface to strike with.
So I was thinking relative to these puncture wounds that
were going that they have stated now that she had sustained,
and they were about the head and the chest. Puncture
wounds can be generated in any any number ways. As
(35:46):
a matter of fact, let me kind of let me
give you an insight into the tiniest puncture wound you
can have. Did you know, do you know what the
what the acronym for or what the acronym NPW stands
for no needle puncture wound. So if like, if we're
(36:09):
examining a body, you know, like somebody that has odd
or somebody that's had therapeutic intervention in a hospital, and
you look at their arms, okay, if they've got little
areas there where a needle has ended, that's actually a
puncture one, okay. And generally how it's defined is that
you have to have some type of leading pointed sharp
(36:33):
edge on it. Now you can't have I've had impalements
over the years where I've had people that have dropped
onto cast iron fencing. I've had people that have had
logs driven through their body and those technically are puncture
wounds or impalements with associated puncture ones. But they're seeing
multiple puncture wounds here, and you have to think about
(36:57):
what does that mean, because if if you were used
that hammer, and you're using what we commonly refer to
as the business end of the hammer, that blended area,
you're going to have a strike that will lacerate the skin,
It'll tear the skin, and also, particularly with head strikes,
you're going to have underlying fractures and these things will
(37:19):
be very robust. Dave hammer attacks are some of the
most brutal that you can ever encounter out out in
the field. With a puncture wound, it doesn't look like
a stab wound. These are not stabs all right. Even
though a blade, which is what stab wounds are associated with,
(37:43):
has a leading pointed edge, it also broadens out as
the knife or the sharp instrument. It could be a machedy,
a sword, a knife as it enters the body, it
will make a slit, like a slit like insult to
the body. There was a period of time in my
career where I worked several cases involving homeless people that
(38:08):
have taken rebar off of partially collapsed buildings, cut them
off and wrapped one end of the rebar with duct
tape and filed the tip of steel rebar down so
that it makes a very sharp point and they can
carry in their pocket like a shift you know, like
you see in prison. And the interesting thing about now,
(38:29):
those are puncture wounds. The interesting thing about it is
when you essentially insert this into somebody's body, guess what
it looks like. Looks like gunshot wound because it's that caliber.
So when they're saying puncture wound, this is very very specific. Now,
are there other things out there that could create a
puncture womb? Well, I've heard some people mentioned the term
(38:56):
screwdriver is a screwed a street.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Yeah, but let me back up. Could you say screwdriver? Joe?
And we have covered this story again as I mentioned
a minute ago, you run with the Nancy Grace Yeah
on her by the way, shameless plug Nancy had her
show is now on the network that Doctor Phil has
launched Merritt Street Media, And on that show, you heard
Something by Scott Brooks. Scott Brooks is a friend of
(39:28):
Missy Beaver's husband and has been for a long Brandon
Beaver's and Brandon Beaver sat down with Scott Brooks and
did a long form interview. He hasn't talked to police
much over the last several years. I mean, he has
not talked to the public much over the last several years.
And here coming up on the eight year anniversary or
marking of her murder, Brandon sat down with Scott Brooks
(39:49):
and these things came out. So Scott Brooks was booked
onto the show as a guest along with you and
miss and Nancy Grace, and he said, the screwdriver, this
is not anything I had ever heard. And I've covered
this story since it began, Joe, and the only thing
I had ever heard until Nancy Gray show this past
week was that long hammered that he or she was
(40:14):
carrying throughout the building. That's what I thought was the weapon.
But then Scott Brooks says, it's a screwdriver. That's a
big difference to me, Joe.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
It is and screwdriver injuries are going to be Now, Okay,
first off, we have to categorize the screwdriver because as
you and I both know honeydew List, right, Yeah, if
are you using a Phillips or are you using a
flathead traditional screwdriver? Okay, those two injuries are going to
(40:47):
look different, all right. So if you think about a
Phillips which comes to a very distinct point on the end,
that again can generate a classic look puncture wound. And
so if you get those in tight well, I don't
want to get off into that yet, because there's a
whole there's a whole, a whole profile that comes up
(41:11):
with puncture winds like this in a very intimate space.
But those injuries generated by safer instance, a classic Phillips
head screwdriver are going to appear completely different than safer instance,
a flathead. And as a matter of fact, do you
know what they call the tip of a flathead screwdriver?
(41:32):
They call it a blade. It's actually referred Yeah, that's
actually referred to a blade. And you think about it,
and you put it in the slot, and you can
tighten and you can loosen and all that sort of thing.
It's not as ergonomically effective, I don't think as a Phillips.
That's why Phillips was developed. And there have been other
iterations of these things a long way.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Like you and me know that the butter knife also
can serve as a bit.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
It can used on this, yes it can. And spoons
work real well too.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
As a matter of fact, but that's I guess. I
just had never heard screw to ever mentioned in this
case at.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
All, and I had neither, and so I was And
that's one of the reasons I kind of wanted to
explore this with you because when he drops this information,
and I know that there are a lot of people
out there that have been following this case for years.
Maybe other people have heard this and maybe other people
have commented on it, but from a forensic standpoint, it
is very unique. I, like you, had always thought that
(42:31):
it was the hammer and to facilitate this kind of
multiple injuries. And here's the other thing. Day. Now, this
goes into the nature of this attack. Bludgeonings and knife attacks,
(42:51):
sharp force injury attacks, as you and I have discussed,
are the most intimate of all kinds of homicides. It's
not like you're shooting somebody from across the room, Dave.
And again we go back to what did I say
earlier in the video. I'm seeing there, I ain't wearing
a gun belt. Doesn't mean they don't have a gun
on them. I'm just saying I didn't show up with
(43:14):
a gun to dispatch Missy. And I'm not going to
use the term humane in a quick manner. Okay. This
is not like we're talking about headshot, all right. We're
talking about being in her space. We're talking about being
up close and personal. Maybe after you've gotten the upper hand,
(43:37):
because this person obviously weighs more than Missy. Now Missy
is you know, she's well defined, she's in shape. But
if that person got leverage on her and got her
down to the ground and starts attacking her with the
scene which I've worked hammer attacks before, where the individual
(43:59):
was on top of the individual, just pounding away, this
is going to be markedly gruesome. And what you're going
to see is you'll see perhaps and this is kind
of the way we interpret these things. Many times, if
there's an initial attack with an instrument, you might have,
(44:24):
you might have weapons or injuries that are kind of diffuse. Okay,
they're away from a central area. That might be the
initial injuries because you're trying to wound the person. But
once they get wounded, say they grip an area like
a shoulder or something like that. After they've been injured,
the next thing, you know, the perpetrator, who has a
tremendous amount of will about them, wrestles this individual to
(44:46):
the floor. Now you're on top of them, and these
injuries suddenly become concentrated. Day almost like a shot group
with finding a pistol where you're trying to tighten that
group down. Well, now you're right on top them. You're
driving this instrument into her body over and over and Dave,
here's the thing. It wasn't like it was just driven
(45:08):
into her chest. We're talking about she's got these puncture
wounds to her head. That you're off into a completely
different area here, because now you're in an area that
could imply disfigurement, maiming, destruction, those sorts of things where
(45:29):
you're trying to really damage her to the point you're
not just simply trying to end her life at this
point in time. And again we're left with again more
questions than answers because we don't know the specifics around
the case as far as some of the more pointed
(45:51):
bits of evidence along the way that the police do know.
I'm still baffled. I think to this point that we're
given a very small population in this area, at a
very specific location, at a very specific time, and with
a very apparently concentrated attack on this woman with something
(46:17):
that could be termed not the most merciful way to
kill somebody. And we're talking about a person that showed
up prepared, prepared from the perspective of understanding what was
going on outside the church, in that the classes had
been moved indoors, they knew about the weather, they knew
(46:39):
that it was happening at that particular time, and they're
wearing very specific garb. It seems as though that there
is a huge collection of breadcrumbs here. I just don't
know if they found the path to quite follow yet.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body packs
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Mm hmm.
Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. I've worked out throughout
my life for any number of reasons, either you know,
in sports or military or just to try to stay
(00:29):
in shape or get back in shape. And it's hard
to stay the course. I'm sure that y'all. Y'all know this.
Everybody knows this. It's hard some days just to get
out and take a walk. I've always been fascinated by
people that have a level of commitment where they will
(00:51):
get up at four a m. You know, even in
the Army, we didn't get up until I think for
forty five. To get up at or show up at
four four am, that means that you would have had
to have started prepping, you know, at three point fifty
(01:13):
maybe if you're going to throw in your workout clothes
and then to lead to show up motivated. That's the
thing about it, to show up motivated, to drive people
to get in shape, and not just that, but call
you know, call this this program that you're involved in.
Camp Gladiator. Today, i want to discuss one of the
(01:35):
most baffling cases that has come down the pike in
a long long time. I've been covering it for years.
It's the first time I've ever done a body backs
on it. We're going to talk about, at least to
this time, the unsolved homicide of Missy Beavers. I'm Joseph
(01:55):
Scott Morgan and this is body Backs tell you about Joe.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Let me jump in real quick. Missy Bab's case exploded
in twenty sixteen because when it happened in a church
when she was all alone before five am, but two
because police released surveillance video of the person they believe
committed the murder. In the minutes before the murder took place,
we see a person walking throughout the church in mid Lothian, Texas,
(02:25):
wearing a police swat outfit, including a helmet and a vesta,
says police. On top of that, this video shows that
the person has an unusual walk, an unusual gait, and
police released the surveillance video for everybody to see it,
expecting somebody to go, I know who that is. That's
how unique the walk is. That's why this story went viral.
It's still not solved eight years later. That's why we're
(02:46):
digging into the story today now, Joe. She was there,
as you mentioned, to lead a workout, and I'm kind
of curious. A lot of us had to do chores
when we were kids. Do you look at working out
as entertainment or do you look at working out as
a show.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
This to me is a chore. I mean, God, God
bless me. Missy Beavers and all those people that would
come and where I'm sure she she impacted people's lives
or that. We've heard this over and over and over again.
And David, look, I'm going to just throw this out
there just to begin this conversation. Given everything that she
(03:24):
did to help other people relative to their physical life,
all right, to try to improve them. Look, I'll take
the reins of it. I'm going to go out there.
I'm going to set this thing up. You know, you
show up. I'm going to be there every day, come
rain or come shine. By the way, it had been
raining hard that night. She said, we do not cancel,
(03:47):
and they were going to do it indoors.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Well, and you know all the plan was they did
it in the parking lot, the arrangement for Camp Gladiator
that Missy Beavers did. And by the way, her husband
actually Brandon talked to about the people who did this,
who joined Missy Beaver's class. They were called campers. That
is the way they related to them as their campers,
and they referred to them, I mean Brandon as well
(04:10):
as Missy called them our campers. And so the campers
would arrive at five am, which means that you know,
Missy had to be there forty five minutes to an
hour beforehand to get things set up. As you mentioned,
they normally did it in the parking lot, but because
of the torrential rains and by the way, it was
severe enough in mid Lothian, Texas where it had, the
(04:31):
weather had actually changed people's behavior because it just wasn't
something that they were used to having, you know, in
several days of nasty, rainy weather, and so moving it
indoors was something that Missy was able to arrange. And
that's where we begin, and you and I both started
talking about this show, this particular case when it happened.
We're talking about April eighteenth of twenty sixteen. That's when
(04:55):
you and I first heard of this case and by
the way, saw the video. You have a case where
Missy Beavers arrives at the church to set things up
and a camper finds her just after five am, finds
her body dead. Well, she was declared dead by the
(05:18):
paramedics that showed up. But the first call to nine
one one was at five point ten and it was
somebody's hurt, bad show up, you know. And then the
police as they're investigating, they released the video that we saw.
The video surveillance was from inside the church, and the
first thing we all saw a we know Missy Beavers
is dead. B we have video of a person walking
(05:42):
through this church that is not just the suspect. This
is the probable killer of Missy Beavers. And how often
do we have video of that medicine?
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Never That's and you know I'd mentioned to you I've
had these weird confluences, David, through throughout my uh my
contact with Nancy Grace. For some reason, I don't know
why it happened. But going back to our hl N
days where I would appear as her forensics guy, there
(06:15):
were there are a number of these cases where I was.
I was on air with her the first night a
particular case was presented. This is one of them. And
that's why it's so baffling because, uh, you know, in
our off air discussions, I was telling you, look, that
night after I had covered this with Nancy, because this
(06:37):
is the first night we had the video, and it
was the first night that I heard Nancy use the
term slew footed, and I'd heard slew footed my entire life.
You know, for people to turn turn me, well, it
means that you you turn your feet out. It almost
looks like a duck walk. You turn your feet out
as you're as you're you know, ambulating along. It's very
(07:00):
distinctive posture. And there's all kinds of things that forensic
foot where people look at relative to how feet strike
the ground, wear patterns on shoes and boots, and all
these sorts of things. The impressions you live leave in
the mud are in fact, and not to mention that
(07:21):
you think about the weight distribution of people. So it
really stood out that night. That was just one of
the little indicators that for me all these years seven
years day is it seven years? It is seven years?
I think seven years since this eight years there you go,
since this occurred, and I just I knew that night, Look,
(07:45):
this is going to be somebody that is going to
be found out. Going back to the original you know,
I don't know underlying thesis here. If you think about
what she's doing who's gonna's going to kill this woman? Right?
And that sounds here, Yeah, that's the thing, because.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
You're looking at a woman who's forty five years old,
has three kids, married and has been for a while,
and she's murdered by at her before her class is
set to begin. So the first thing that you and
I and everybody else that was working on we saw
the video of the positive probable murderer walking through a
church building with a long hammer. And we'll get into
(08:27):
this in a minute, but we see the video of
the possible suspect, the person that committed the murder, and
we know, well, we've got a lot of evidence here
pointing at who's guilty of this crime. But we also
have an individual that is walking through the church wearing
an outfit that looks like well not it looks like
it actually says police across the front best and it
(08:48):
appears to be police swat tactical gear including a helmet
that this individual is wearing. So back up, it's for
sixteen in the morning when Missy Beavers arrives at the
church and the video shows her unpacking things from her
truck and bringing it inside the church. We have the
(09:09):
video of the surveillance video of the person walking through
the church, and then we have the student the camper
arriving and calling nine to oneint one Our instructor is down,
and police arrive. She is pronounced dead at the scene.
Now we have the surveillance video that police released right away,
(09:31):
mainly because this is pretty big evidence and they didn't,
you know, in the first day or so, they hadn't
figured out who did it yet, so they released this
portions of it because the individual, and you said slew footed.
The person that is in the video has a very
distinctive gait gai t And it's not a term we
use very often to describe something, but it means the
(09:54):
way a person walks. I have an odd walk sometimes
because of my back. Some people have an odd walk
because they have an injury that it's only a temporary walk,
and that was something that investigators had to consider. Is
this a person who has this weird gait all the
time or are they recovering from an injury that has
(10:16):
created this gate. The whole thing the police are thinking
is somebody will notice this. Somebody will see this video
and say, hey, that looks like Joseph Scott Morgan I
saw him at the grocery store the other day. He
was walking like that. Somebody's going to call that in.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, that's very it's very distinctive. It's one of these
things that you know, you could say, how many let
me ask you something. Okay, we go to any you know,
any box store or anything like that. I won't mention
any names, but you know, like their initials are Walmart. Okay,
So you go to someplace like a Walmart or you
(10:53):
go to your local grocery store. How many? How many
times do you pay attention to the way people walk.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Only when they won't get out of my way?
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, you're right, and you're wondering, Well, the first assessment
that you do is like, well are they encumbered by something?
Is there something to be? And so you're you're wondering,
You're wondering here is this? Is this how they normally
(11:24):
you know, walk? And the interesting thing and we you know,
I uh, full credit to Nancy here because she had
me on just this past week talking about this case.
She had brought up the potential for an injury, you know,
relative to how this person was stepping, and it was
fascinating she she actually had a forensic pediatrist on air
(11:49):
with us. This guy is fascinating and forgive me, his
name just flew out of my brain, but he his
assessment relative to this was quite was quite fascinating. And
I'm not saying that the totality of the evidence rest
in a way somebody might happen to stride on any
(12:11):
particular day or strike the ground with their heel or
their toe or maybe the arch area of their foot.
But I know this, this case, with all of the
evidence that we're about to talk about, and with this
strange gait, remains open and unsolved. I personally, I have
(12:49):
never put on any kind of tactical police gear in
my life. None. You wear stuff or back in my
day when Sorcer on the earth, he wore stuff in
the army that you know, I guess could be considered
was combat gear. What tactical gear?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
You know that consisted of a couple of suspenders, you know,
a web belt as they called it, with m O
pax and all that stuff. But this is something different,
you know. I'm looking at at the clothing that this
person on the videography is wearing, and the pediatriss that
(13:30):
I mentioned just a few months ago that did an
assessment on this, on this this outfit, that this individual had.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
A doctor's name, the pediatrist show that you were looking for.
His name is doctor Michael Nyrenberg.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Doctor Nunberg. Hey, that's why I love you, Dave. You're
always there, You're ready with the ready with the info.
Thank you, because he deserves a lot of credit here.
I got to tell you. He you know, he went
to his local police department and asked if he could
videotape people that were dressed out in full kit as
they call it, and then he put the kid on.
(14:07):
You know what he said the same way, Dave, it
approximated forty pounds. Well imagine that, can you? Yeah, because
it's got a tactical vest which I guess has probably
got plates in it, you know, like bulletproof plates that
you find on the post ear and the anterior aspect.
And then not to mention, you know, any kind of
med kits, ammo, all the stuff that they flashlights, all
(14:30):
this stuff. And he said, and that changes the gate.
One of the things that Nancy's talked about is height comparison,
which is fascinating to me, where you know, how agencies
can take a rendering or can take a snap of
an individual in front of a doorframe. A doorframe is
a known it's a known, it's you get an idea
(14:54):
of height and width of this thing, and so they
can approximate heights with this. This pediatrist actually stated that
based upon the weight, it's going to perhaps compress your height.
So it might actually alter your height to a certain degree.
(15:17):
Now you know he deals with this sort of thing
every single day, you know, where they're having to make
adjustments to the feet and all these sorts of things,
special orthotics and all of that, and I'm sure that
he's probably worked with all manner of ostia pass out there.
When you think about this, that it could alter the
(15:40):
height of somebody if they divested themselves of this rig
that they're wearing, could their height change by half an inch? Maybe?
I don't know. I mean, you know they say that
astronauts get shorter when they're when they go into space.
I don't know, but they get taller or I'm thinking
about divers people that go that dive at deep desks
(16:03):
for depths for a protracted period of top.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
But the suit you're talking about weighing the kit weighing
forty pounds itself. Yeah, in the pictures of the surveillance
video of the individual. That by the way, police released
certain videos right a couple of days into the investigation,
when they didn't have a suspect, they didn't put a
name to a suspect. In a couple of days they
released more of the video. I want to add two things. One,
(16:30):
the surveillance video only is from the inside of the church.
The surveillance cameras outside the church were not working, but
inside the church police did see how the individual got in.
Now we know that Missy Beaver's arrived around four to
sixteen am, and police have told us that they saw
cameras on the inside showing this person breaking into the
(16:54):
church at three point fifty am in full tactical gear.
And I keep I'm saying this person because at first
police were certain it was a man, as I was
the first time I watched it. It's only in watching
the video a couple of different times that you look
at this and think this might be a woman. Now
(17:16):
police were able to determine that he or she the
person broke into the building. They're not telling us how,
just saying that it was a forced entry, right. And
we also are going to tell you that police have
never released the attack on Missy Beavers.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
I think it's there though, isn't it day? Yes, it is.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
They have the video. It just serves no purpose to
release it to the public, right and you know, furryan
interest don't need to be served. They're trying to find
out the suspect. Anything other than that would just be
damaging to her children, her family and people who cared
about her. I didn't know what happened. So anyway, they
do have that though, and I'm imagining at some point
(17:59):
if it comes up at that that could be brought
in because it would have something to do about the
injury sustained by Missy Beavers, the height, the weight of
the individual that did this crime. But Joe, as we
were watching this video of the surveillance video, it appears
(18:20):
that the person that comes into this building is breaking windows,
is looking around at door opening doors and things like that.
Does it appear to you that this individual is waiting
for Missy Beavers to arrive, that this person knows she's
going to arrive before five am, And does person is
(18:41):
lying in wait by creating a mess?
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yeah? And look, how in the heck do you Okay,
this has been my contention all along, Dave, if you
have an individual that knows and you have to you
kind of have to factor this in to the equation.
They have to know that Missy is going to be
going there. They have to know that. And here's the
(19:08):
chilling part that I think that the workout had been
moved from outdoors to indoors. Okay, that's very intimate knowledge, day,
but how can you how do you how do you
marry all that up and and not narrow your field
(19:31):
any further than it's been narrowed. Because it's interesting to
know that this message had been had been sent out
relative to relative to visa Facebook, you know, and it
was You wonder if it's a hidden group, protected group,
you know, that that sort of thing where it's it's
(19:53):
only limited to or could the public see this? And
if so, who in that group that would have and
going might have passed that information on not knowing that
they had passed it on to someone that had an
in for Missy. Is it a randomized attack? I can't
(20:13):
imagine that it is, because the person showed showed up
prior to Missy's arrival. So the new timeframe, they're going
around their checking this. They're casing the joint, if you will,
to try to assess if there was anybody else in
the building. But boyd, did they really take a risk
by knocking a window out, you know, to gain access
(20:35):
in that way? That gives you the idea of how
motivated they were in order to do this. I'm going
to break something in order to make entry. But they're
being very safe in the sense that they've got this
their kit on their faces obscured, they're wearing gloves, you
(20:56):
never see who they are, and and the fact that
they're all kitted up. There's two things to take away
from that. First off, if you're wearing police gear, which
the thingk says police on the chest and the back,
are you looking to blend in? Are you looking to
be in a garment that is not going to make
(21:19):
you more suspicious? Or maybe taking her unaware? Hey I'm
with the police. We got a call here, and you
can creep up on her. You know, you can take
the victim, you know, by surprise. Even more, you're adding
another layer of the unknown there also, did they have
knowledge of indwelling cameras inside of this place, so they
(21:41):
have to protect their face, so they would have knowledge
of not just the timetable, but also points of view
in this environment. And the fact that the cameras were
not working outside. Oh my gosh, that is I can
only imagine that when when the police heard that, their
(22:02):
heart must have sunk, and the people that are in
charge of the cameras, they're probably like, oh my gosh, yeah,
why do we even have these things on the outside
of the church.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I never really thought about the kit, wearing the kit
inside Joe, but you know, wearing that full kit. If
somebody was in the building for some reason other than
Missy Beavers and he or she came upon that person,
they would be wearing, you know, the full body kit
(22:31):
and would actually have the upper hands say we got
a call and we came to check it out, sorry,
you know, and then they could kill that person. That
person would be if I saw somebody in swat tactical
gear with police written across the front, I would give
it a second look of oh, okay, I'm good, you know,
I'm not worried. If it's a person that just comes
in there swinging a big hammer, you know, dressed in
(22:51):
regular gear. Yeah, I'm immediately defensive, but somebody in a
swat that says police, I'm not really taking it back.
I'm kind of comforted by the fact that I've got
cops on hand in case there is something that went wrong.
I didn't that did not occur to me till now.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I got to throw something else at you too. That
that's that's fascinating to me about this. Now the video
is okay, I mean it's not. We've certainly seen worse,
haven't we. I mean, you know, for a goodly portion
of my career, shameless plug coming up here, I wore
five to eleven gear, which is a uh it's it's
(23:29):
clothing that is made for people, for people in uh
police work. It's got interesting positions for pockets. You can
carry all kinds of things in it in you know,
in the pants. They have shirts, and they're they're made
for people that are going out kind of in the
rough and tumble world of working cases. They're you know,
(23:54):
it's it's like a it's they're almost they're made out
of the same thing. Well, they appear to be made
out of same thing as like many of them that
come in a variety of but just think old military
khaki uniform forms. But they come in multiple colors. You know,
you got forest green, you got blue, the police blue,
You've got black, khaki colored, all these sorts of things. Dave,
(24:17):
I got to tell you, I wore five to eleven
pants for a long long time. It takes a while
to break these things in. And I got to tell
you when I'm taking a look at this clothing, this
this gear looks new. It doesn't it doesn't have wear
on it, you know, like if you if because I
(24:39):
think some people have entertained the idea, well, is this
a police officer that just happened to have this gear
and they just pull it out of their unit, put
it on, and they go and assassinate this woman and
one of the most brutal methodologies that you can bring
to bear. You look at that and you begin to think, well,
did is it a police officer? It looks like something
(25:01):
that has been ordered recently. And again that's another thread
relative to this tactical gear. There are limited numbers of
places that you can purchase this from. And knowing what
I know of the FEDS, Okay, and we've talked about
this clothing with the FEDS, they do a big focus
(25:22):
FBI Lab does on identifying clothing, you know, button collections,
zipper collections, specific brands of clothing. And I really wonder
how deep down that rabbit hole they went relative to
all of those items that are being worn and going
back and tracing all this stuff. Now, I know that
(25:43):
other people have commented on this, but I think that
that is certainly an area that would narrow narrow your
field down here thinking about thinking about the origin of
this and this is a small unity. So if you
can extrapolate, you know, from that image specific branding, considering
(26:10):
that it might be new and did someone go to
a shop because you know they're only they're only twenty
five miles from Dallas Dave. There are police supply stores
all over the place. All right, did they roll into
a store or did they have it delivered to their house?
(26:30):
And you're going to draw attention this way, So you know,
that's another fascinating area of evidence here. And I think
that when this case, hopefully it's eventually solved, we're going
to find out a lot about that that we don't
have to this point. But to that end, when you
(26:52):
look at this gear that they're wearing, you know what
I don't see. I don't see a pistol belt. I
don't see a weapon that is there that would end
Missy's life in a quick and efficient manner. The weapon
I do see is perhaps one of the most ghastly
(27:15):
implements that you could use to perpetrate a crime like this.
(27:36):
I cannot imagine what it would be like to be
the finder, and a finder in our terms in the
medical legal world, we actually have a place on most
of our documents. There's kind of a standard sheet that
you fill out in a medical legal death investigation, and
there's a place that's listed on these documents that say finder.
(28:00):
Some will say finder of remains. I cannot even begin
to imagine being the finder of Missy's remains, particularly given
that it was one of her, as you said, Dave,
one of her campers, students who you know, let's face it,
Missy was probably driving her very hard. She probably respected
(28:21):
Missy and was trying to help her get better physically.
I can't imagine what it would be like to walk
in and you're there prepared that day to work out,
you know that it's been moved inside, you're ad to
rock and roll, and can you imagine just looking down
at the floor and seeing seeing your instructor's body, a term.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
That we used, stumbled stumbled upon, that's the term that
is used. And because we don't know what we know
so much about this crime and so little about the
actual act of the crime. And I don't know if
time I've ever seen the video of a suspect before
(29:06):
the act took place like we did on this one,
which is why you and I are many many others
who covered the case thought, surely this is going to
be solved quickly. You've got a married woman working out
people early in the morning hours, and there are going
to be plenty of suspects. You're going to be able
to filter those out and boom, we're going to have
this solved in forty eight hours. But it didn't happen.
(29:29):
And when police released the video of showing her his
or her gait the tackle gear, you said it looked
like maybe it was brand new. It didn't look like
it had really been worn much the outfit that the
suspect is wearing. But when the camper stumbles across the
body of Missy Beavers, the chaos that ensued in that
(29:52):
person's mind and calling for help calling nine one one.
There are actually two nine one one calls made. We
don't know the content of either one, except that there
was chaos in finding the body of Missy. Beavers and
police were on the way right away and she was
pronounced dead at the scene. But what we were told, Joe,
is that while we saw the suspect walking through the
(30:17):
halls of the building, that the suspect had a long hammer.
Is what it was described as a long hammer, and
that's what we were led to believe, was not led
to believe, actually told that was the murder weapon. But
around Missy's body, we haven't seen pictures of this, just
so you know, I know they exist, but we haven't
seen them. Around her body were other tools, and all
(30:41):
of the tools were from the church, meaning that this
suspect did not show up, as you mentioned, did not
have a gun belt on. But this suspect did not
show up with the tools that were found around Missy's body.
We don't know how many, but we know that it
was plural tools and it appeared that she had been
(31:04):
hit in the head and chest with the hammer. But
they talk they being the police and medical professionals, and
the autopsy at least the parts that we've seen, they
refer to puncture wounds. Joe, and having done this show
with you long enough now I know that what some
(31:27):
people call a puncture wound is not necessarily how you
refer to a puncture wound. And I certainly couldn't figure out,
other than using the claw end of a hammer, how
to create a puncture wound into a person's body or
head for that matter. So I'm hoping that based on
the limiteds off that we have about the death scene,
(31:48):
that you can explain what happened.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
You know, when we talk about tools that are laying
about the body, let's start there just for a second,
because that gives you an end cation. If they're approximating
the body and they were from the church, then that
means that those implements are not burglary tools, because when
people burglarize a structure, people don't know this maybe, but
(32:19):
you know, it's just like a carpenter. If you're a
professional thief, you have a tool set that you use.
You get used to those tools. You know what they
feel like. You can actually find them in the dark,
just feeling the contents of a bag, and they'll have
a kit that they carry with them. So if this
is something that was acquired within the church, that goes
(32:40):
out of all the ways that this person was seemingly
prepared as far as timeline, clothing, all of this sort
of thing, they didn't show up. They acquire tools from
inside this place. Well, how would you know where in
the world to go into this Church of Christ, this
(33:00):
kind of far flung area, even though it's twenty five
miles from Dallas, it's out. I mean, once you get
out from Dallas, there's a whole lot of out Okay,
if you've never been there, there's a whole lot of
out out there.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Which means mid Lothian is a like from a community standpoint,
Oh yeah, it's self content is not just a suburb
of Dallas. It is a self contained area that when
you live in this area, you're not really required to
drive a whole lot of distance to find whatever you need.
It can all be done with right there. But you
have access to the big city life of a top
market like Dallas for it worth.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yeah, yeah, you do. And you know any basic basic
needs can probably be met there. Okay, but you know
you think about why were these other tools there, and
then that goes to this idea of this so called
long hammer. When they're saying long hammer. Now I can
only base this upon what I am visualizing in in
(33:57):
the videography. When you consider this long hammer, it looks
as though when you say long hammer, or you wonder
if they're saying the handle is long, because it does
look longer than you would normally see for a hammer,
you know, a standard claw hammer that you know a
carpenter might use, or that you just use around your
(34:20):
house just to hang pictures with hammers come in all
shapes and sizes. But Dave, you know what really struck
me about the structure of this thing. It was not
the long handle. It was the head of this thing.
When I saw this, and I remember thinking about this
many years ago, it looked to me almost like a
(34:40):
geology hammer that you would see out in the field.
That was my first blush, because it looked like it
had the regular head of a hammer, the business end
of the hammer, as you will, but on the backside
where you would normally have a claw. I swear, Dave,
this thing that looked like it had a pick on
the end of it. It did, you know? And I
(35:01):
can't I can't appreciate it fully. And you know, if
you've never seen a geology hammer, they're used for chipping
away stone, all right, and for accessing particular areas that
are different difficult for geologists to get in. And they
need both a wide a wide surface to strike with,
(35:24):
and then they need a very pointed surface to strike with.
So I was thinking relative to these puncture wounds that
were going that they have stated now that she had sustained,
and they were about the head and the chest. Puncture
wounds can be generated in any any number ways. As
(35:46):
a matter of fact, let me kind of let me
give you an insight into the tiniest puncture wound you
can have. Did you know, do you know what the
what the acronym for or what the acronym NPW stands
for no needle puncture wound. So if like, if we're
(36:09):
examining a body, you know, like somebody that has odd
or somebody that's had therapeutic intervention in a hospital, and
you look at their arms, okay, if they've got little
areas there where a needle has ended, that's actually a
puncture one, okay. And generally how it's defined is that
you have to have some type of leading pointed sharp
(36:33):
edge on it. Now you can't have I've had impalements
over the years where I've had people that have dropped
onto cast iron fencing. I've had people that have had
logs driven through their body and those technically are puncture
wounds or impalements with associated puncture ones. But they're seeing
multiple puncture wounds here, and you have to think about
(36:57):
what does that mean, because if if you were used
that hammer, and you're using what we commonly refer to
as the business end of the hammer, that blended area,
you're going to have a strike that will lacerate the skin,
It'll tear the skin, and also, particularly with head strikes,
you're going to have underlying fractures and these things will
(37:19):
be very robust. Dave hammer attacks are some of the
most brutal that you can ever encounter out out in
the field. With a puncture wound, it doesn't look like
a stab wound. These are not stabs all right. Even
though a blade, which is what stab wounds are associated with,
(37:43):
has a leading pointed edge, it also broadens out as
the knife or the sharp instrument. It could be a machedy,
a sword, a knife as it enters the body, it
will make a slit, like a slit like insult to
the body. There was a period of time in my
career where I worked several cases involving homeless people that
(38:08):
have taken rebar off of partially collapsed buildings, cut them
off and wrapped one end of the rebar with duct
tape and filed the tip of steel rebar down so
that it makes a very sharp point and they can
carry in their pocket like a shift you know, like
you see in prison. And the interesting thing about now,
(38:29):
those are puncture wounds. The interesting thing about it is
when you essentially insert this into somebody's body, guess what
it looks like. Looks like gunshot wound because it's that caliber.
So when they're saying puncture wound, this is very very specific. Now,
are there other things out there that could create a
puncture womb? Well, I've heard some people mentioned the term
(38:56):
screwdriver is a screwed a street.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Yeah, but let me back up. Could you say screwdriver? Joe?
And we have covered this story again as I mentioned
a minute ago, you run with the Nancy Grace Yeah
on her by the way, shameless plug Nancy had her
show is now on the network that Doctor Phil has
launched Merritt Street Media, And on that show, you heard
Something by Scott Brooks. Scott Brooks is a friend of
(39:28):
Missy Beaver's husband and has been for a long Brandon
Beaver's and Brandon Beaver sat down with Scott Brooks and
did a long form interview. He hasn't talked to police
much over the last several years. I mean, he has
not talked to the public much over the last several years.
And here coming up on the eight year anniversary or
marking of her murder, Brandon sat down with Scott Brooks
(39:49):
and these things came out. So Scott Brooks was booked
onto the show as a guest along with you and
miss and Nancy Grace, and he said, the screwdriver, this
is not anything I had ever heard. And I've covered
this story since it began, Joe, and the only thing
I had ever heard until Nancy Gray show this past
week was that long hammered that he or she was
(40:14):
carrying throughout the building. That's what I thought was the weapon.
But then Scott Brooks says, it's a screwdriver. That's a
big difference to me, Joe.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
It is and screwdriver injuries are going to be Now, Okay,
first off, we have to categorize the screwdriver because as
you and I both know honeydew List, right, Yeah, if
are you using a Phillips or are you using a
flathead traditional screwdriver? Okay, those two injuries are going to
(40:47):
look different, all right. So if you think about a
Phillips which comes to a very distinct point on the end,
that again can generate a classic look puncture wound. And
so if you get those in tight well, I don't
want to get off into that yet, because there's a
whole there's a whole, a whole profile that comes up
(41:11):
with puncture winds like this in a very intimate space.
But those injuries generated by safer instance, a classic Phillips
head screwdriver are going to appear completely different than safer instance,
a flathead. And as a matter of fact, do you
know what they call the tip of a flathead screwdriver?
(41:32):
They call it a blade. It's actually referred Yeah, that's
actually referred to a blade. And you think about it,
and you put it in the slot, and you can
tighten and you can loosen and all that sort of thing.
It's not as ergonomically effective, I don't think as a Phillips.
That's why Phillips was developed. And there have been other
iterations of these things a long way.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Like you and me know that the butter knife also
can serve as a bit.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
It can used on this, yes it can. And spoons
work real well too.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
As a matter of fact, but that's I guess. I
just had never heard screw to ever mentioned in this
case at.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
All, and I had neither, and so I was And
that's one of the reasons I kind of wanted to
explore this with you because when he drops this information,
and I know that there are a lot of people
out there that have been following this case for years.
Maybe other people have heard this and maybe other people
have commented on it, but from a forensic standpoint, it
is very unique. I, like you, had always thought that
(42:31):
it was the hammer and to facilitate this kind of
multiple injuries. And here's the other thing. Day. Now, this
goes into the nature of this attack. Bludgeonings and knife attacks,
(42:51):
sharp force injury attacks, as you and I have discussed,
are the most intimate of all kinds of homicides. It's
not like you're shooting somebody from across the room, Dave.
And again we go back to what did I say
earlier in the video. I'm seeing there, I ain't wearing
a gun belt. Doesn't mean they don't have a gun
on them. I'm just saying I didn't show up with
(43:14):
a gun to dispatch Missy. And I'm not going to
use the term humane in a quick manner. Okay. This
is not like we're talking about headshot, all right. We're
talking about being in her space. We're talking about being
up close and personal. Maybe after you've gotten the upper hand,
(43:37):
because this person obviously weighs more than Missy. Now Missy
is you know, she's well defined, she's in shape. But
if that person got leverage on her and got her
down to the ground and starts attacking her with the
scene which I've worked hammer attacks before, where the individual
(43:59):
was on top of the individual, just pounding away, this
is going to be markedly gruesome. And what you're going
to see is you'll see perhaps and this is kind
of the way we interpret these things. Many times, if
there's an initial attack with an instrument, you might have,
(44:24):
you might have weapons or injuries that are kind of diffuse. Okay,
they're away from a central area. That might be the
initial injuries because you're trying to wound the person. But
once they get wounded, say they grip an area like
a shoulder or something like that. After they've been injured,
the next thing, you know, the perpetrator, who has a
tremendous amount of will about them, wrestles this individual to
(44:46):
the floor. Now you're on top of them, and these
injuries suddenly become concentrated. Day almost like a shot group
with finding a pistol where you're trying to tighten that
group down. Well, now you're right on top them. You're
driving this instrument into her body over and over and Dave,
here's the thing. It wasn't like it was just driven
(45:08):
into her chest. We're talking about she's got these puncture
wounds to her head. That you're off into a completely
different area here, because now you're in an area that
could imply disfigurement, maiming, destruction, those sorts of things where
(45:29):
you're trying to really damage her to the point you're
not just simply trying to end her life at this
point in time. And again we're left with again more
questions than answers because we don't know the specifics around
the case as far as some of the more pointed
(45:51):
bits of evidence along the way that the police do know.
I'm still baffled. I think to this point that we're
given a very small population in this area, at a
very specific location, at a very specific time, and with
a very apparently concentrated attack on this woman with something
(46:17):
that could be termed not the most merciful way to
kill somebody. And we're talking about a person that showed
up prepared, prepared from the perspective of understanding what was
going on outside the church, in that the classes had
been moved indoors, they knew about the weather, they knew
(46:39):
that it was happening at that particular time, and they're
wearing very specific garb. It seems as though that there
is a huge collection of breadcrumbs here. I just don't
know if they found the path to quite follow yet.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body packs
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Mm hmm.
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.