November 18, 2021 • 37 mins
Katherine “Katie” Janness takes her dog, Bowie, for a late-night walk in the Midtown area of Atlanta. Janness stops at a local bar to say hello to her girlfriend, who's working. When Janness' girlfriend gets off work, no one is home, but should have been. After unanswered phone calls and texts, Emma Clark uses the 'find my phone' app, which leads her to a horrifying discovery. Just inside Atlanta's popular Piedmont Park, 40-year-old Katherine Janness has been brutally attacked, stabbed more than 50 times, and her body horrifically mutilated.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Body Backs with Joseph Scott Morgan. We all have a
place of peace that we try to seek out at
the end of a long day of work. Maybe go
for a walk, take our dog with us, our best friend,
(00:29):
clear our mind. That place of safety, that place of
peace suddenly explodes in your life comes to the end.
Somebody's wielding a knife. They're hovering over you. They're burying
a knife into your body, over and over and over again.
And maybe the last thing you see is your dog
(00:51):
dying right before you. That's our case today. I'm Joseph
Scott Morrigan in this his body bags. Joining me today
is my good friend Jackie Howard, executive producer of Crime
Stories with Nancy Grace. Jackie, what can you tell us
(01:12):
about this case? Katherine Katie Janice took her dog Bowie
for a walk in Atlanta's Piedmont Park now Piedmont Park.
To put this in terms where other people who are
not from this area can understand, would be like taking
a walk in Central Park in New York. Katie went
to see her girlfriend Emma, who was working down the
street as a bartender, and there were lots of people
(01:34):
out walking their own dogs. This is kind of a
typical scene for this midtown neighborhood. After leaving the bar,
Katie continued her walk. After work, Emma went home that
Katie wasn't there. She should have been. She should have
been back from the dog walk by then. So Emma
started calling Katie's cellphone but did not get an answer,
(01:54):
and she said text messages they also went unanswered, and
that's when the worry said in and Emma went out
to look for Katie. Now, obviously, when you're walking a dog,
you can go anywhere, so Emma used to find my
iPhone app on Katie's phone. It showed Katie's phone was
about a hundred yards inside Piedmont Park, which was very
(02:16):
close to Katie and Emma's home. Emma thought maybe Katie
had dropped the phone, so she went into the park
to find it. But what she finds is a very
gruesome scene. The first thing she saw was Bowie. Bowie
was dead. That is the dog, and it's a pit bull.
Not too far away, Emma found Katie's body and she
(02:36):
was dead. This is a very gruesome crime, Joe, that
we're going to talk about. But let's talk about the beginning.
Bowie and Katie were not found next to each other,
but they were found, especially Bowie, at the entrance of
the park. There's so much to talk about here, Joe,
I gonna tell you as you know, uh, you know,
(02:58):
i worked in Atlanta for a long time and I'm
very familiar with Peed in my Park. This is a
wide open space in the area where this young woman
was found with her pet is immediately adjacent to one
of the main entrances to the park. It's it's kind
of big arched area that you can walk through. Um
(03:19):
that you know, plainly states Peed my Park. It's a
it's an area where people actually go through on a
regular basis to to take nice, long, peaceful walks through.
This area's very bucolic, beautiful old trees and this sort
of thing. Areas to picnic. And the fact that her body,
her body is actually found, I mean, let's face it,
(03:39):
in plane view, is quite striking to me, you know,
as an investigator when you begin to look at a
scene like this and trust me, what this young woman
went through took time. So that tells us something about
the perpetrator. They essentially had no fear of being found. Perhaps,
(04:00):
you know, some people say, well, you know, us as
under the cover of darkness. It is under the cover
of darkness, but it's not like we're out in a
cow pasture in in you know, rural Georgia somewhere. We're
in the most one of the most populated cities in
the South. People walk through this area, They make it
a point to walk through this area. It's very popular.
(04:22):
Who would do this in this specific environment? And you
you begin to think about the nature of the scene
where she was found, where Bowie was found, and you
have to think this must have been an absolute blood
bath around this area because there were so many injuries
to both genesis body as well as her pet dog's body,
(04:46):
that blood would have been spilled on all of the surfaces.
And those are some of the things that you have
to think about as an investigator. It's an open area.
Who would have access to it, who would have knowledge
that she would be walking through this specific area at
this time of evening, and who would be bold enough,
(05:07):
bold enough to approach this young woman, who, as you mentioned,
is walking along with a pit bull at their side.
I don't know about you, Jackie, but for me, you know,
a person that's got a pit bull and toe is
going to be probably the last one of the last
people I'm gonna want to try to target because they're
(05:27):
very they're very affectionate when it comes to their their master.
They are very protective when it comes to their master.
So that gives us an insight into who may have
perpetrated this. One of the things that struck me about
this show. You were talking about the big sign that
goes into Piedmont Park and on the very bottom of
(05:49):
the sign there is a post that says pets must
be on a leash. So it's not like the pit
bull got away and ran after somebody. We know the
dog was the leash to begin with, so we know
that the initial attack, the two of them were standing
close together. Yeah, yeah, they they absolutely would have been
(06:10):
standing close together. She's got the dog in toe or
it's like my dogs. My my dogs have me and toe.
You know, many times they're they're excited, they're ready to
get out of the house, they want to go for
a walk. This is there, it's their happy place. So
you know that the dog was right by her side
as they're walking along. The dog didn't get away, The
dog didn't alert on something I don't think, and you
(06:31):
know hopped off the leash magically and ran off to
chase somebody that was a threat. That dog would have
hung back, if you will, in order to protect uh,
Miss Janice. So that that's something that you know that
comes to mind when you're beginning to try to assess
the scene out there in this in this open area.
You know, how and how did they get this much
(06:53):
distance between the dog and the dog's master? How does
that happen in this environment? Uh, in the midst of
this attack, So, you know, it really gives you pause
to think. So, how does this happen? Joe? How do
you kill a dog? Now we do know there was
not a gun used in this attack. How do you
(07:15):
kill a pit bull with a knife or a stabbing
instrument of some kind. I mean, a pit bull is
extremely strong. A pit bull can be in protective mode,
and we're assuming that that's the case. A pit bull
can be vicious. So how was the perpetrator able to
(07:39):
do this? And do they do autopsies on dogs? You know?
An answer to your question, Jackie, Yeah, they do. They
do examinations on dogs. Now in this particular case, from
my understanding, at least this point, Bowie's body did not
go did not go to the Medical Examiner's office for instance,
uh there in the city of Atlanta. Then dog's body
(08:00):
was actually taken by the state Investigative Agency, the g
b I, and I would probably put money on it
that they would have a consulting veterinarian perhaps as well
as a forensic pathologist out at the State Medical Examiner's
lab to take a look at at the dog's injuries.
And and this is important because you know, listen, the
(08:23):
dog and Miss Janice were not killed in two separate instances.
This is all one big event that's taking place. So
from an evidentially standpoint, one of the things that you're
going to be looking for when it comes to injuries.
You want to be able to try to compare the
injuries that the dog had to those that Miss Channis
sustained is at the same NiFe. That's the big question here, right,
(08:46):
because we do know that this is a sharp force
injury death. So you know some of the things that
you're gonna be looking for on Bowie's body. For instance,
is this a single edged weapon or was it a
double edged weapon? Was it a particular type of knife
that was you say, for instance, something that had a
smooth edge as opposed to say, for instance, a serrated edge,
(09:09):
which sometimes you can have a combination of both, and
it leaves very very distinctive markings that can be examined
after the fact and possibly possibly compared, certainly at a
microscopic level. And there again you've got this connectivity and
forensic science that we are always looking for. In a
(09:29):
case like this, we have two victims, and we would
have to be looking for DNA in the dog's mouth
because most likely the dog went on an attack, so
that we're looking for evidence from a dog bite. Oh,
you're absolutely right. Uh. One of the things that you
would look for is you mentioned d N a jackie.
(09:49):
But let's keep in mind, how how does a dog attack? Well,
when a dog attacks, they bite and they ripped. I
want everybody to think about just for a second. And
this is kind of a little in dwelling lesson here.
People are familiar with the two pointy teeth that you
have on the top and on the bottom. Uh. These
are actually referred to as canine teeth. And the way
(10:11):
biting actually works is that these teeth are sunk in
to say, for instance, tissue. When a dog bites, it
doesn't chew. The dog bites and it rips. So you're
not just gonna be looking at a molecular level for
d n A that you know you might can swab
Bowie's mouth for. But you're also gonna be looking for
(10:32):
things like tissue that might be caught up in the teeth,
or maybe even fabric that's caught up in the teeth,
and these things would actually be left behind. Keep in mind,
you know, I cannot imagine in my wildest fantasies that
the perpetrator would have taken time to go back and
clean the dog's mouth out. There would be something there
(10:53):
if in fact, the dog did attack this potential perpetrator.
And again this begs the question, a dog that is
so prone to a defensive posture and a protection posture
like a pit bull, how do you get so close
to them that you can actually drive a knife not
just once, but multiple times into this canines body. And
(11:15):
while this is going on, what's miss Janic's doing. Is
she already deceased or she's looking on in horror Jackie.
(11:43):
We've had a little discussion about the nature of this
environment in which this poor woman was just brutally attacked
along with her her pet dog, Bowie. But we we
need to talk a little bit now. As hard as
it is, We've we've got to talk about these injuries
because I've got tell Jackie, in my career, I've seen
very few cases that even arrival this one, Katie Janis
(12:06):
was found about a hundred yards inside the park and
about a hundred feet from Bowie, her dog. The suggestion
is that from where Bowie was found and where Miss
Janice was found, that likely Katie Janie tried to run
away and the killer caught up to her. And we
do know that she died from As we've talked about
(12:30):
sharp force injuries, where were those injuries and what kind
of damage do they do? Jackie, I've actually got the
autopsy report here lay before me as as you and
I are chatting right now, and I've spent the past
few days just going over it, and i gotta tell
you it's it's extensive. I mean absolutely, um a wash
(12:54):
with details about what she went through. And you know,
we'll try to chake this from the top and just
just walk through this very carefully. Um, she's got you know,
like I said previously, these are what are referred to
as sharp force injuries and a sharp force injuries just
so our audience understands, is it's anything that involves an
edged weapon and that can either be a stab wound,
(13:16):
and stabs, keep in mind, are deeper than they are long.
And then you have in sized wounds which are just
think of miss slices and they're generally shallow. Okay, So
with Mrs Janis's body, uh, we have to think about, um, well,
how first off, how can somebody get so close to
her in order to facilitate this because there were so
(13:39):
many injuries with somebody laying in wait for her as
she walked through this gate or through this archway at
at at Piedmont Park, you know, kind of tracking our law,
and there was such there's such a level of trauma
here that it's hard to kind of take its measure.
I think that one of the things that really stood
out to me, uh was the fact that I don't
(14:03):
normally use this term, but there is an attempt, at
least on my part, at least from my perspective as
a medical legal death investigator, in an attempt to disfigure
Miss Janis and kind of let me lay the lay
the groundwork here. She's got a lot of injuries over
the totality of her torso. But what's really striking is
(14:24):
that her face and these are all if you think
about the head, we have the front, which is referred
to as the anterior um. These are all anterior injuries
and they start they start actually at the forehead. There's
even one I think that goes to the very top
of the head. They go all the way to the top,
(14:45):
slice through the forehead, across the surface of both eyes,
both eyelids are involved. Just you know, just keep that
in mind. The lips are actually in size, remember we
talked about it in size. When that's a cut, that's
a slice all the way down to the chin. And
there are multiple of these. So it's almost like somebody
is in a fevered state as they are attempting to
(15:09):
disfigure her, slice her up, and really make her into
this grotesque person in death. And you really have to
think about, you know, I think to a great degree,
what's going on inside the mind of a perpetrator in
a case like this. What you're describing to me, Joe,
sounds like a slasher film. Yeah, it kind of does,
(15:31):
doesn't Jackie you know, you begin to think about it
um and to give to give our audience a little
understanding of this. One of these injuries that really stood
up to me. Obviously the slicing of the of the
eyes is significant, but or the eyelids. One of the
things that really kind of stuck with me is that
(15:52):
the friends and pathologists talks about the slice injury to
the mouth goes down to the buckle New Coast. Remember
we've heard that term before. That's actually where we go
in harvest d NA out of the living with swabs.
That means that not only was the lips slice through,
it goes through what's referred to in forensic terms as
it's a full thickness wound, which means it goes all
(16:15):
the way down two underlying tissue. So you've sliced through
the lip at this point in time. That that gives
you an idea as as to what has happened. And
one other interesting component is that as you work your
way down from these injuries on the head and I'm
not suggesting any way that this is the order in
which they took place, but you know, if we're kind
(16:36):
of because there's so many injuries here, if we kind
of think about this anatomically. If you start with the head.
After after we have examined all of these injuries on
the head um, you have to begin to think about, well,
the neck. You know what's involved with the neck. Oh
my gosh, it's it's remarkable. If you think about the
right side of your neck, starting essentially directly below your
(17:01):
right ear, there is an incised injury that runs again,
this is what's referred to as full thickness injury. It
goes down through the subcu fat, into the vessels and
into the muscle. Did you know that Ms Janice both
of her caroated arteries, which are the main blood supply
that goes from the heart to the brain, both of
(17:23):
those were sliced through that. That's that's set a depth
of over an inch beneath the surface of your neck tissue.
You're getting down you know, close to probably two inches
in thickness you're going down there. And not only that,
but her trachea, her windpipe essentially is what the doctor
refers to as transsected. These vessels are transsected, the windpipe
(17:48):
is transsected, going all the way down to the cervical vertebrate.
So those the supports, the supports for the head. From
a skeletal standpoint, that's becoming involved. Now you've even got
on the back side of her neck, the skeletal attachments,
the muscle skeletal attachments back there, Jackie, the muscles were
sliced as well. That's that like the C two, C
(18:10):
three level of the vertebrates. So those are really high
up in the neck and those have also been been
cut away. And what's really ghastly about this is the
fact that in those muscles on the back of the
neck they found hemorrhage. And guess what, when you find hemorrhage,
that's an indication the heart still beating. We know that
(18:33):
she had over fifty wounds. This is taking some time
and some effort. Yeah, it does take time, Jackie, you know,
and you know, when I started reading this autopsy report,
I began to think about the years, all of those
years I spent working on the mortgage an autopsy assistant,
and let's face it, we're just gonna be adults here
(18:55):
and talk about this. I spent that time protecting human cadavers,
and it would of course, we were very purposeful and
what we would do, but you know, autopsies many times
um involved sharp instruments. That's what we do, and it
it would take you know, two hours. Sometimes we're talking
about a tremendous number of sharp force injuries that have
(19:17):
taken place in an open space out on the bare earth,
if you will, in plane view, Manji, though it is
at night, it's still in plane view. These are taking
taking place out there. So was this a frenzied event
or was she somehow removed somewhere else, maybe under cover
and all of this stuff was done to her. But
you can't get past effect that this was facilitated, uh
(19:41):
by an individual that had to take a significant amount
of time. You know, you can say frenzy, we can
apply that term, but still it doesn't necessarily mean that
it happened over a very short period of time. This
knife was buried into her body every single time. Remember,
every time a knife is buried, it takes effort on
(20:04):
the part of the perpetrator to pull it out. You know,
you talked about the stab wounds that she had on
her back. She had stab wounds so deep on her back.
And you know, I like to teach my students that,
uh that when you think about an attack from the rear.
People kind of contract up into almost like a turtle shell.
The back is hard to get through. This knife was
(20:26):
buried into her back so deeply that it actually punctured
one of her lungs posteriorly, which means from behind. And
here's here's the kicker. One of the wounds actually penetrated
her A order, which is the main vessel that comes
off of the heart that supplies blood to the rest
of the body. And you know what I know about this.
(20:49):
I know that she was alive when this was happening
because her left chest, her left chest where her left
lung is in the A order had begun to fill
up with blood. That means that the heart is still
beating at this point. And what's very important here when
you begin to try to put this together from a
forensic pathology, is a standpoint and you begin to think
(21:11):
about what's referred to as sequencing of injuries, because everybody
wants to know, you know, what was the fatal the
fatal blow that brought about her death at the end
of the day, and how much of the stuff that
was going on this trauma was it anti mortem or
was it post mortem? And that means staying around with
(21:31):
the body after an individual is deceased, to continue to
slice and cut and stab and all of these things
that are involved. And she's even got you know, and
we haven't even mentioned contusions. She's gotten multiple blunt forced contusions.
So she was struck in some way or struck with something.
We don't know what that was, whether it was a
hand or a fist or some object, but she does
(21:53):
have multiple you know, that's a lot of activity going
on in a case like this, Jackie. So, Joe, what
does it tell us about the then what you were
just talking about that she was stepped so deep that
it cut the eight order around the heart, What does
that tell us about the size or the possible size
of the weapon? I think probably one of the most
(22:13):
significant things about this weapon, Jackie. I think a lot
of people want to think about things like, uh, the
length of the blade. That's important. Okay, that that is
certainly important. It's certainly something that we consider. But you know,
what really fascinates me about this weapon is that this
weapon would have had to have been sturdy. That is
(22:35):
the backside of that weapon, if it's a single edged blade,
just you know, if you have an opportunity to go
into your kitchen or whatever and look at the knives
you have when you're in your in your drawer. If
you take out like an old butter knife or even
a state knife that you've picked up at the store,
they're not really robust. They have specific edges on them,
and the back is not very robust. But if you
find a butcher knife, like a substantial butcher knife, there's
(22:59):
gonna be a thickness that occurs on the back of this.
And the reason this is important to me, remember what
I said about stabbing her in her posterior chest, her back.
You're gonna have to be able to generate so much force,
not just once, not just twice. But we're talking about
fifty injuries, Jackie. So that means that that blade would
have had to have been strong enough two endure this
(23:24):
frenetic uh slicing and stabbing over and over and over again,
unless unless the perpetrator showed up with multiple edged weapons.
And one more thing that you have to consider about this,
these are very specific injuries. Okay, Um, you know one
of the reasons we sharpened knives. You know some people
(23:47):
have sharpeners at home. One of the reasons we do
that is because you lose your edge. You know, after
a period of time you slice things over and over
and over again in the kitchen, you have to resharpen
a knife or it's not worth any how is it
that this knife you can still continue to use this
tome after time after time. So I would think that
(24:10):
that would be a good indicator from a forensic standpoint
as to, uh, how well the knife was sharpened, the
quality of the blade, uh, that it's being utilized. Because
as these injuries go on, the the nature of the
injuries is going to become more blunted, if you will,
you might see more hemorrhage associated with it because the
(24:31):
edge is not there as it was the first time
that you put the edge that knife to Miss Janis's body.
The last one is going to be particularly difficult to
enter into her body with because the edge has gone
on the weapon at that point time, or it's not
the same as it was when you actually started. So,
knowing what you've taught me about blood and how it
(24:53):
comes from the body while the heart is still pumping,
we have two victims here, a dog and a woman.
This perpetrator is go going to be covered covered, literally
covered in blood. How does a person just walk away
and not be seen covered in blood? I've thought about this.
(25:13):
This is uh one of the very compelling points about
this case. Because you're gonna have human blood and canine blood,
which in forensic parlance is that's what we referred to
as commingling of blood. You can't get past that. And
I don't like to Maybe I'm being too melodramatic, but
(25:34):
I don't like to use the term covered in blood.
I like to say use the term bathed in blood,
almost painted in blood, because you've got Bowie's blood and
Miss Genesis blood commingled, and it would be covering certainly
the hands, the arms. If any of the arteries are
clipped on either one of the victims, um you might
(25:56):
have arterial spray. So that means if you clip an
artery as the heart pumping, blood will be not just
gushing out, it'll be spraying out onto the individual. You
can't escape that that's gonna be happening. So you might
have if the perpetrators in a dominant position, not only
gonna have blood up and down their arms, think about
(26:16):
the area beneath their neck, think about the area over
their chest. Maybe they've got clothing on, it's going to
be covered in this area, almost like they've been painted
with blood all over them. So how much blood are
we actually talk about here, Joe, You're you're saying nicking
and artery. How much blood are we talking about? Well,
you gotta think, Jackie, that miss Jenness's body and and
(26:38):
and uh and the dog's body are not going to
be completely drained of blood, and there will still be
blood there now. And I can't tell you the volume
of blood that that a dog a dog has, but
I can tell you what the human being we're looking
at potentially somewhere in the neighborhood about two gallons. That's
that's the totality of blood that that a human being
(26:59):
has on board. You have to think that at least probably,
I don't know, half gallon of blood would have been spilled.
If you've got and it's not just one artery, Jackie,
you've got multiple arteries that are probably being clipped. Um.
I mean, let's face it, we both both of the
carodd arteries were clipped in this case. And the fact
(27:21):
also the fact that you have to go into remember
what I said earlier about the lung being punctured and
the chest is being filling up with blood. Uh, that's
we think while the heart is beating. One of things
that happens with that is that you have what's referred
to as regurgitation of blood if the lung gets clipped,
So you have an individual that's actually forcing blood out
(27:44):
of their airway. It's just a natural response to try
to clear the airway. So they're coughing and they're spraying
blood out, So you would have to account for that
as well. It's it would be hard to do the
calculus simply, you know, trying to think about how much
blood would be at the scene. I can tell you
it would be a substantial amount. Jackie is horrible. Is
(28:29):
as these injuries are that we're describing right now, there's
there's one piece of this that we still have yet
to cover, and it's it might be too many of
our listeners. One of the most shocking things that any
of us have ever heard it is, Joe, we have
learned through the forensic information and the autopsy that Miss
Janice's body was extremely mutilated. You talked about the damage
(28:53):
that had been done to her face, but we know
that her body was mutilated and carved letters were carved
into this woman's abdomen. Joe. Yeah, and um, I've had
cases that are kind of similar to this, but I
don't think anything that's this over the top. There were
letters carved into into her body. I want to back
(29:17):
up just for a second and also make note of
the fact that not only were letters carved into her body.
Remember how I talked about that the there was great
facial disfigure disfiguration. In addition to that, her left breast, uh,
the nipple of her left left breast has been um
severely disfigured as well sliced if if you will, down
(29:41):
to the subcutaneous fat area. So that's that's again a
full thickness injury. And you know, I hate the word why,
but as an investigator sometimes you have to go there
with that. You have to understand, try to understand why
specifically would you target that particular area of the body.
And you know, I think that's pretty obvious. You know,
(30:02):
many people will say that there is a sexual connotation there,
that there is an attempt to disfigure an individual when
you attack their their sexual being if you will, And
in this case, her her breast was essentially mutilated. But
if that was not bad enough, Ms Janis also had
(30:24):
the letters F A T carved into her lower chest
and into her abdomen um. This injury is extensive. Uh.
The letters F and A are essentially to the right
of the mid line, which is the middle of the body,
(30:46):
just and they kind of involved the mid line as well.
Someone took the time to take the tip of that knife,
remember the knife that we've talked about extensively that I
believe is kind of robust, it's kind of sturdy, and
take the tip of that knife and go down just
shot an inch, uh, for the letters F and A,
(31:07):
dragging that tip through the tissue down to the bone,
if you will, and kind of laying out these letters
side by side. But then as you cross over the
mid line you get to the letter T. They took
more time with this, jackie. Uh. This the incised area
(31:27):
that involved the letter T went down even deeper, almost
like they were taking more time, you know, to kind
of put their stamp on this. In finality, can you
imagine taking that knife and dragging it across to do
the crossbar on the T and then down and these
these letters are several inches in length and width, and
(31:49):
it again it goes to this factor of time. Who
who in their right mind? And I think that that's
a valid question here, right mind, um would have taken
the time to do something so grotesque to this young
woman in this environment where they could, you know, just
plainly be seen. And then it's kind of the in
(32:11):
final with with her body. If I just want folks
to really picture this so that you can understand what
has happened. If you will go you know, everybody has
a sternom. It's that solid flat bone that's right in
the center of your chest. If you'll go to the
base of your stern room, there's a little area down there.
It's called the xyphoid process. It's kind of a little
cartilaginous body. It kind of it's the terminus if you
(32:34):
will of your of your breastbone, move from there all
the way down to your pubic bone. Um. Miss Janice
was actually sliced from that point at the zyphoid all
the way down to her pubis. And this injury went
so deep, Jackie, that loops of her intestines or bowels
(32:58):
were actually hanging out. And again in this is really
hard to hear, I know, but in the report of
the forensic pathologists, the pathologists actually noted that there was
hemorrhage in the bowel. That gives you an indication she
might not have had an awareness of it, but her
(33:19):
heart was beating. Remember, we're not necessarily going to hemorrhage
if our heart is not beating. And so that's that
really paints this horrible picture of what this young woman
went through. So are you telling me, Joe, that she
was still alive when this happened. Yeah, I think that.
I think that we can look back on a lot
of these injuries and say that she had at least
(33:40):
some kind of level of awareness of what was happening.
A lot of these injuries that have been noted over
the course of her body have areas of hemorrhage, and
some of these things are gonna be postmortem that the
physician doesn't go into great detail. But the detail that
this individual does go into relative to these injuries or
any number of them where there was in fact hemorrhage
(34:04):
involving uh these insults or injuries. Remember, let's think back
to what I said about the hemorrhage and in in the
neck relative to these these muscles, Uh, that are adjacent
to the to the cervical spawn. Uh, these skeletal support muscles.
And then the pathologist makes note of this, these hemorrhagic
(34:25):
areas in a bowl. I mean, can any of us.
I mean, these are areas that you get into that
when when you're undergoing surgery. Uh, you're you're under your
you have anesthesia that's being applied to you, so that
there is no awareness whatsoever with her, With miss Janis,
she would have had she would have an awareness of
(34:48):
what was being done to her, at least for some time.
We can only hope that mercifully, maybe she lost consciousness,
and I think that she probably did. But in the meantime, uh,
she was just really and totally ripped the shreds. In
this case, we know with the injuries that she sustained,
there was particular mutilation damage to the tattoo area on
(35:12):
her back, to her breast, to her face. I know
you're not a psychologist, Joe, but you've been studying forensics
for a very long time. Does this say to us
that this was much as much as a psychological a
tortuous attack as it was just a physical frenzy? This
(35:32):
this goes deep, deep down into psychopathology because when you
when you try to I mean, let's face it, when
we meet friends and loved ones, the first thing we
noticed about them are going to be their faces, right,
It's that it's that identifier that we have as as
human beings, would look into their eyes, we speak to them.
What was destroyed on her, well, her eyelids were sliced,
(35:54):
her mouth was cut open down to the to the
fatty layer, and then you're gonna mutilate a breast. At
least these things are specific identifiers that that you know,
identify our humanity right, who we are as people. The
tattoo is significant because that's something that she would have
had to have paid someone, and after she had picked
(36:15):
this design out that was unique to her, that she
that she loved that she I mean, she loved it
to the point where she's walking around with it every day.
Why would you go to the point to try to
destroy that? Well, you know, I submit, And again, like
you said, I'm no psychologist, but I've been around a
lot of cases where people have been ripped to shreds.
And when you go after their specific identity, when you
(36:39):
try to rob them of their individual person, that says
a lot about the perpetrator. I think the question that
we have to ask is, how would you even begin
to measure this level of rage and I think to
a great degree hatred in order to just absolutely ripped
this young woman to shred um Joseph Scott Morgan and
(37:02):
this his body backs h
Body Backs with Joseph Scott Morgan. We all have a
place of peace that we try to seek out at
the end of a long day of work. Maybe go
for a walk, take our dog with us, our best friend,
(00:29):
clear our mind. That place of safety, that place of
peace suddenly explodes in your life comes to the end.
Somebody's wielding a knife. They're hovering over you. They're burying
a knife into your body, over and over and over again.
And maybe the last thing you see is your dog
(00:51):
dying right before you. That's our case today. I'm Joseph
Scott Morrigan in this his body bags. Joining me today
is my good friend Jackie Howard, executive producer of Crime
Stories with Nancy Grace. Jackie, what can you tell us
(01:12):
about this case? Katherine Katie Janice took her dog Bowie
for a walk in Atlanta's Piedmont Park now Piedmont Park.
To put this in terms where other people who are
not from this area can understand, would be like taking
a walk in Central Park in New York. Katie went
to see her girlfriend Emma, who was working down the
street as a bartender, and there were lots of people
(01:34):
out walking their own dogs. This is kind of a
typical scene for this midtown neighborhood. After leaving the bar,
Katie continued her walk. After work, Emma went home that
Katie wasn't there. She should have been. She should have
been back from the dog walk by then. So Emma
started calling Katie's cellphone but did not get an answer,
(01:54):
and she said text messages they also went unanswered, and
that's when the worry said in and Emma went out
to look for Katie. Now, obviously, when you're walking a dog,
you can go anywhere, so Emma used to find my
iPhone app on Katie's phone. It showed Katie's phone was
about a hundred yards inside Piedmont Park, which was very
(02:16):
close to Katie and Emma's home. Emma thought maybe Katie
had dropped the phone, so she went into the park
to find it. But what she finds is a very
gruesome scene. The first thing she saw was Bowie. Bowie
was dead. That is the dog, and it's a pit bull.
Not too far away, Emma found Katie's body and she
(02:36):
was dead. This is a very gruesome crime, Joe, that
we're going to talk about. But let's talk about the beginning.
Bowie and Katie were not found next to each other,
but they were found, especially Bowie, at the entrance of
the park. There's so much to talk about here, Joe,
I gonna tell you as you know, uh, you know,
(02:58):
i worked in Atlanta for a long time and I'm
very familiar with Peed in my Park. This is a
wide open space in the area where this young woman
was found with her pet is immediately adjacent to one
of the main entrances to the park. It's it's kind
of big arched area that you can walk through. Um
(03:19):
that you know, plainly states Peed my Park. It's a
it's an area where people actually go through on a
regular basis to to take nice, long, peaceful walks through.
This area's very bucolic, beautiful old trees and this sort
of thing. Areas to picnic. And the fact that her body,
her body is actually found, I mean, let's face it,
(03:39):
in plane view, is quite striking to me, you know,
as an investigator when you begin to look at a
scene like this and trust me, what this young woman
went through took time. So that tells us something about
the perpetrator. They essentially had no fear of being found. Perhaps,
(04:00):
you know, some people say, well, you know, us as
under the cover of darkness. It is under the cover
of darkness, but it's not like we're out in a
cow pasture in in you know, rural Georgia somewhere. We're
in the most one of the most populated cities in
the South. People walk through this area, They make it
a point to walk through this area. It's very popular.
(04:22):
Who would do this in this specific environment? And you
you begin to think about the nature of the scene
where she was found, where Bowie was found, and you
have to think this must have been an absolute blood
bath around this area because there were so many injuries
to both genesis body as well as her pet dog's body,
(04:46):
that blood would have been spilled on all of the surfaces.
And those are some of the things that you have
to think about as an investigator. It's an open area.
Who would have access to it, who would have knowledge
that she would be walking through this specific area at
this time of evening, and who would be bold enough,
(05:07):
bold enough to approach this young woman, who, as you mentioned,
is walking along with a pit bull at their side.
I don't know about you, Jackie, but for me, you know,
a person that's got a pit bull and toe is
going to be probably the last one of the last
people I'm gonna want to try to target because they're
(05:27):
very they're very affectionate when it comes to their their master.
They are very protective when it comes to their master.
So that gives us an insight into who may have
perpetrated this. One of the things that struck me about
this show. You were talking about the big sign that
goes into Piedmont Park and on the very bottom of
(05:49):
the sign there is a post that says pets must
be on a leash. So it's not like the pit
bull got away and ran after somebody. We know the
dog was the leash to begin with, so we know
that the initial attack, the two of them were standing
close together. Yeah, yeah, they they absolutely would have been
(06:10):
standing close together. She's got the dog in toe or
it's like my dogs. My my dogs have me and toe.
You know, many times they're they're excited, they're ready to
get out of the house, they want to go for
a walk. This is there, it's their happy place. So
you know that the dog was right by her side
as they're walking along. The dog didn't get away, The
dog didn't alert on something I don't think, and you
(06:31):
know hopped off the leash magically and ran off to
chase somebody that was a threat. That dog would have
hung back, if you will, in order to protect uh,
Miss Janice. So that that's something that you know that
comes to mind when you're beginning to try to assess
the scene out there in this in this open area.
You know, how and how did they get this much
(06:53):
distance between the dog and the dog's master? How does
that happen in this environment? Uh, in the midst of
this attack, So, you know, it really gives you pause
to think. So, how does this happen? Joe? How do
you kill a dog? Now we do know there was
not a gun used in this attack. How do you
(07:15):
kill a pit bull with a knife or a stabbing
instrument of some kind. I mean, a pit bull is
extremely strong. A pit bull can be in protective mode,
and we're assuming that that's the case. A pit bull
can be vicious. So how was the perpetrator able to
(07:39):
do this? And do they do autopsies on dogs? You know?
An answer to your question, Jackie, Yeah, they do. They
do examinations on dogs. Now in this particular case, from
my understanding, at least this point, Bowie's body did not
go did not go to the Medical Examiner's office for instance,
uh there in the city of Atlanta. Then dog's body
(08:00):
was actually taken by the state Investigative Agency, the g
b I, and I would probably put money on it
that they would have a consulting veterinarian perhaps as well
as a forensic pathologist out at the State Medical Examiner's
lab to take a look at at the dog's injuries.
And and this is important because you know, listen, the
(08:23):
dog and Miss Janice were not killed in two separate instances.
This is all one big event that's taking place. So
from an evidentially standpoint, one of the things that you're
going to be looking for when it comes to injuries.
You want to be able to try to compare the
injuries that the dog had to those that Miss Channis
sustained is at the same NiFe. That's the big question here, right,
(08:46):
because we do know that this is a sharp force
injury death. So you know some of the things that
you're gonna be looking for on Bowie's body. For instance,
is this a single edged weapon or was it a
double edged weapon? Was it a particular type of knife
that was you say, for instance, something that had a
smooth edge as opposed to say, for instance, a serrated edge,
(09:09):
which sometimes you can have a combination of both, and
it leaves very very distinctive markings that can be examined
after the fact and possibly possibly compared, certainly at a
microscopic level. And there again you've got this connectivity and
forensic science that we are always looking for. In a
(09:29):
case like this, we have two victims, and we would
have to be looking for DNA in the dog's mouth
because most likely the dog went on an attack, so
that we're looking for evidence from a dog bite. Oh,
you're absolutely right. Uh. One of the things that you
would look for is you mentioned d N a jackie.
(09:49):
But let's keep in mind, how how does a dog attack? Well,
when a dog attacks, they bite and they ripped. I
want everybody to think about just for a second. And
this is kind of a little in dwelling lesson here.
People are familiar with the two pointy teeth that you
have on the top and on the bottom. Uh. These
are actually referred to as canine teeth. And the way
(10:11):
biting actually works is that these teeth are sunk in
to say, for instance, tissue. When a dog bites, it
doesn't chew. The dog bites and it rips. So you're
not just gonna be looking at a molecular level for
d n A that you know you might can swab
Bowie's mouth for. But you're also gonna be looking for
(10:32):
things like tissue that might be caught up in the teeth,
or maybe even fabric that's caught up in the teeth,
and these things would actually be left behind. Keep in mind,
you know, I cannot imagine in my wildest fantasies that
the perpetrator would have taken time to go back and
clean the dog's mouth out. There would be something there
(10:53):
if in fact, the dog did attack this potential perpetrator.
And again this begs the question, a dog that is
so prone to a defensive posture and a protection posture
like a pit bull, how do you get so close
to them that you can actually drive a knife not
just once, but multiple times into this canines body. And
(11:15):
while this is going on, what's miss Janic's doing. Is
she already deceased or she's looking on in horror Jackie.
(11:43):
We've had a little discussion about the nature of this
environment in which this poor woman was just brutally attacked
along with her her pet dog, Bowie. But we we
need to talk a little bit now. As hard as
it is, We've we've got to talk about these injuries
because I've got tell Jackie, in my career, I've seen
very few cases that even arrival this one, Katie Janis
(12:06):
was found about a hundred yards inside the park and
about a hundred feet from Bowie, her dog. The suggestion
is that from where Bowie was found and where Miss
Janice was found, that likely Katie Janie tried to run
away and the killer caught up to her. And we
do know that she died from As we've talked about
(12:30):
sharp force injuries, where were those injuries and what kind
of damage do they do? Jackie, I've actually got the
autopsy report here lay before me as as you and
I are chatting right now, and I've spent the past
few days just going over it, and i gotta tell
you it's it's extensive. I mean absolutely, um a wash
(12:54):
with details about what she went through. And you know,
we'll try to chake this from the top and just
just walk through this very carefully. Um, she's got you know,
like I said previously, these are what are referred to
as sharp force injuries and a sharp force injuries just
so our audience understands, is it's anything that involves an
edged weapon and that can either be a stab wound,
(13:16):
and stabs, keep in mind, are deeper than they are long.
And then you have in sized wounds which are just
think of miss slices and they're generally shallow. Okay, So
with Mrs Janis's body, uh, we have to think about, um, well,
how first off, how can somebody get so close to
her in order to facilitate this because there were so
(13:39):
many injuries with somebody laying in wait for her as
she walked through this gate or through this archway at
at at Piedmont Park, you know, kind of tracking our law,
and there was such there's such a level of trauma
here that it's hard to kind of take its measure.
I think that one of the things that really stood
out to me, uh was the fact that I don't
(14:03):
normally use this term, but there is an attempt, at
least on my part, at least from my perspective as
a medical legal death investigator, in an attempt to disfigure
Miss Janis and kind of let me lay the lay
the groundwork here. She's got a lot of injuries over
the totality of her torso. But what's really striking is
(14:24):
that her face and these are all if you think
about the head, we have the front, which is referred
to as the anterior um. These are all anterior injuries
and they start they start actually at the forehead. There's
even one I think that goes to the very top
of the head. They go all the way to the top,
(14:45):
slice through the forehead, across the surface of both eyes,
both eyelids are involved. Just you know, just keep that
in mind. The lips are actually in size, remember we
talked about it in size. When that's a cut, that's
a slice all the way down to the chin. And
there are multiple of these. So it's almost like somebody
is in a fevered state as they are attempting to
(15:09):
disfigure her, slice her up, and really make her into
this grotesque person in death. And you really have to
think about, you know, I think to a great degree,
what's going on inside the mind of a perpetrator in
a case like this. What you're describing to me, Joe,
sounds like a slasher film. Yeah, it kind of does,
(15:31):
doesn't Jackie you know, you begin to think about it
um and to give to give our audience a little
understanding of this. One of these injuries that really stood
up to me. Obviously the slicing of the of the
eyes is significant, but or the eyelids. One of the
things that really kind of stuck with me is that
(15:52):
the friends and pathologists talks about the slice injury to
the mouth goes down to the buckle New Coast. Remember
we've heard that term before. That's actually where we go
in harvest d NA out of the living with swabs.
That means that not only was the lips slice through,
it goes through what's referred to in forensic terms as
it's a full thickness wound, which means it goes all
(16:15):
the way down two underlying tissue. So you've sliced through
the lip at this point in time. That that gives
you an idea as as to what has happened. And
one other interesting component is that as you work your
way down from these injuries on the head and I'm
not suggesting any way that this is the order in
which they took place, but you know, if we're kind
(16:36):
of because there's so many injuries here, if we kind
of think about this anatomically. If you start with the head.
After after we have examined all of these injuries on
the head um, you have to begin to think about, well,
the neck. You know what's involved with the neck. Oh
my gosh, it's it's remarkable. If you think about the
right side of your neck, starting essentially directly below your
(17:01):
right ear, there is an incised injury that runs again,
this is what's referred to as full thickness injury. It
goes down through the subcu fat, into the vessels and
into the muscle. Did you know that Ms Janice both
of her caroated arteries, which are the main blood supply
that goes from the heart to the brain, both of
(17:23):
those were sliced through that. That's that's set a depth
of over an inch beneath the surface of your neck tissue.
You're getting down you know, close to probably two inches
in thickness you're going down there. And not only that,
but her trachea, her windpipe essentially is what the doctor
refers to as transsected. These vessels are transsected, the windpipe
(17:48):
is transsected, going all the way down to the cervical vertebrate.
So those the supports, the supports for the head. From
a skeletal standpoint, that's becoming involved. Now you've even got
on the back side of her neck, the skeletal attachments,
the muscle skeletal attachments back there, Jackie, the muscles were
sliced as well. That's that like the C two, C
(18:10):
three level of the vertebrates. So those are really high
up in the neck and those have also been been
cut away. And what's really ghastly about this is the
fact that in those muscles on the back of the
neck they found hemorrhage. And guess what, when you find hemorrhage,
that's an indication the heart still beating. We know that
(18:33):
she had over fifty wounds. This is taking some time
and some effort. Yeah, it does take time, Jackie, you know,
and you know, when I started reading this autopsy report,
I began to think about the years, all of those
years I spent working on the mortgage an autopsy assistant,
and let's face it, we're just gonna be adults here
(18:55):
and talk about this. I spent that time protecting human cadavers,
and it would of course, we were very purposeful and
what we would do, but you know, autopsies many times
um involved sharp instruments. That's what we do, and it
it would take you know, two hours. Sometimes we're talking
about a tremendous number of sharp force injuries that have
(19:17):
taken place in an open space out on the bare earth,
if you will, in plane view, Manji, though it is
at night, it's still in plane view. These are taking
taking place out there. So was this a frenzied event
or was she somehow removed somewhere else, maybe under cover
and all of this stuff was done to her. But
you can't get past effect that this was facilitated, uh
(19:41):
by an individual that had to take a significant amount
of time. You know, you can say frenzy, we can
apply that term, but still it doesn't necessarily mean that
it happened over a very short period of time. This
knife was buried into her body every single time. Remember,
every time a knife is buried, it takes effort on
(20:04):
the part of the perpetrator to pull it out. You know,
you talked about the stab wounds that she had on
her back. She had stab wounds so deep on her back.
And you know, I like to teach my students that,
uh that when you think about an attack from the rear.
People kind of contract up into almost like a turtle shell.
The back is hard to get through. This knife was
(20:26):
buried into her back so deeply that it actually punctured
one of her lungs posteriorly, which means from behind. And
here's here's the kicker. One of the wounds actually penetrated
her A order, which is the main vessel that comes
off of the heart that supplies blood to the rest
of the body. And you know what I know about this.
(20:49):
I know that she was alive when this was happening
because her left chest, her left chest where her left
lung is in the A order had begun to fill
up with blood. That means that the heart is still
beating at this point. And what's very important here when
you begin to try to put this together from a
forensic pathology, is a standpoint and you begin to think
(21:11):
about what's referred to as sequencing of injuries, because everybody
wants to know, you know, what was the fatal the
fatal blow that brought about her death at the end
of the day, and how much of the stuff that
was going on this trauma was it anti mortem or
was it post mortem? And that means staying around with
(21:31):
the body after an individual is deceased, to continue to
slice and cut and stab and all of these things
that are involved. And she's even got you know, and
we haven't even mentioned contusions. She's gotten multiple blunt forced contusions.
So she was struck in some way or struck with something.
We don't know what that was, whether it was a
hand or a fist or some object, but she does
(21:53):
have multiple you know, that's a lot of activity going
on in a case like this, Jackie. So, Joe, what
does it tell us about the then what you were
just talking about that she was stepped so deep that
it cut the eight order around the heart, What does
that tell us about the size or the possible size
of the weapon? I think probably one of the most
(22:13):
significant things about this weapon, Jackie. I think a lot
of people want to think about things like, uh, the
length of the blade. That's important. Okay, that that is
certainly important. It's certainly something that we consider. But you know,
what really fascinates me about this weapon is that this
weapon would have had to have been sturdy. That is
(22:35):
the backside of that weapon, if it's a single edged blade,
just you know, if you have an opportunity to go
into your kitchen or whatever and look at the knives
you have when you're in your in your drawer. If
you take out like an old butter knife or even
a state knife that you've picked up at the store,
they're not really robust. They have specific edges on them,
and the back is not very robust. But if you
find a butcher knife, like a substantial butcher knife, there's
(22:59):
gonna be a thickness that occurs on the back of this.
And the reason this is important to me, remember what
I said about stabbing her in her posterior chest, her back.
You're gonna have to be able to generate so much force,
not just once, not just twice. But we're talking about
fifty injuries, Jackie. So that means that that blade would
have had to have been strong enough two endure this
(23:24):
frenetic uh slicing and stabbing over and over and over again,
unless unless the perpetrator showed up with multiple edged weapons.
And one more thing that you have to consider about this,
these are very specific injuries. Okay, Um, you know one
of the reasons we sharpened knives. You know some people
(23:47):
have sharpeners at home. One of the reasons we do
that is because you lose your edge. You know, after
a period of time you slice things over and over
and over again in the kitchen, you have to resharpen
a knife or it's not worth any how is it
that this knife you can still continue to use this
tome after time after time. So I would think that
(24:10):
that would be a good indicator from a forensic standpoint
as to, uh, how well the knife was sharpened, the
quality of the blade, uh, that it's being utilized. Because
as these injuries go on, the the nature of the
injuries is going to become more blunted, if you will,
you might see more hemorrhage associated with it because the
(24:31):
edge is not there as it was the first time
that you put the edge that knife to Miss Janis's body.
The last one is going to be particularly difficult to
enter into her body with because the edge has gone
on the weapon at that point time, or it's not
the same as it was when you actually started. So,
knowing what you've taught me about blood and how it
(24:53):
comes from the body while the heart is still pumping,
we have two victims here, a dog and a woman.
This perpetrator is go going to be covered covered, literally
covered in blood. How does a person just walk away
and not be seen covered in blood? I've thought about this.
(25:13):
This is uh one of the very compelling points about
this case. Because you're gonna have human blood and canine blood,
which in forensic parlance is that's what we referred to
as commingling of blood. You can't get past that. And
I don't like to Maybe I'm being too melodramatic, but
(25:34):
I don't like to use the term covered in blood.
I like to say use the term bathed in blood,
almost painted in blood, because you've got Bowie's blood and
Miss Genesis blood commingled, and it would be covering certainly
the hands, the arms. If any of the arteries are
clipped on either one of the victims, um you might
(25:56):
have arterial spray. So that means if you clip an
artery as the heart pumping, blood will be not just
gushing out, it'll be spraying out onto the individual. You
can't escape that that's gonna be happening. So you might
have if the perpetrators in a dominant position, not only
gonna have blood up and down their arms, think about
(26:16):
the area beneath their neck, think about the area over
their chest. Maybe they've got clothing on, it's going to
be covered in this area, almost like they've been painted
with blood all over them. So how much blood are
we actually talk about here, Joe, You're you're saying nicking
and artery. How much blood are we talking about? Well,
you gotta think, Jackie, that miss Jenness's body and and
(26:38):
and uh and the dog's body are not going to
be completely drained of blood, and there will still be
blood there now. And I can't tell you the volume
of blood that that a dog a dog has, but
I can tell you what the human being we're looking
at potentially somewhere in the neighborhood about two gallons. That's
that's the totality of blood that that a human being
(26:59):
has on board. You have to think that at least probably,
I don't know, half gallon of blood would have been spilled.
If you've got and it's not just one artery, Jackie,
you've got multiple arteries that are probably being clipped. Um.
I mean, let's face it, we both both of the
carodd arteries were clipped in this case. And the fact
(27:21):
also the fact that you have to go into remember
what I said earlier about the lung being punctured and
the chest is being filling up with blood. Uh, that's
we think while the heart is beating. One of things
that happens with that is that you have what's referred
to as regurgitation of blood if the lung gets clipped,
So you have an individual that's actually forcing blood out
(27:44):
of their airway. It's just a natural response to try
to clear the airway. So they're coughing and they're spraying
blood out, So you would have to account for that
as well. It's it would be hard to do the
calculus simply, you know, trying to think about how much
blood would be at the scene. I can tell you
it would be a substantial amount. Jackie is horrible. Is
(28:29):
as these injuries are that we're describing right now, there's
there's one piece of this that we still have yet
to cover, and it's it might be too many of
our listeners. One of the most shocking things that any
of us have ever heard it is, Joe, we have
learned through the forensic information and the autopsy that Miss
Janice's body was extremely mutilated. You talked about the damage
(28:53):
that had been done to her face, but we know
that her body was mutilated and carved letters were carved
into this woman's abdomen. Joe. Yeah, and um, I've had
cases that are kind of similar to this, but I
don't think anything that's this over the top. There were
letters carved into into her body. I want to back
(29:17):
up just for a second and also make note of
the fact that not only were letters carved into her body.
Remember how I talked about that the there was great
facial disfigure disfiguration. In addition to that, her left breast, uh,
the nipple of her left left breast has been um
severely disfigured as well sliced if if you will, down
(29:41):
to the subcutaneous fat area. So that's that's again a
full thickness injury. And you know, I hate the word why,
but as an investigator sometimes you have to go there
with that. You have to understand, try to understand why
specifically would you target that particular area of the body.
And you know, I think that's pretty obvious. You know,
(30:02):
many people will say that there is a sexual connotation there,
that there is an attempt to disfigure an individual when
you attack their their sexual being if you will, And
in this case, her her breast was essentially mutilated. But
if that was not bad enough, Ms Janis also had
(30:24):
the letters F A T carved into her lower chest
and into her abdomen um. This injury is extensive. Uh.
The letters F and A are essentially to the right
of the mid line, which is the middle of the body,
(30:46):
just and they kind of involved the mid line as well.
Someone took the time to take the tip of that knife,
remember the knife that we've talked about extensively that I
believe is kind of robust, it's kind of sturdy, and
take the tip of that knife and go down just
shot an inch, uh, for the letters F and A,
(31:07):
dragging that tip through the tissue down to the bone,
if you will, and kind of laying out these letters
side by side. But then as you cross over the
mid line you get to the letter T. They took
more time with this, jackie. Uh. This the incised area
(31:27):
that involved the letter T went down even deeper, almost
like they were taking more time, you know, to kind
of put their stamp on this. In finality, can you
imagine taking that knife and dragging it across to do
the crossbar on the T and then down and these
these letters are several inches in length and width, and
(31:49):
it again it goes to this factor of time. Who
who in their right mind? And I think that that's
a valid question here, right mind, um would have taken
the time to do something so grotesque to this young
woman in this environment where they could, you know, just
plainly be seen. And then it's kind of the in
(32:11):
final with with her body. If I just want folks
to really picture this so that you can understand what
has happened. If you will go you know, everybody has
a sternom. It's that solid flat bone that's right in
the center of your chest. If you'll go to the
base of your stern room, there's a little area down there.
It's called the xyphoid process. It's kind of a little
cartilaginous body. It kind of it's the terminus if you
(32:34):
will of your of your breastbone, move from there all
the way down to your pubic bone. Um. Miss Janice
was actually sliced from that point at the zyphoid all
the way down to her pubis. And this injury went
so deep, Jackie, that loops of her intestines or bowels
(32:58):
were actually hanging out. And again in this is really
hard to hear, I know, but in the report of
the forensic pathologists, the pathologists actually noted that there was
hemorrhage in the bowel. That gives you an indication she
might not have had an awareness of it, but her
(33:19):
heart was beating. Remember, we're not necessarily going to hemorrhage
if our heart is not beating. And so that's that
really paints this horrible picture of what this young woman
went through. So are you telling me, Joe, that she
was still alive when this happened. Yeah, I think that.
I think that we can look back on a lot
of these injuries and say that she had at least
(33:40):
some kind of level of awareness of what was happening.
A lot of these injuries that have been noted over
the course of her body have areas of hemorrhage, and
some of these things are gonna be postmortem that the
physician doesn't go into great detail. But the detail that
this individual does go into relative to these injuries or
any number of them where there was in fact hemorrhage
(34:04):
involving uh these insults or injuries. Remember, let's think back
to what I said about the hemorrhage and in in the
neck relative to these these muscles, Uh, that are adjacent
to the to the cervical spawn. Uh, these skeletal support muscles.
And then the pathologist makes note of this, these hemorrhagic
(34:25):
areas in a bowl. I mean, can any of us.
I mean, these are areas that you get into that
when when you're undergoing surgery. Uh, you're you're under your
you have anesthesia that's being applied to you, so that
there is no awareness whatsoever with her, With miss Janis,
she would have had she would have an awareness of
(34:48):
what was being done to her, at least for some time.
We can only hope that mercifully, maybe she lost consciousness,
and I think that she probably did. But in the meantime, uh,
she was just really and totally ripped the shreds. In
this case, we know with the injuries that she sustained,
there was particular mutilation damage to the tattoo area on
(35:12):
her back, to her breast, to her face. I know
you're not a psychologist, Joe, but you've been studying forensics
for a very long time. Does this say to us
that this was much as much as a psychological a
tortuous attack as it was just a physical frenzy? This
(35:32):
this goes deep, deep down into psychopathology because when you
when you try to I mean, let's face it, when
we meet friends and loved ones, the first thing we
noticed about them are going to be their faces, right,
It's that it's that identifier that we have as as
human beings, would look into their eyes, we speak to them.
What was destroyed on her, well, her eyelids were sliced,
(35:54):
her mouth was cut open down to the to the
fatty layer, and then you're gonna mutilate a breast. At
least these things are specific identifiers that that you know,
identify our humanity right, who we are as people. The
tattoo is significant because that's something that she would have
had to have paid someone, and after she had picked
(36:15):
this design out that was unique to her, that she
that she loved that she I mean, she loved it
to the point where she's walking around with it every day.
Why would you go to the point to try to
destroy that? Well, you know, I submit, And again, like
you said, I'm no psychologist, but I've been around a
lot of cases where people have been ripped to shreds.
And when you go after their specific identity, when you
(36:39):
try to rob them of their individual person, that says
a lot about the perpetrator. I think the question that
we have to ask is, how would you even begin
to measure this level of rage and I think to
a great degree hatred in order to just absolutely ripped
this young woman to shred um Joseph Scott Morgan and
(37:02):
this his body backs h
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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