Anatomy of an Investigation: A Coroner's Work with the Dead with Scott McCord

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_03] I'm Kevin. Today we'll be talking to a coroner about just what their job involves and how difficult and challenging it can be. Content warning, this episode includes discussion of sexual assault, murder, including the homicide of infants, and suicide.

[00:00:15] [SPEAKER_05] A coroner's job is death. When the police leave a crime scene, it is the coroner who must take the body away and determine a cause of death. And when all that is left of a person is a box of bones, it falls to the coroner to try to figure out a way to give them a crime scene.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_03] We have a mini-series called Anatomy of a Trial, and we've had so many of you wonderful listeners reach out to us saying that hearing from attorneys has helped you understand criminal trials better. So we decided it was time for Anatomy of an Investigation. This series will do something similar, but for criminal investigations. We'll have law enforcement experts on to break down all aspects of a criminal investigation.

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_05] Today, we're thrilled to welcome to the show Scott McCord, the coroner of Newton County in Indiana. His efforts to identify the remains of one of the victims of a serial killer were spotlighted in an episode of National Geographic's Naming the Dead. Scott was joined by his wife, Heidi, who is the chief deputy coroner of Indiana's Benton County. The couple also worked together on the Identify Indiana initiative,

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_05] a group whose goal is to give names back to those who remain unidentified in death. If you want to help that effort or just want to check in on how it is going, you can follow them on Facebook or visit the group's webpage. We will include links to both in our show notes.

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_05] If you have a case you want them to help with, please email them at identifyindiana at gmail.com. We will also include that address in our show notes. Scott will offer his insight on the challenges of work as a coroner, how it can affect mental health, and what it's like to be the one who must notify people that their loved ones are gone.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_03] My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_05] And this is Anatomy of an Investigation, A Coroner's Work with the Dead, with Scott McCord.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_05] First of all, Scott, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate you coming on The Murder Sheet.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_00] Thanks for having us.

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah, absolutely. I guess to start out with, can you just maybe give us a quick nutshell discussion of your career, and then we'll kind of go back into what drew you to that line of work?

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_00] My career, I'm a retired paramedic. I started with Newton County Ambulance Service back in 1982, retired from the ambulance service in 2016, and now I'm a full-time coroner. Very cool. I was a deputy coroner prior to that while I was still with the ambulance service, and I believe for a couple of years prior to actually retiring from the ambulance, I was doing a dual role as both. What got you interested in becoming a paramedic?

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_00] Becoming an EMT was due to, believe it or not, was due to the TV show Emergency. That was one of our, you know, everybody's favorite. And once I got on staff at the ambulance service, that was our daily routine. We would go in shift, turn on the TV, and watch Emergency. It was like our training films, if you will. And then when the opportunity came to go to paramedic school, we all jumped on board. Yeah, it's a great show. It really is.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_00] The show was good, and also the fact that, you know, they always, you hear older people say things like, if you love your job, you never work a day in your life. And I have to admit, I loved that job, and I don't feel like I ever worked. So it was great to be able to help the people that were in my county, and while I'm still helping them, just in a different capacity.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, a paramedic really serves people in such a direct way. What was like a day in the life like?

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00] If you go back when I first started in 1982, in the 80s, our days were pretty boring. They really were. I'm from a county of 14,000 people. So our call load was very, very low. And then, you know, as things progressed, we, obviously, the call load increased. All of the people got older. When we became medics, you know, going, transitioning from EMT, which is your basic life support person.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_00] You know, you put a splint on, you put a bandage on, throw some oxygen on somebody, and then drive like a madman to the hospital. So then that did that transition into paramedicine, where we're actually starting IVs, you know, putting them on a cardiac monitor, doing EKGs and things like that. It became a little bit more hectic. Obviously, there was a little bit more stresses involved, because when you're a basic life support, when you're an EMT, you know they might be hurt, they might be sick.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_00] When you're a paramedic, you know just how bad they're hurt, how bad they're sick. So it added that little extra level of stress.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_03] So you started in the early 80s in that role, and you continued up into, I think you said 2017? 2016. 2016, pardon me. Can you tell us about some of the ways the job changed in those years?

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_00] Well, obviously, through technologies, things changed. Our protocols, which was, if you remember back on emergency, they called into the hospital. They had their bio phone, and they would call in, and they would get orders from the doctor. Well, we had protocols, which was just basically written standing orders that we had to follow. If you see this, you do this. You give this medication for this.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_00] The things I saw that changed was, obviously, those protocols grew. As technologies, as knowledge, the knowledge in medicine grew, our protocols became a lot bigger, a lot thicker. We were doing a lot more. There were times where, under certain medical direction, we were actually allowed to do surgical procedures in the field. They had even talked about, at one point, we didn't do it, but they had actually talked about teaching us how to do C-sections in the field.

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_00] That got drunk really fast. Wow.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_03] What's it like being in that role and having people's lives literally depend on you?

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00] Now you're bringing back the stress. Oh, no. Sorry. Most of the calls are routine. They really are. What you see on TV is not what you're seeing out in the field, where boots are on the ground. You know, most everything was just like they said on emergency. Start an IV, D5W, TKO, put them on the monitor, transport. And that was the end of it.

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_00] The most emergencies that you see as a medic, most things you see are diabetic emergencies. Obviously, nowadays, you have drug overdoses. Those are a huge, huge thing. We didn't have those back in the 80s. They're that much. But your diabetic emergencies and your cardiac events, somebody having a heart attack. Today versus back then, I mean, like I said, we knew they were sick, but we didn't know how sick they were.

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_00] Now you throw them on the monitor, you do a 12-lead EKG, and you can see just how sick they truly are. And now where I'm from, we have two really small hospitals, and you have to actually bypass those to get to the big city for somebody who's having a quote-unquote heart attack so they can get them straight into a cath lab. So those are some of the changes you see. The vehicles have changed. I mean, everything's changed. You know, back in the day, we were driving little vans.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_00] Now you have literally $180,000 trucks that you're hauling people around in.

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_05] Can you tell us a little bit about Newton County and sort of set the scene for people who may not be familiar with that, you know, just what the county is like? Is it still very rural or?

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, yes. Newton County is up in the northwest corner of the state, just under Lake County. And it's mostly corn and bean fields. Well, like I said, a population of 14,500, five incorporated towns, and then two or three little unincorporated areas. So the northern half of our county, our county is very long. It's 36 miles long, 18 miles wide.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_00] The northern half is all unincorporated. And then the southern half has the towns. They say, you know, we use the term town. If you watch television, they say, I'm from a small town, and it shows that there are 35,000 people. So I guess we live in villages. Because the town I'm from, Brooke, is maybe 1,000 people.

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_05] Oh, wow. Very small. You mentioned the job is quieter than people think based on TV. It's often, you know, jobs like this are often portrayed as, you know, constant action. Because we're a crime show, though, I have to ask you this. Was there ever an intersection with you as an EMT or a paramedic and sort of coming to a crime scene? Was that something that was common at all? Or was that something that was very rare?

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_00] Well, it's rare. It's rare to get into a crime scene. I mean, obviously, we're a smaller county. But we have the same crime that every other county has, just not as often, not as frequent.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_05] Because the population is so small.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_00] Because the population is so small.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_05] I want to ask you about then the transition to becoming coroner. I guess, first of all, what inspired you to be interested in becoming a deputy coroner and then the coroner?

[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_00] My partner and I at the time were working a fatal motor vehicle crash. By law, you have to wait till the coroner arrives on scene before you can move the body. The coroner did not have deputies. So it was just one guy. Five hours we set along the road. So my partner and I decided we're going to go to the coroner and say, deputize us. And because my partner was from the north end of the county, I was from the south end.

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_00] The coroner lived in the middle. We had it covered then. And it worked. It worked really well. And then after he... In Indiana, you can only serve two terms as coroner. And then you have to set out a term. So he was terming out and I ran for coroner in one. And I've been there ever since. Here's a very basic question. What exactly does a coroner do?

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_00] Coroner's job by law, by statute, is to make a positive identification of the body and then determine time, cause, and manner of death. Those are... People say pronounce. We don't pronounce somebody dead. EMS does that. The ambulance service will call if somebody has deceased. The police will call. And families can call, for that matter. We just certify. We certify the fact that why are they dead?

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_05] And how do you make that determination?

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_00] A lot of it is done through medical history. What led up to the event that they're now deceased. We can subpoena medical records. We can subpoena medical records. Get hospital records. Or there's times, a lot of times, you just call the doctor. If somebody has been seen by a physician, if they're under a physician's care, and they've seen the doctor within...

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_00] I'm not sure what the law says for sure, whether it's 30 or 90 days, but the doctor is required to sign that death certificate. And that's... A lot of our cases are that. You call at two o'clock in the morning that somebody has passed away. You call the doctor. The doctor's like, yes, I'll sign. And you just call the funeral home and leave. The other ones, anybody that dies by trauma, whether it be a motor vehicle crash, gunshot

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_00] wound, suicide, homicide, or undetermined, we autopsy those. I, as coroner, do not do the autopsies. That's done by a forensic pathologist. And then they come up with the cause. They'll oftentimes come up with the manner as well. But there's times where I will override that. If it comes in as a suicide or it's an overdose, let's say it's an overdose. Was it an accidental overdose? Or was it an intentional overdose? Or did somebody spike their drink?

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_00] And so it kind of leaves that up. And we can throw in undetermined. We don't know why they're dead.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_05] So essentially the coroner, you would be calling the forensic pathologist and saying, hey, we need you to work on this? Or how does that work?

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I just reach out to all of our autopsies are done at Tippecanoe County, which is Lafayette, the Lafayette, Indiana area. I just make a phone call or a text to them and they schedule us in.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_03] Trying to figure out how to get the right mental health treatment for yourself can feel overwhelming. Talkiatry can help. They connect you with real psychiatric care so you can actually understand what's going on and get a treatment plan that works. Talkiatry helps you move from I know I need help to actually having a psychiatrist who listens.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_05] Talkiatry is a 100% online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive evaluations, diagnoses, and ongoing medical management for conditions like ADHD, which I have, anxiety, which I also have, depression, and more.

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_03] Unlike therapy-only platforms, Talkiatry is psychiatry. You're seeing a medical provider who can diagnose mental health conditions and prescribe medication when it's appropriate.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_05] All 800-plus clinicians are in network with major insurers, so you can use your existing insurance instead of paying monthly subscriptions or out-of-network costs.

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_03] This means you can meet with a licensed psychiatrist who takes the time to understand what's going on, builds a personalized treatment plan, and supports you over time with consistent evidence-based care.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_05] Getting started is easy and just takes a few minutes. Complete a short online assessment, get matched with clinicians who fit your needs, and schedule your first visit in days, not months. Head to talkiatry.com slash msheet to complete the short assessment and get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y dot com slash msheet to get matched in minutes. Talkiatry.com slash msheet.

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_03] There is nothing quite like having pieces in your closet you love and knowing you can count on for any occasion, except maybe giving someone else that same feeling. This holiday season, Quince is where we are finding those pieces.

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_05] And there are just so many to choose from, like their high-quality down outerwear and cozy cashmere gloves and scarves, and their 14-karat gold earrings and bracelets are an easy way to polish any look, making them thoughtful gifts for anyone in your life.

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_03] Quince makes elevated, everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and premium stretch denim. The kind of pieces you'd be just as happy gifting as you would be to unwrap.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_05] And yet, everything at Quince is still priced 50-80% less than similar brands. That's because they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you can give luxury-quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_03] I bought their pearl snap denim western shirt in denim blue, and I wish someone had gotten that from me as a gift. I wear it all the time now, both for everyday events and for fancier things and get-togethers. I think any guy would love getting this as a Christmas gift.

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_05] Of course, when it comes to gifting, Quince has a lot more than clothing. Think leather bags, hotel-quality bedding, chef-grade cookware, and five-star luggage. Basically, plenty of ways to find something special for everyone on your list. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was the murder sheet.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_05] It's the best way to support the show.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_00] And we've got a group of three different pathologists that rotate through.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_05] In a county like Newton County, I guess, what is the workload like for a coroner? Is it constant stuff? Does it come in waves or is it pretty sparse because it's a low population?

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_00] It's sparse, but it does come in. It comes in, like you said, in waves, if you will. Right now, we're into October and we've had 23 cases, which is very, very low for us. This is one of the lowest years. I don't want to jinx myself because the year's not over yet. But with that, I mean, we've had three in eight hours. You know, we've had days where we've had three cases in eight hours.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_00] So it just, that was back when the drug thing was really, really bad. We had a really bad batch of fentanyl going around. We ended up with three that we had a triple homicide years and years back. That was a bit of an eye opener.

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_05] Tell us about that triple homicide, because obviously that's, I mean, we're talking mostly about accidental deaths and natural causes. That's something that I imagine got to be very unusual.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, that was beyond unusual for us. A homicide is not all that unusual. I mean, we've had murder cases, you know, throughout the years, obviously. But this one, the whole thing was unusual. They, it ended up being a drug related theft gone bad. But the two guys that did the murder went, went into a home, killed three people with,

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_00] I don't want to use the term knives, but they were like machete size knives. I mean, huge, just enormous. The Bud K, you've seen the Bud K magazines with the fantasy knives. They had ordered a bunch of those and went in to stab these three people to death and left an elderly woman untouched. She was blind and deaf. So they, I guess they figured that she couldn't testify against them. We caught them, we caught them pretty quick.

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_00] And they're now serving life sentences in prison. But that was, that was one of those cases that, due to me, obviously not very many people get triple homicides, even in, even in the city, but we worked it really well. We worked real well with the police. I called my chief deputy that I had at the time. We met with the detectives. Nobody went into the house. It was sealed off until everybody got there. And then we just worked as a team and went in and, and, and processed it.

[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_03] Is it ever difficult emotionally to deal with all of this death, including sometimes violent death?

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Yeah. The, the worst are always kids, which is usually your motor vehicle crashes and, and things. We did have, we've had two infant homicides in the last three years, two years, something like that. Two or three years. Time kind of gets away from me after a while. It all kind of melts together. But those, those take their toll.

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_00] You know, the, the fact that, you know, you, you see on TV and I'm not, I'm not knocking any other agency by any means, but you hear of the police, you know, oh, they see this horrific stuff. Well, they do. They see it. That's all they do. They see it. As coroners, we see it, feel it, smell it, touch it, live it, breathe it kind of thing. And, and we're the ones that are overlooked. You know, our, our, our mental health is, is kind of overlooked.

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_00] They're finally starting to open up and do things. But as an example, my wife and I went to a, a, what would you call it?

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_04] It was a retreat.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_00] It was a retreat. There we go. And it was supposed to be for mental health. It was, it was a big round table of, of discussion. There was a couple hundred people there and they went through the room. Everybody introduced themselves and everybody was police, fire, EMS, dispatch, not one corner. And not one school bus driver was there. And everybody, everybody answered the same question the same way. What is it that bothers you the most about your job? And they said, showing up and finding a dead body.

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_00] Well, every time the pager goes off, I'm going to see a dead body. But, you know, we, we learned to deal with it. We know that from, from one side, it's tragic. From the other side, it's educational. And we know we're, we're, we're doing a service for family. You know, we're providing that. I hate, I hate the term closure because it's never, when you lose someone you love, it's, there's never closure. But there's the, we, we help with the healing process.

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_03] You say they're starting to do more for mental health. Can you talk about that? Things like this Bridges thing? Are there other things?

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_00] They're, they're just offering, here in Indiana, they're just offering more. There's more groups out there that, that you can, you can reach out to. We have up our way a couple of different hospitals, if you will, outreach programs that will, you know, that we can talk to people. We can get on the phone and if, if, if we need to, to kind of bear our soul, if you will.

[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_03] So they was asked what the worst part of their job was, and it was like what your job is every day or every day that you get a call. What is the worst part of your job?

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_00] Dealing with families. And then, well, dealing with, dealing with the families, you know, it's how, how do you go up to a, a, a mother, knock on the door at two o'clock in the morning and explain to her that her, her child is not coming home. That's, that's heartbreaking for us as well. Uh, you know, everybody looks at us like we're cold, you know, you have to be cold hearted to do that. Now we're, we're, we're not, we, we build up a wall and, and we hide behind that wall,

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_00] uh, that, and then going home and trying to act as if nothing happened. I'm fortunate being the corner since my wife is, was, was my chief deputy for a while. So obviously she understands the things that, that, that we go through, but not every corner has that. They, they don't have that, uh, that home life that, that helps them sustain, I guess.

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. It's, it's not something everyone can understand.

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_03] No.

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_05] Doing that.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. I mean, we're married, we work together and I think that that's helped us. Can, can you talk some, maybe both of you talk about what it's like to work together in this very difficult job.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_00] On the lighter side, she's a pain in the butt to work with. I'm a delight. She's a delight. Yes. Yes. Just ask her. She'll tell you.

[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_05] Putting Heidi on blast. I mean, it's true.

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_00] When we would go out on a call together, and there's a lot of times when, when we had the, the, the last infant homicide, she says, do you want to go? Do you want me to go? I'm like, no, you don't need to see this. But when we, when we would work a call together, she's very good with people. It's good to have somebody that, that has the same end goal, but yet goes a different route. So she would be over here talking, getting history for things. And I'm, I'm looking at stuff, whereas she's talking to the people.

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_00] And then we, when we're done, we could throw a case together and, and make it complete. Not everybody has that either. You go to some of these, some of the larger, well, an area like this. I don't know what the call load here is up in Lake County. Let's use them as, as an example. They're, they're working 15, 20 calls a day, you know, so they're busy. They don't have time to, to deal with the family, to talk to the family. We have the time, uh, we've had an incident where an elderly woman passed away.

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_00] It was a natural, but her husband, she was a, she was the true housewife. That's all she did. He didn't even know how to make a cup of coffee. So Heidi made it, uh, you know, made coffee for him and we got to sit down and, you know, explain to him that, you know, things are going to be different now. You're going to have to reach out to family and rely on other people because no matter what they say, time does not heal all wounds and your life will never, ever, ever be the same.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_00] And, and that, that's the hard part to try to explain to people when you've got one person over here that, that's on the outside, that's on the tertiary, uh, that is going to be gone in a week. You know, they're going to, they're going to leave and go away telling them everything's going to be okay, but it's not, you know, your life's never going to be the same now. So don't cry. It's God. You better not die on me, Kevin.

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_05] No, but, but you're saying it's a, I think it's nice in a way that being in a smaller community, you get to provide more of a personal touch for those in your community who are going through a loss that maybe is lacking in, understandably lacking in larger communities.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, it's, it's that. And, and like I said, I worked for Newt County for, you know, since 1982. So I, a lot of the people that I'm dealing with now, I've dealt with, I had dealt with on the ambulance as well. You know, so, I mean, I, I'm, I'm fairly well-known. Heidi's pretty well-known, getting pretty well-known now, but I could walk in, into a house where somebody has passed away and the family immediately knows, you know, they're calling me by name. I don't remember them.

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_00] I, you hate to say that, but, you know, working the ambulance, you, you've got so many people going through and they're like, well, you took my son to the hospital or you took my mom to the hospital.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_04] I'm like, sometimes that works against him now. Because he'll go in somewhere where he's had to make death notification before. And so now he's telling some family that yet another person has, has passed. And so that's the only time they see him is when he has some, some bad news to share.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_04] Are you still a deputy? I'm actually a deputy in a neighboring county to keep my certifications and everything intact. I'm in a different elected position. So for those purposes, I can't be on our county. But this, it's the financial paper trail of it. But I still have a strong back. So I still get to, to participate when needed. Wow.

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_05] I do want to ask you when we're talking about homicides or perhaps deaths that are not immediately, obviously natural. Can you talk me, like, can you walk us through how you sort of approach those, like, alongside police or alongside crime scene investigators when you're, when you're dealing with those kind of rarer incidents?

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_00] I'm trying to think back to, to, to the last case that I had. Here's one that came in as a, a, it came in as a self-inflicted gunshot wound. I, I, to this day don't agree with it, but on all, all suicide, you always treat a suicide like a homicide until you can prove otherwise. That's just standard. When I pull up in my vehicle, I park away from the scene. Everybody, if you've ever noticed you, if you've ever been to any crime scene or any,

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_00] any emergency scene, all the emergency vehicles are pulled right up there in front of the house or in front of the building. I'll park away, half a block away or something. And that gives me the chance to walk up and, and formulate my plan. You know, what am I going to do? Who am I going to talk to? Who do I need to talk to? Uh, and then if it's, if it, if it is a crime scene, EMS is usually there, the ambulance is usually there and fire, uh, back home, all of our fire departments are first responders.

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_00] So all of our fire departments will get dispatched with the ambulance and we will wait. Uh, if, if they say that this is suspicious, we wait until the detective gets there. And then the detective and myself, uh, and if we need, if we need a scene tech, which we try to, to avoid that because you have to wait hours for that. We will wait outside until we get together. We will formulate a plan together and then we'll go in because if you've ever heard of

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_00] Lockard's theory, which is anytime you go into a crime scene, you bring something with you and you leave it behind. And when you leave, you take something out. So we prefer not to mess with anything until we're together. We can work that scene together. Uh, we see the same things. We point out the same things and we know what to touch, what not to touch or what has been touched. And that's the way we approach it or try to on, on every suspicious case.

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_03] We've talked a lot about determining the cause of death, but, but I'm well aware there are cases where sometimes you don't know the identity of the person who is deceased or you have a body that doesn't have an identity and you've done a lot of important work in that area. Can you talk about, first of all, why is it important to come up with a name for these deceased people and how do you do it?

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_00] When I took office back in, I, I, my day one was January 1, 2009. I ended up with three boxes of, of skeletal remains. Now our job, our, our, our, our legal job that's spelled out in law is to make a positive identification of, of all deceits. In other words, you have to exhaust every means possible. Again, I'm not going to, I'm not going to talk bad about anybody else, but after a period

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_00] of time, it seems like those three cases got set on a shelf and, and forgotten about. When I found them, I was, I was, I had the first office, the first quote unquote office, uh, of the coroner in, in Newton County, all the other coroners worked out of their homes. So all of the records and whatnot were either kept at their home or, uh, we had a doctor that was, that was a coroner for a while and he kept the records in his office. I demanded that I have an office because I didn't want to work out of my house.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_00] I didn't want people, we didn't want to have to have family come meet with me at my home. And you never want to meet with family in their home in a, in a, in a confrontational way. If you're, if you think there's a crime that's been committed, you want them in an uncomfortable situation. So they're, they're more likely to talk. But anyway, I, I had these skeletal remains and it's, you know, well, we, we've got to do something.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_00] So today, I mean, back then we, we worked everything we possibly could as far as facial reconstructions, uh, use the NamUs database, which is, uh, the national, national missing and unidentified person system, uh, which is a, a public slash private database where you in any, any listener can go in and, and enter missing person information.

[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_00] You know, my uncle Bob went missing back whenever he was wearing these clothes, he was this tall, this, and I'm on the other end plugging in information on an unidentified that, that we had found. And that program will try to, to match them up. It will kick out a list of matches and then you go through and, and, and try to, try to find the right one. Today we use DNA.

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_00] DNA is, is the, the premier way of positive identification. So you can do DNA through, uh, if, if you think you know who it is, you have a good idea who it is, you can reach out to a family member and, and just get a buccal swab and we take it to the state police lab. And within a matter of any more, it's a matter of hours. Uh, they can, they can have a result.

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_00] Uh, if it's something that you don't know who they are, like it's skeletal remains, uh, you go back to the forensic investigative genetic genealogy fig where they, they build the family tree backwards from, from that DNA. Don't ask me how that's done. I can, I can spell DNA. That's, that's my famous line is I can spell DNA. That's it. The, the genetic genealogy that's for, that's for somebody else.

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_05] And with those does that you sort of inherited as coroner, um, what did going into it, did you have any sense of like how they were found or the circumstances of those bodies being discovered?

[00:33:13] [SPEAKER_00] Two of them were found in 1983, October of 1983. Uh, they were, we knew when I say we, I wasn't with the coroner's office then, um, but I was working the ambulance. Uh, so, you know, we heard the radio traffic and whatnot. They had found four bodies, uh, up in a little town called Lake Village, one of our unincorporated towns. And they were victims of Larry Eiler. They were two boys that Larry Eiler had killed, um, that again, ended up, they couldn't get a

[00:33:43] [SPEAKER_00] positive ID on them. So they just, they ended up in a box. And the girl was found in 1988 out in, uh, Willow Slough, which is a state fish and wildlife area. And she was just along a Creek, uh, along with a male who was identified pretty quick. They had been shot and burnt. They burned their bodies, tried to, tried to burn them up. The, the male was identified. The family that he was related to refused to talk to us. Uh, they were, they were not nice people.

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_00] She was literally one of those victims that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. With the wrong person. Uh, she was a totally innocent victim of, of a horrible, horrible crime.

[00:34:22] [SPEAKER_05] Um, so can you, um, talk us through getting answers in some of those doe cases as far as, cause they were ultimately identified?

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, let's see. We, again, it, it, it started in 09. Uh, there were so many things that we did, so many different things we tried. Uh, you know, like I said, facial reconstruction, posting them on, on through social media and the newspapers, uh, doing media blasts. Uh, I even went on, uh, the, the Chicago, uh, Chicago and Indianapolis, uh, TVs to try to get anybody with information.

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_00] And it just, we just kept running into brick wall, brick after brick wall. When DNA became the big, the big thing, a group actually reached out to me called the DNA doe project. That's what they did. They did the genetic genealogy where they would take that DNA, upload it into GEDmatch, which is one of your, it's like your ancestry.coms, your 23andmes. Uh, they uploaded into GEDmatch and if they could find a match, it doesn't matter what percentage

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_00] they, it is, they can work with very minute, what they call cinnamorgans. Again, fancy words that I don't understand, but they can build a family tree backwards. And then they turn around and build it back forward again. And they can locate who's, who's not, who's not fitting into this picture. And then we reach out to that family and, and ask them, you know, have you, were you missing anybody?

[00:35:52] [SPEAKER_00] And they're like, well, yeah, as a matter of fact, we were, we get a DNA swab from them and, and do a one-to-one and that's how we get a positive ID. And it worked. It's worked with, with my three that I had in my County and we've got, uh, Jasper County, which is right next to us. Jasper County's coroner and myself worked the, the Larry Eiler cases, uh, together. They had, he had a Larry Eiler victim as well.

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_00] Um, and then Benton County, which is South of us had one that we've all gotten, you know, they're, they're, those cases are solved.

[00:36:29] [SPEAKER_05] And, and the two male does tend, I'm just getting their names right, were John Ingram, Brandenburg Jr. and Keith Lavelle Bibbs.

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_00] Correct.

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_05] Those Eiler victims. That's incredible. I mean, the amount of work that you obviously did to try to get those answers, even when things kept on going not right away.

[00:36:47] [SPEAKER_00] I got to take credit for it. Uh, we got to take credit for it, but in reality, the DNA Doe project are the ones that, that quote unquote solve it. I kept the case alive. You know, I mean, had I just thrown it back on the shelf and, and, you know, threw my hands up, then they would still be unidentified today. I just kept it alive. Yes. And, and they did, they did the hard work. Now we've gotten the Indiana state police.

[00:37:14] [SPEAKER_00] They have a cold case unit now, and they also have a fig unit, the forensic, forensic investigative genetic genealogy. So they have their own genealogist on staff. And matter of fact, I just emailed them today. I work very closely with them. Dr. Crystal Latham. I don't know if you've ever heard of her. She's the only board certified forensic anthropologist in the state. So you'd have a box of bones. You take them to her and she puts them all together and she can identify whether it's

[00:37:43] [SPEAKER_00] male, female, how tall they were, how big they were, all, all of that information. She was working my cases, the three that I had. And I went down there one day and her and I were just talking and she's like, we've got to do something. I've got 60 cases here that I don't know what to do with. So I'm like, well, let's clear them out. That started a ball rolling for what's called Identify Indiana. It's an initiative that her and I started.

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_00] It's now a nonprofit that I'm the president of, Identify Indiana Incorporated. And we work directly with ISP, with the ISP lab, with Dr. Latham and any and all law enforcement and coroner's offices. So if a coroner has a problem, they say, I have an unidentified, I've had this unidentified on my shelf for years. They call me and I, I will get that into the system for them. Why is this so important to you? Because everybody deserves to have a name.

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_00] That's what I've said all along with, with the three that I had in, in, in my County. I was, when I first started, I was told, leave it alone. You're never going to solve these cases. Just leave them alone. And that's what the law enforcement that worked those cases was telling me, which to me, that threw them to gauntlet. That was like a challenge. You're, you're not going to do that. And as, as time progressed, I realized, you know, these are, these are somebody's kids. This is, they, they have families.

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_00] What would I do if one of my kids went missing? Would I just say, after so many years, just, eh, they're gone. Never coming back. No, you're going to search forever and ever. When we solved Johnny's case, uh, Johnny Brandenburg, Heidi and I took, well, on all three of them, we, we, we turned the remains over to the family ourselves. We did it already. You know, we didn't just put them in a box and mail them out. We hand delivered them.

[00:39:40] [SPEAKER_00] We had the opportunity to meet Johnny's mother. And she was the sweetest little old lady you'd ever want to meet. Frail, uh, what they weren't even sure she was going to be able to make it to the funeral. She gave me a hug and she said, I woke up every morning. I'm going to start crying again for 37 and a half years. Wondering where Johnny was at.

[00:40:05] [SPEAKER_00] My heart broke, you know, and poor Heidi almost got killed by her, by his brother. This guy was ginormous. I mean, this guy. He was a really good hug giver. Yeah. He was, oh, he was, this guy was like six, three, two 80 solid muscle. And I mean, he'd just give you a hug and, and yeah. It's like, I can't breathe. But that's why I do it. I mean, you answered, you asked the question earlier, why do I do this? It's like that.

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_00] You can't, you, that feeling, you can't, you can't ignore it.

[00:40:40] [SPEAKER_03] Talk about that feeling. What's it like to give answers to people who've been waiting for decades?

[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_00] Well, it's, it's, it's unbelievably hard because, well, now you're telling family, especially under those particular circumstances, because of the way they died, uh, they were all stabbed to death. They were drugged and then stabbed to death. Larry Eiler was, he was a serial killer. That was a total nutball to tell the family one that, you know, we have, we have your, your son, your daughter, and then to have to tell them how.

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_00] And luckily with that, when we had talked with his sister, with Johnny's sister, uh, prior to, and we didn't, they didn't want mom to have all the details. So we just explained to her that, you know, she was killed and, and left it at that. Again, it's, it's hard to tell any family that their loved one is dead, but it, it brings you that little bit of satisfaction knowing that, that now they know.

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_00] Now they know where their child's at or, or their, their parents or whatever, where they're at. And they can have that funeral and they can, they can begin the healing process.

[00:41:54] [SPEAKER_05] With the, uh, the Jane Doe, with the young lady who was murdered with, with a man, you were able to get answers in that case too?

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Yeah. She was our, actually the first one that we, we, we, when I say we collectively, we solved. Uh, and we are still in contact with her daughter. Didn't know that she had kids. She had an infant. The story with that one is they were actually living in Texas and she was getting ready to move to the city up in Illinois. And she went to, to do her, get the house set up and then the rest of the family was going to come live with her. And then she just disappeared.

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_00] They went to the, the family went to the police multiple times to file missing persons report. And if you're 18 or over, you're allowed to go missing. So they just wrote it off. They kept telling them. And at one point they told him that they did take the, the, the, the missing persons case. But the FBI agent that I worked with said he could never find any, any record of that. But we, to this day, we, we talk with her daughter.

[00:42:56] [SPEAKER_05] What was her name?

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_04] That Jane Doe.

[00:42:58] [SPEAKER_00] Jennifer Dent.

[00:43:00] [SPEAKER_04] Something else that's important. And we've talked about the different groups that assist with the solves, but it also takes family members putting their DNA in the system. Because in that case, you know, we had successful DNA uploaded, but within, within a week we got the hit through, through the GED match that actually came from Ancestry. Her daughter and her sister had both uploaded theirs. And that's what made it to where the, the solve was.

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_00] That was, it was just, that was sheer luck.

[00:43:31] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah.

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_05] And that's why everyone listening to this, like if you're, you know, I think if you want to help solve a crime or if you want to give a, a doe their name back under whatever circumstances, I think getting on GED match and uploading your DNA is the pretty much the most direct way you could possibly do that. Yeah. You know, people often want to help with these things and that's a very direct way that people can assist with that. And we would recommend that everyone does so because it's not, you can solve a crime, you

[00:43:59] [SPEAKER_05] can identify a perpetrator, but you can also help victims of crime who have remained unidentified for whatever reason. Because the more we give these forensic genetic genealogists to work with, the easier it is for them to build these trees and pinpoint who that person is. That's just my soapbox for a minute. Sorry.

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_04] You may not know that you, you indirectly are related to someone maybe that has went missing, you know, because of step families and maybe it's been several generations.

[00:44:30] [SPEAKER_00] A point along with that is if I come to your door, you know, if you, if you reach out, you, you, the listeners reach out and say, my uncle Bob went missing. You know, my, my mom told me that her brother Bob went missing back in whatever year. And I will ask, you know, I ask, will you be willing to give a bugle swab DNA? And if they say yes, that DNA can only be used to search for an unidentified.

[00:44:59] [SPEAKER_00] It cannot be used against you as, you know, we don't use those as crime solvers against the person who gives the DNA. I mean, there are laws in place that protect people who give their DNA. You can upload, if you have an ancestry.com, 23andMe, you know, all of the others, you can, you can, that's your DNA. That's your kit, the quote unquote kit. So you can download that to a file and then upload it to GEDmatch free.

[00:45:29] [SPEAKER_00] GEDmatch is a free database. And that GEDmatch is, and I think it was 23andMe, no, FTDNA are the only two that allow law enforcement, coroners and whatever to search unidentified. They're the only ones where we can upload the unidentified's DNA. So it's very important that if you have an ancestry or a 23andMe to download your DNA, download

[00:45:57] [SPEAKER_00] your kit to a file and then upload it to GEDmatch, which is, I did it myself and I don't do computers. So, so if I can do it, trust me, anybody out there can do it.

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_05] There you go. It's, it's very easy. And yeah, I would, I would encourage people to do it because I think, you know, we're

[00:46:18] [SPEAKER_04] seeing all these cases get solved and it's because people are doing this. We had somebody reach out several years ago that thought maybe our male could be their brother. And so we went and met with them at a relative South and we received information back. So it turned out it was not who, who became Keith, but that Chicago actually had this individual in a pauper's grave. And so that he had been found there.

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_04] So this helped her find her brother. So her DNA input didn't solve our case, but it did solve her case. So she was able to, to relocate him and, and so forth and have that closure.

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_05] You know, one thing that you mentioned earlier was sort of, you know, wanting to have your own office as coroner, because possibly when you're having some of these conversations, you know, can be more confrontational and things like that. I'm wondering, can you tell us a little bit about that aspect of the work where there can be these things where it's like, you know, this is, was staged as a suicide, but it's looking like a homicide. I mean, what, what do those potential conversations look like?

[00:47:26] [SPEAKER_00] From, from the coroner's aspect, I don't, I don't interrogate people. I, I just question. So, but, but I, I guess where I was going with it was not so much the, the criminal aspect of it. Although technically a person can be charged with a crime, we're looking for things like if it's an overdose. And a lot of times this happens a lot more frequently than, than people think you get an overdose death.

[00:47:53] [SPEAKER_00] And before you get to the scene, whoever was there sterilizes the scene, they clean it up. And so we want to get that person in a room away from wherever they're comfortable to say, where's it at? Where, where's this stuff at? You know, I don't charge them. And, and a lot of times the police don't, but it's, it's just, we want to find out where this stuff's at and where it came from.

[00:48:20] [SPEAKER_02] Right.

[00:48:21] [SPEAKER_00] That's that, that's what I meant by that. I, I don't, I don't grill people like you would see on TV and in the, in the little interrogation rooms. My office is actually quite, well, my office is small, but the room that I use is, is very comfortable. It's just, it's outside of, it's outside of my home and it's outside of their home. It's in a neutral location where you can, you can be a little more open. It just, there's times that as coroner, I've only felt it a couple of times, but

[00:48:50] [SPEAKER_00] you, you're, you get a little nervous being in a setting where, uh, you've, you've, you've said that, you know, well, this person has, this person has, they died, whether they died through violence or whether they died through overdose or, or whether they died natural. People's emotions run high. And there's been times where I've been a little bit uncomfortable being in the house. Is that person going to get up, go get a gun?

[00:49:17] [SPEAKER_00] Uh, or was it one of those where it was a staged suicide that, you know, well now, now it sounds like the coroner says it's staged. Maybe I should do something, you know? So I, it's a safety issue for, for us.

[00:49:32] [SPEAKER_05] That makes sense. You don't want to, like, if you end up in a situation where you're sort of inadvertently confronting a murderer or something, then that's dangerous. Do you ever get into a situation where family members or loved ones of a decedent are upset with you because they're saying, well, we, you know, you know, you're, you're saying the evidence is, is for suicide, but we are adamant that it has to be homicide or where there's a disagreement or no, our loved one would never have done drugs. It must be a murder.

[00:50:00] [SPEAKER_00] That, that happens all the time.

[00:50:02] [SPEAKER_05] And yeah. Can you talk about that phenomenon? Cause that's something we see a lot of in true crime.

[00:50:06] [SPEAKER_00] That's just, that's just a natural, I think it's a natural response from, from family, friends, uh, to, to be in denial. Uh, you know, you have, remember your stages of grief and denials, denials, I think number one, uh, they, they don't want to believe that, that Billy would, would take his own life or that Billy did drugs. So it had to be, there had to be some nefarious activity going on in there somewhere.

[00:50:36] [SPEAKER_00] Uh, I've, I've had people demand that, that I do autopsies on an 80 some year old guy that they haven't seen in five years. I'm like, but I'm looking at his history here. I've got it right in front of me and he was a very sick man. So I, people, you know, it just, and, and usually that will, that will abate itself, you know, a day or two later. Once, once people have time to decompress. And that's what I always tell people. They say, well, what do we do now?

[00:51:06] [SPEAKER_00] And I will tell them, you do nothing for the next 24 hours. You decompress. And, and then we'll, then we'll talk. And, and usually that helps.

[00:51:15] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. Yeah. We, we, we see that a lot in true crime where people say, you know, investigate my loved one's case. They couldn't have killed themselves. And it's, and it's, it's very sad. I, I also attributed it to like a stigma around suicide where it's like, that's not the outcome you want.

[00:51:29] [SPEAKER_00] I've, I've had on the flip side too, though. I've, I've had people reach out. I've had two, two cases, uh, not from Indiana. I had one from Illinois and one actually from California that they reached out to me, sent me their, their, the, the records that they, everything they had, especially the one in Illinois that was ruled a suicide. That is an obvious homicide, but the, they, they refuse to prosecute. They refuse to charge.

[00:51:59] [SPEAKER_00] And it's like, there's no way, there's no way this little girl could have, could have done what she said, what they're saying she did. So it goes both ways.

[00:52:06] [SPEAKER_05] As a coroner, how do things like that happen? I mean, how did, how do people get it so wrong in those instances where then you as a fellow coroner and looking at it and being like that, that's not, that can't have happened.

[00:52:18] [SPEAKER_00] The one I'm talking about, I think it is, is, is just strictly a coverup.

[00:52:22] [SPEAKER_05] Oh my God.

[00:52:22] [SPEAKER_00] As bad as I hate to say that. I mean, but it, it, it's obvious that it is.

[00:52:27] [SPEAKER_05] Now I want to know what we'll talk about that one later.

[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, we'll talk off. Yeah.

[00:52:31] [SPEAKER_05] We'll talk off the record.

[00:52:31] [SPEAKER_00] Off tape on that.

[00:52:32] [SPEAKER_05] But, but geez, I mean, that's, that's alarming. So that, that can, it's, it can happen even though it sounds crazy.

[00:52:40] [SPEAKER_00] It sounded crazy when he first, when, when the father of this, of this girl reached out to me. Actually, I, I, it was a Facebook thing. He had a Facebook page set up and I, I made some comment, not, not anything.

[00:52:54] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah.

[00:52:54] [SPEAKER_00] Either way, just, you know, I'm sorry to hear this, you know, kind of thing. And he apparently looked at my profile, saw that I was a coroner and he reached out to me and he said, would you please look at, you know, look at my daughter. He says, there's, there's way too many questions here. And he emailed me pictures. He emailed me everything he could get through a FOIA request. He emailed to me and I went through it and, and it's like, you're right. You're absolutely 100% correct.

[00:53:22] [SPEAKER_00] And to this day, this is my gosh, this has been, I don't know how many years it's been now 10 maybe. And they just can't get anybody to prosecute.

[00:53:32] [SPEAKER_05] And, and is it, is it sometimes you hear in these cases, I'm, I'm, I'm not sure about this. So I'd be curious, like you almost need a coroner. Is this true that you almost need a coroner to say, yes, this is a homicide in order to go forward? Or is that, is that as important as I think it is? Or is like that how you almost get the police to look at it?

[00:53:54] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[00:53:54] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah.

[00:53:54] [SPEAKER_00] So it's very, that's why on, that's why on some of the cases I've worked that fall, that fell under the homicide suicide undetermined. There's one recent one that, that I had that I, I ruled it undetermined as far as a manner, because I was not comfortable saying it was suicide, even though there was a suicide note. The handwriting was, was far too neat for somebody that had the medical conditions that this person had. And it, it, it, there were way too many red flags.

[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_00] And even my detective that was with me agreed a hundred percent. So we, we just left it as undetermined. That way it can still be investigated because once I checked suicide, now it's a suicide. There's, they can't come back and say, no, it's not.

[00:54:36] [SPEAKER_04] As far as interesting things that you don't have every day, we had, I don't know if you want to use a name, but we had Tawana. And that was, that was very interesting.

[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_00] That was, that was actually Heidi's first case. Oh. Um, this was a, came in as a male subject found in the ditch. It was hot. It was a miserable, hot day. Uh, it'd been a miserable, hot week. I think it'd been a miserable, hot month. Our, one of our County highway guys was out mowing the roadside and found what he thought to be a body, a man in, in floating face down in, in the, in the ditch. So we all get up there and this ditch is unbelievably deep.

[00:55:16] [SPEAKER_00] Just, it's very steep. We don't have very many of those in Newton County, but very steep brackish water. I mean, just nasty, smelly water. And we ended up calling the fire department back and using their Gumby suits, their water suits. And, and the fire chief and I got in the water, got what we thought initially was him, ended up being a her out of the water. And then walking the road, they found some, was it baby clothes or maternity clothes?

[00:55:45] [SPEAKER_04] There was maternity clothes.

[00:55:45] [SPEAKER_00] Maternity clothes. Well, this person had been there for a while, so they were a little bloated. So we're thinking, oh God, this, you know, we need to start looking, we need to look further. We need to look for a baby. Is there a baby here? Is there a child here? Turned out there wasn't, but we didn't know who this person was. So we took her down to Lafayette for an autopsy and I'll let Heidi take it from here because she's the star of that show.

[00:56:08] [SPEAKER_04] Well, they had several tattoos. So I started looking on Facebook, just matching up names, thinking, you know, these are probably children, if I had to guess. And there was a male name, which I thought could be boyfriend or husband. And he had such a unique name that I found a gentleman to the Northwest of us that had that name. And then he had pictures that also included a couple of the female names.

[00:56:37] [SPEAKER_04] And through clicking through his friends, you know, women's hairstyles can vary quite dramatically. So could this be this person? Could this not be this person? And I found on one of the pictures they had someone in common. So we ended up calling into that area and they had a person that the female that they had in common had been the, had bailed this person out. They were their contact person, if you will.

[00:57:07] [SPEAKER_04] So it turned out to be her mother. So it just was a lot of working it backwards as far as starting with tattoos, since they had absolutely no identification. There was nothing identifying on them, you know, other, other than the tattoos.

[00:57:20] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And she'd been in the water so long you couldn't identify her from, from her face.

[00:57:24] [SPEAKER_04] No, the features were not, not what they had been prior to that. That's incredible that you were able to like put that down.

[00:57:30] [SPEAKER_00] By the time we had gotten from Lafayette to back home, which is about a 40, 40 minute, 40, 45 minute drive for us. She had her identified.

[00:57:42] [SPEAKER_04] Wow. That is so cool. That's what mom and sister end up coming and meeting us. And they said, you know, well, why would she have been here? Like we, we've never been here. You know, this is, they're from a city area and here we are in the middle of, they had a history of hitchhiking and that type of thing. And that's just where they had ended up. Was it a homicide or just an accident?

[00:58:03] [SPEAKER_00] That's one of those ones that I think I put undetermined on it because she died from an overdose. Oh, okay. But what the police think, okay, she had a history of, of running off, running away, prostitution and drugs. So they think that she overdosed in the backseat of a car, people freaked out, didn't know what to do and just dumped her. Okay. That's, that's the, the, the story that they're, that, that everybody is using, but I'm pretty sure I left her as undetermined because.

[00:58:30] [SPEAKER_05] You can't know.

[00:58:31] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. You, you, you can't know for sure. And it always leaves that door open.

[00:58:35] [SPEAKER_05] Yes. That way it doesn't tie investigators hands, but it also isn't assuming too much when you don't have that information.

[00:58:43] [SPEAKER_00] But I just thought it was cool that she had her identified that fast. And I always, I always nag at her about being on Facebook and, and, and stuff. And, and that one paid off.

[00:58:51] [SPEAKER_04] I was all investigating. Just tell me it's gossipy. But I mean, in the, the couple of days leading up to the autopsy, you know, we had had a post put out in case anybody was missing employees, that type of, you know, as, Hey, is somebody not showed up somewhere where they're supposed to be? Cause this was just a mile off the interstate. So, you know, maybe it's not somebody from our county, maybe it's a county to the north, the county.

[00:59:14] [SPEAKER_00] Well, we also have the big, uh, fair oak farms, the big, uh, you know, the big dairy farms. So it could have, could have been somebody that would work there. You know, we, we did, we just didn't know.

[00:59:25] [SPEAKER_04] Oh, also the particular shirt she had on. Oh yeah. Was in Spanish. Oh, okay. So there again, you, you never know, you know, what, what someone appears, you know, sometimes there's other, other factors involved. So I mean, one side, the sun had, had been shining on for the week and the other side, the, the water had leached out the, the pigment. So you say, well, this is, I assume this is the color of this person.

[00:59:54] [SPEAKER_04] And you flip them over and you say, well, no, maybe, maybe that's not what, you know, it is. The elements are having. Yeah.

[01:00:00] [SPEAKER_05] It was very, um, very bizarre. How, I mean, I just, that just sounds so gruesome to have to look at that and be taking the body. Like how, I know we kind of already asked this, but how do you guys deal with that? Cause I feel like I would be really bad at that aspect of it.

[01:00:17] [SPEAKER_04] I just felt bad about leaving her there alone at the morgue. That was my thing. He goes, well, what'd you want to do? Keep her for the weekend? No, but I feel bad now she's alone.

[01:00:26] [SPEAKER_00] She's not the one that, that the, the girl from Purdue was chasing around. See, see you, you, you say it, you say it one way. Other people say it another. We had an entomologist, an entomology student who was literally, they had, we, we told them ahead of time that she was a decomp and that, you know, so they had plastic sheeting down on the floor at the morgue. And this poor girl is running around with a pair of tweezers chasing the maggots.

[01:00:51] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. Because to her, it's exciting because she's going to be able to determine a better timeline

[01:00:56] [SPEAKER_00] from the life cycle. Yeah. Bugs, bugs, bugs are our friends. We learned that from, from Dr. Neil Haskell. He's, he was a, he's a world renowned entomologist. Yeah. He actually worked, I believe, worked the Casey Anthony case. He, he actually lives in Rensselaer, which is just 16 miles away from us. So we took one of his classes and he, that's his big thing is bugs are our friends. Yeah. And, and with this one after that class, I was like, well, she's only been here this amount of time.

[01:01:24] [SPEAKER_00] So we could narrow it down because we knew from the, the insect activity that, you know, how, how long she'd been here. An estimated time of, of how long she'd been there.

[01:01:32] [SPEAKER_05] I, I, I, this, I mean, it sounds like you're also like continuing to go to some of these opportunities for education and further training.

[01:01:39] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, always. Every, every, every autopsy, you learn something new. You know, every, every case you learn something new and every, every chance there's a good class that comes along where we're going to be there.

[01:01:50] [SPEAKER_04] There's things they even can take away from say the call into dispatch. We went to what was the, the killer's the caller. Right. And sometimes there's information that's given or not given or just the way somebody's responding.

[01:02:06] [SPEAKER_00] The, the, the last infant homicide that, that we, that we worked and we could talk a little bit about it because it's, it's closed. She's, she's serving 85 years, I think, or something. Listening to the 911 tape, you can tell it's, it's all bogus. You know, she's supposed to be doing CPR on the child. You get there and, and the child's face down. She never once tried anything. You could just tell, you know, you could listen to it and, and it's like, you're not doing any of the things they're telling you to do.

[01:02:33] [SPEAKER_00] You're saying things that are inappropriately, you know. So yeah, there's, I mean, that's, that's where it all starts is, is with dispatch.

[01:02:41] [SPEAKER_04] Tell us a little bit about that case since it's closed.

[01:02:44] [SPEAKER_00] It just, there's really not much to tell. It's, it's, it's, it's heartbreaking. Um, it was just, uh, don't, we, we still don't know why. Uh, but for some reason, mom drowned her, her baby in the bathtub. Don't know why she never did say why. Um. That one I leave up, that one I have to give the credit to, to law enforcement. I, I, I don't know where he got the idea, but the, the marshal for that town went to the water department, went to the town.

[01:03:13] [SPEAKER_00] They have, I, I don't know whether all water meters do this or not, but they can actually tell the times that, that water's turned on, turned off and how much water has ran, you know, going through the temperature of the water and how much water was ran at, at these, this particular hours. They knew exactly when all of it happened. Yeah. It's, it was, when I found that out, I'm like, that's, that's cool.

[01:03:35] [SPEAKER_05] That's incredible police work. When you're working with law enforcement, is it primarily town marshals, um, town police, Indiana state police, Newton County Sheriff's Office, neighboring sheriff's offices? Like, is it, is it one or the other? Does it really just depend on the case?

[01:03:49] [SPEAKER_00] It depends on where, where it happens. If it happens in, in one of the incorporated towns, then it's the town marshal in theory. They're supposed to be the ones, the investigating agency. Most of the time, if it's a big investigation, if we can't get ahold of our detective, the county detective, they'll call the state police in. So I've, I've worked with, with all of them. And then we have the drug task force that's two counties, you know, it's a bi-county group.

[01:04:15] [SPEAKER_05] And it's Newton County and what's the other one?

[01:04:17] [SPEAKER_00] Newton and Jasper.

[01:04:18] [SPEAKER_05] Okay. And then with the, uh, is it, they're basically one county detective with the sheriff's office or?

[01:04:24] [SPEAKER_01] We only have one. Okay. New County only has one.

[01:04:26] [SPEAKER_05] And then I was curious, you know, in terms of the trial, if there's, if there's a, turns out to be a homicide and there's some sort of criminal trial around that, do you have to come in and testify typically? Or is that relatively rare?

[01:04:39] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, no, no, no, it's not. Well, the, the, the nice thing about being the coroner is that they can't really rebut anything you say. I actually spent two and a half hours on the stand at a, uh, deposition, two and a half hour deposition to be called on the stand for trial, to be up there for 90 seconds because they can't, you know, if I, whatever I say, they can't rebut.

[01:05:04] [SPEAKER_00] Now they can call my pathologist up there and try to tear him to pieces, you know, but in, in, in, in every case I've testified in, which I've only testified in three, four, four in all the years I've been doing this, it was very brief. And then it was always, they always got a conviction on most of them. You might say most three, three of the four, uh, they were, uh, they ended up doing a plea agreement.

[01:05:31] [SPEAKER_05] And then we've heard some people criticize the coroner system and sort of suggest we should, in Indiana, we should switch to a medical examiner system, you know, and what are your thoughts on that in terms of that?

[01:05:43] [SPEAKER_00] In, in, in reality, we have it. People just don't understand.

[01:05:46] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. Tell me more about that.

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_00] Because in a medical, in a medical examiner system, you have the medical examiner sitting up here and he might be in charge of three or four counties. Yes. A region. So when a call comes in, he sends out coroners to investigate the scene. The coroner decides, do I need an autopsy? And then they bring it back in the medical examiner. We're doing exactly the same thing. We're just leaving him out as the boss. The coroner goes out, does the investigation.

[01:06:15] [SPEAKER_00] If we feel we need an autopsy, we take him to the pathologist.

[01:06:19] [SPEAKER_05] And then as far as, you know, we've talked a bit about your, especially with your work on the does, you've been so active with some of these cases and really like doing everything you can to, to, um, get some of those solved. You know, and, and you give DNA Doe Project the credit for solving it, but like, I think putting it out there is super important. Um, you know, do you have any advice to maybe current coroners in other counties or in even

[01:06:45] [SPEAKER_05] in other states who might be sitting on something like that, where it's like, I don't even know where to begin with this. You know, how can I get it solved in terms of advice for them on how to handle some of those tougher cases that maybe they're trying to identify somebody?

[01:06:58] [SPEAKER_00] Here in Indiana, I hope I've gotten the word out to all of them. Um, uh, I know most of them, we have the annual coroners conference. So, you know, we get to go and shake hands and, and with Identify Indiana, we've actually set up a booth, uh, there and we have Dr. Latham and the ISP, uh, ladies from the lab there to answer anybody's questions or to give them guidance or offer assistance. My biggest takeaway, if you will, from this is to families.

[01:07:27] [SPEAKER_00] If you think that there's somebody in your family that went missing, and again, it goes back to mom. Mom used to always talk about Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob disappeared. Uncle Bob ran away. Did Uncle Bob run away? Or is he on a shelf somewhere? Give your DNA. I promise you, we're not going to use it to, to track you down and, and, and get you on your back taxes. We're not, that's not what we're, that's not what we're going for. We, we want to identify these people in this, in the state of Indiana.

[01:07:55] [SPEAKER_00] We don't have a good number because nobody's ever went out and counted, but we're estimating that there's 600 sets of human remains throughout the state of Indiana that need to be identified. Right now we're working, I've got 43 cases and Dr. Latham's got, I, I don't even know what her number is. Uh, and then ISP is working the cases, you know, working some cases.

[01:08:22] [SPEAKER_00] So the, like you'd said it earlier, the more, the more people that, that give their DNA, put their DNA into the system, the better chances we have of getting a positive identification on these people.

[01:08:34] [SPEAKER_04] I think the DNA dough case, there was a Dateline episode. I don't know how many years back this was, the Lavender dough, where, uh, the teenage girl had been with one set of parents and then another, there may have been a divorce or a death in the family. She would stay at an uncle's and then she decided she was going to go with another cousin and they just, everyone lost track of her. So they just assumed she was with another relative.

[01:09:01] [SPEAKER_04] And in reality, she ended up several states away and the town didn't know who she was. And so they gave her a headstone and it said Lavender dough because that was the color of shirt she had on and it took people, you know, whatever happened to our cousin and they put the DNA in and everything and they were able to get that solved. Wow.

[01:09:26] [SPEAKER_00] So that's what happened with, with Keith.

[01:09:28] [SPEAKER_04] Yes.

[01:09:29] [SPEAKER_00] Um, Keith Bibbs, they, the, the family thought he just ran away. They did. I mean, they knew he was missing, but he had a habit of, of going and he'd live with this relative for a while and then he'd bounce over here and live with this relative and this relative. And everybody thought he just, he just ran away. And in reality, he was 90 miles away in my County.

[01:09:51] [SPEAKER_05] So sad. I, I do want to ask you, you said you had 43 cases or those like all unidentified remains or is that just all your cases in general?

[01:10:00] [SPEAKER_00] That's that they're, they're all unidentified right now.

[01:10:02] [SPEAKER_05] And are, are those all in Newton County?

[01:10:04] [SPEAKER_00] No, no, no. These are, these are, these are, these are with Identify Indiana. These are cases throughout the state. These are those that still need. Yeah. These, these, these were cases that were sitting in universities on university shelves and the coroner that handled that area that handles that area. He's like, I can't. He's like, I don't, I don't have the resources or the time. Would you be willing to work these cases? I'm like, yeah.

[01:10:29] [SPEAKER_03] This has been incredible. Is there anything we didn't ask you about that you'd like to mention before we wrap up?

[01:10:36] [SPEAKER_00] All I can say is, is, is, is get your DNA in. You know, I, I, I can't say that enough. Uh, Identify Indiana. Uh, if, if you have questions, you can, you can email me at identifyindianaatgmail.com and I'll, I'll be more than happy to help. We will go anywhere and everywhere to get a family, what's called a family reference sample, a buccal swab, painless, 100% painless takes

[01:11:02] [SPEAKER_00] about 30 seconds. And, and, you know, we're not drawing your blood. We're not, we just take a swab and swab your cheek and maybe let's, let's solve some cases.

[01:11:12] [SPEAKER_03] I'd really like to thank Scott and Heidi for taking the time to talk with us. And I just want to say again, that they do wonderful work with the Identify Indiana initiative. Please reach out to them. Uh, we will put the email address and the webpage links in our show notes.

[01:11:29] [SPEAKER_05] Absolutely. Thank you, Scott and Heidi. And yeah, Godspeed on all their amazing work,

[01:11:33] [SPEAKER_03] Identifying the Dead in Indiana. Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheetatgmail.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[01:11:56] [SPEAKER_05] If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com. www.patreon.com. slash murder sheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murder sheet. We very much appreciate any support.

[01:12:20] [SPEAKER_03] Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

[01:12:29] [SPEAKER_05] If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience, as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening. So