Joseph Scott Morgan, Host of iHeartRadio’s Body Bags Podcast

CLAY: Something I have been obsessed with — and I know many of you have as well — is the quadruple murder still unsolved now into, I believe, a sixth week since this happened at the University of Idaho. We are joined now by Joseph Scott Morgan, distinguished scholar of applied forensics in Jacksonville, Alabama, former senior investigator with the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office in Atlanta, host of the Body Bags podcast on iHeart. What I’m gonna ask you to do is, if you are hearing questions that come to mind as we are having this conversation, I’m going to try to monitor Twitter. So, you can tweet me @ClayTravis.

If you do not hear me asking questions that you find to be particularly unique or useful here, send me questions and I will ask a few of those as well — again, @ClayTravis right now on Twitter — and we bring in Joseph Scott Morgan. Okay. You were at Fulton County Medical Examiner office. I want to ask you this question just to start. We know that someone walked into this home — armed, it appears, only with a knife — stabbed four people to death, walked back out of that home. We don’t know where the weapon is. We don’t know who did it. Have you ever seen a case like this in your life as a forensic investigator?

MORGAN: No, I haven’t, Clay, and thanks for having me today. I’ve worked… Before I was in Atlanta. I was with the Jefferson Parish Coroner’s Office in New Orleans. So, I’ve worked in two pretty good-sized metropolitan areas.

CLAY: Atlanta and New Orleans, not cities where murder is uncommon.

MORGAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CLAY: The reason why I’m starting with that question is —

MORGAN: Yes. Yes.

CLAY: — to walk in armed only with a knife?

MORGAN: Yes.

CLAY: I just want to kind of start here because I was having this conversation with my wife —

MORGAN: Yes.

CLAY: — last night because she’s also been following this case.

MORGAN: Yeah.

CLAY: What stands out about that decision is this is someone… First of all, that walking into a strange person’s house is something that most people wouldn’t do. Right.

MORGAN: Yes.

CLAY: But to do it, to me — the more I think about this — armed only with a knife, when, you know there are multiple people inside of that home, it seems like someone who is very comfortable with what they can do with that knife. And that’s why I wanted to start with that question, because even the method — quadruple murders aren’t common, thankfully that often in general, but — quadruple stabbings of what appears to be totally innocent college kids, there’s almost no precedent for stories like these.

MORGAN: No, there’s not. And, you know, you can search as much as you want; you’re not going to find quadruple stabbings most of the time, particularly as they’re isolated in one location, one structure like this, essentially in two different bedrooms, obviously on separate floors. But, you know, the supposition that’s been put forward that this perpetrator is a stranger, perhaps… I know that, you know, it makes for… It’s titillating to hear that because people think about some stranger coming out of the dark. I’m not buying into that. I think that more than likely, this individual, obviously, as you stated, knew who was living there and probably knew of the structure. They may have been inside of this dwelling. It’s an odd dwelling, Clay, to say the very least.

You know, it’s multiple floors, three floors, two entrances and both entrances. One is on the lower ground level where the parking pad is, and then you go up to the second story and there’s another external ground level entry, and then it’s got this kind of switchback staircase. And the house has been added on to over the recent, you know, recent years. So it’s an oddly shaped environment. It’s something, in my opinion, at least the individual would have had been familiar with. And keep in mind, one thing that keeps being pushed forward over and over and over and over again is that this location was a gathering spot for college students off campus. It has been termed as a party house.

CLAY: So when you hear all of that, the other thing here is this doesn’t feel like a random act of violence. It feels like this was targeted in some way. Most people who, again, walking in with just a knife and then committing the murder of four people walking out with that knife… We talked with Nancy Grace a few weeks ago and she said usually… This is a violent act. There’s DNA left behind because a lot of times with a knife, you might end up cutting yourself. We haven’t heard anything about any blood that might belong to someone, potentially a killer in this scenario. Does that suggest to you that this was not the first time that someone may have engaged in violent behavior like this? And also, in your experience, does it happen very often that somebody suddenly snaps and commits a violent act like this? Or are there typically many other violent acts that would have occurred before someone engages in behavior like this?

MORGAN: Yeah, I think that they have a mindset toward violence. It is something that they would be very comfortable with in this environment. And who knows what the rationale was for this. If they were, you know, focused in on these individuals to the point where they were so obsessed that the gore didn’t bother them — and trust me, and trust me: In this situation, considering that these two pair of individuals, these victims, they’re co-sleeping. So this these attacks, if we are to believe what we’re hearing at this point, would have taken place in individual beds.

So you have two people sleeping in one bed. The perpetrator would have been covered in blood, and they’re leaving behind all kinds of trace evidence. But it’s not surprising. We don’t know that yet. This is very… From a forensic science standpoint, from a trace evidence standpoint, this is very, very dense material. This is not something that can essentially be turned around in a couple of days and you’re going to have, you know, evidence that’s just going to say, “Hey, here’s the perpetrator!”

The reality is this: If it is co-mingled — and I’m talking about the blood samples — and yeah, we could have an unknown that could be tied back to a perpetrator — all of this is going to have to be unspooled in order to create a profile, a biological profile on the individual and this takes time. Not to mention everybody else that’s passed through this house that’s left behind things like touch DNA. I mean, all of us that have been college students in an undergraduate situation have been to an off-campus location for parties and whatnot. Lots of DNA is left behind in those environments. So they’re having to make their way through all of this at the laboratory given everything that has come back from the scene.

CLAY: Based on your experience, as you said, in New Orleans, in Atlanta — and we’re talking to Joseph Scott Morgan, who has Body Bags, an iHeart podcast that you guys can all go check out — would it stun you if the killer didn’t leave behind some DNA evidence?

MORGAN: No, I think that it would be impossible for them not to, particularly — and let me give you the measure of that, Clay, as we’re talking about in current context. Years ago, I would say, “Yeah, it’s possible that they might not have been able to pick up on stuff.” But the tests that are being run nowadays are so very sensitive. And when I say touch DNA, I’m talking about things like sloughing dead skin cells, those things, those little particulate things that are left behind in a space. And keep in mind, this attack is very, very intimate. You know, you think about a multiple shooting case where you have some distance between the target and the perpetrator.

That’s not what happened. You have an individual that probably crawled into the bed with these individuals. There’s a lot of touching that’s going on. And plus, the dropping of this knife into these bodies. This is a very intimate circumstance. So even if the individual did not cut themselves, there’s a high probability that they left some trace evidence behind. And keep in mind this. This is fascinating to me. When somebody engages in this kind of heinous act, this is butchery. By the time they get to the fourth person, the fourth victim, they’re going to be profusely sweating. This will completely lead to exhaustion. It would not surprise me to learn that the individual had actually left behind droplets of sweat on the last victim. Their adrenaline is going to be pumping. They’ll be at such a level of excitement in this just trying to keep himself going, there’s going to be elements left behind that can be traced back to a perpetrator, I think.

CLAY: When you hear all this and talking about being able to stab four people to death, including one basically grown man, does that suggest to you that this is a big, strong man; that it would be unlikely that, generally speaking, a woman would be capable of executing these crimes? And other part of this is, they all died. In most stabbings — and again, I’m not an expert on stabbing, but — it seems like there are a lot of people who survive because it’s hard to know exactly where the stabs are going. Does that make sense?

MORGAN: Mmm. Yep, yep, yep.

CLAY: Does this suggest to you that this person, given the fact that they walked in with a knife, had a lot of experience with stabbing, potentially, which is rare, right? Even people out there listening to us right now who might sometimes have a knife with them for protection, most people have never actually practiced. I think Buck said in special — with the CIA, they had some, you know, limited training. But most people haven’t actually practiced ever stabbing someone. What does that suggest to you that all four of these people were killed — and again, that it was four different people and only armed, theoretically with a knife? To your point about the difference between a gun and a knife, I mean, going after four people with only a knife, I would think a lot of people — even if they had violent intentions — would not be comfortable doing that unless they had been trained.

MORGAN: Yeah. And that that that is key here. And remember, the coroner stated in one interview that she did give that the injuries — the injuries, the fatal injuries — were limited to the chest. She talked about that specifically. And I’m not talking about what the parents have said or anything. I’m talking about the interview that the coroner gave, and she said that there was at least one fatal wound to the chest area on these victims. Now, there were some defensive wounds. That gives me an idea that they hung around until they knew that each individual was finished off.

They were purposed — they were purposed in this, Clay — in order to make sure that no one survived, no one was going to be able to identify them. I think the one big ask that people have here and, you know, they’re kind of scratching their heads is that in the lower portion of this home, there were two people that were left alive in a separate living area in their own bedrooms.

CLAY: Yes.

MORGAN: And so I think that that, again, is something — and I’ve toyed with the idea: Was this person actually hiding in the home when both of these parties arrived later in the evening?

CLAY: I want to come back because I’m getting so many questions out there. Do you have time to stay with us and allow me to read some of these questions that I’m getting during the commercial break and bring you in to answer some of them.

MORGAN: Sure, Clay, for as long as you need.

CLAY: Okay. So, Joseph Scott Morgan, formerly of forensics in both New Orleans and Atlanta, is going to stay with us.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: Joseph Scott Morgan, former forensic expert in both Atlanta and New Orleans, discussing the quadruple murder in Idaho. I’m going to hit you with a bunch of questions really rapidly, if I can, because you guys are deluging me with questions. A lot of people want to know, there was a dog there. What does it suggest that the dog was left unharmed to you if anything?

MORGAN: Well, I think the first thing from Jump Street is probably the idea that the dog had been placed somewhere, and they have alluded to that — “they” being the police. They’ve stated that the dog was in a separate room. The curious thing is this: How did the dog not alert to the sound of screaming?

CLAY: Yeah.

MORGAN: Because this is obviously one of the most painful ways to die. Why wasn’t barking heard? Well, maybe no one was awake to hear it, or maybe it couldn’t be heard downstairs. One other thing: That dog, if it is owned by one of the victims, it had access to the body? The dog would be “evidence rich,” I’ll put it that way. I’ll put it that way.

CLAY: How long would it take in your experience to kill four people with a knife like this?

MORGAN: Uh, a lot of that is anatomically dependent, and if there is a strike to a specific organ — primarily the heart — pretty suddenly. However, if these were glancing blows that may have penetrated the lung, could have taken a bit longer. And a lot of it is dependent upon how much of a fight there was. And we don’t know a lot about that at this time. But with a knife, it’s not going to be as quick as, say, for instance, if somebody was shot in the head, for instance. There would be an awareness here. So it takes a few minutes.

CLAY: Also, if there was a fight, we have a suggestion of defensive wounds.

MORGAN: Yeah.

CLAY: The idea would be — and I hate to say this, but — if you’re out there, you want to claw as much as possible, if you potentially are being killed because you get the face, you get… We don’t know what this person was wearing, but if you can get any of their DNA basically on your fingers, even if you die, you could be a witness, right, to who killed you. It’s an awful thing to talk about, but that in a defensive struggle, any ability to claw or create a record, that could be your last opportunity to talk even after your death.

MORGAN: Yeah, and that that is essential. It’s a good point, because most people will focus… In this particular case, I’ve heard a lot of banter about the defensive injuries of the victims, and that is important, obviously. But this perpetrator that’s running around out there — and this is a big a big clue. If they, in fact, were attacked or the victims were attempting to defend themselves, you would look for scratches on the face, the neck, maybe even the eyes, and that would have taken a few days to have healed.

CLAY: Yeah.

MORGAN: I think by now we’re so far down range — as you mentioned, Clay, we’re into the sixth week now — what’s left behind is going to be contained underneath those fingernails and on the palms of the hands, perhaps.

CLAY: How long you talked about the forensic aspect of trying to get the DNA? And you just mentioned we’re into the sixth week. How long would it take in your experience to be able to have a full forensic sweep of this crime scene?

MORGAN: I think that, you know, we’re only thinking about DNA, but we have to also think about other things at the scene, the interpretation of the bloodstains that are there. They’re also putting together probably a trace evidence packet that’s going to include fiber evidence, all those sorts of things, not to mention all the pathological stuff that took place at the autopsy with those examinations, which should be complete by now. I take exception to one thing that the coroner had mentioned about toxicology, where they —

CLAY: Will you save that? Can you come back one more segment with us, ‘cause I got to go to break here, but I want to let you answer that.

MORGAN: Sure. No problem. You bet.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: We are talking with Joseph Scott Morgan, forensic expert, formerly of Atlanta and New Orleans, about the quadruple murder in Idaho into a sixth week, still unclear who or how many perpetrators there might be in this case. Also, Joseph Scott Morgan has a book, Blood Beneath My Feet: The Journey of a Southern Death Investigator. I’m going to get to some of your calls. I am reading all of your messages. You guys have flooded me with DMs, which are not negative comments (laughing) from left wingers telling me to kill myself.

They are actually incredibly great questions that you guys are asking. Also, a lot of VIP e-mails are rolling in, so I want to hit several of these that many people are asking. There are three blondes, Joseph — and I appreciate you spending the time with us; then I’m going to get to some of your calls — three blonde girls who are the victims here. Do we think one of them might have been a target? And when it’s two or 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, it’s hard to know necessarily which of those girls is which, and so all of them get killed. Have you thought anything about that? Because in a dark environment, the pictures that I’ve seen of these girls, it might be very difficult to tell which one is which.

MORGAN: Yeah. That’s one of the reasons — and I’m glad that the caller brought this up. This is one of the reasons that I have, you know, toyed with the idea that the individual was familiar with the environment and had been there before, had visited there before. And also, two things here — and I really want to emphasize this. Two things that will kind of make your skin crawl. The fact that there’s that big panel glass windows on the back, including a slider, that if the lights are on at night, you can stand in a tree line, not be seen, and see everything that goes on in there. Finally — and probably the most horrible — is there was a TikTok video that these young girls, young women made of them imitating one another inside of their space, inside of the home where this took place.

And (chuckles) for a moment, you catch a glimpse into their lives. You catch a glimpse of their personalities, of their descriptions, what they look like. And that didn’t just go out to the people at the University of Idaho. It didn’t just go out to the people in Idaho. Clay, that went worldwide. Anybody that wanted to take a look into their lives at that moment in time could see everything on Tik Tok. They could see the staircases. They could see the common space where the kitchen was. They could see those big windows. Everything in that environment was visible, at least for a second, to everybody out there viewing.

CLAY: Do you think there could have been multiple perpetrators — this is one of the most common questions that we’re getting — as opposed to one person? Would it surprise you if there was more than one person here?

MORGAN: No, it would not surprise me. However, I think that it’s difficult for one person to keep a secret. If you’ve got two that are out there, how is one of them going to keep their mouth shut? And also, you double the probability that you’re going to leave evidence behind. Now, I think from a control standpoint, you’re trying to perpetrate multiple homicides here. And, you know, when you think about how quiet things were allegedly, there may have been one scream that was heard that had been reported. That’s certainly within the realm of possibility. I wouldn’t dismiss anything at this point. I mean, nothing. I’m not striking anybody off the list at this point, and I’m not dismissing any leads at this point. Everything must be explored to exhaustion.

CLAY: A lot of people wonder how on the first floor they didn’t hear the screaming. They weren’t aware of the murders that went on. And so that’s a big topic. We mentioned the dog, also the toxicology on the victims, how drunk they might have been, whether they might have been…

MORGAN: Right.

CLAY: These are college kids, right? They were out.

MORGAN: Yeah.

CLAY: We know they were out probably drinking like many college kids are on a Saturday night, maybe also the first floor as well. They would obviously have run toxicology on the victims. How might alcohol and or other substances that college kids might use impact the toxicology and the investigation here?

MORGAN: Well, if you’re talking about from attempting to defend yourself, it can inhibit your ability to respond. That’s for certain. And I want everybody to go back and look at the food truck video that’s floating around out there.

CLAY: Yeah.

MORGAN: One of the female victims that’s there, you can see she’s kind of got an unsteady gait as she’s walking around.

CLAY: Yep.

MORGAN: I don’t know what to read into that, but I think that that might be possibly as a result of having imbibed a bit that evening.

CLAY: No doubt.

MORGAN: So, yeah, tox is going to be very important, very important.

CLAY: We’re going to go to calls here just momentarily. Want to give you an open opportunity here.

MORGAN: (laughing)

CLAY: What have I not asked you? I used to do this when I would depose witnesses for my last question. Sometimes you get good answers. What do you wish that I had asked you that you haven’t been able to tell our audience about the particulars of this case? What else is out there?

MORGAN: I think the biggest thing right now is ask what we can do to support the efforts of investigators.

CLAY: Yes.

MORGAN: I think that that’s the most important thing. I know that sounds kind of ham handed, but the reality is this this is a tough job. It’s an extensive investigation that is, like I said, so dense in evidence. We have to. Patience is the watchword here. And don’t do anything that’s going to impede these people in any way whatsoever. If you have information, call it in and give it to them. They’re begging you for information. They’ve put up lines. They put up, you know, phone lines. They put up email addresses to send this stuff to. Submit your tips. But don’t get in the way of the investigation. I think right now, at this point, that’s the most important thing.

CLAY: You were in New Orleans and Atlanta. That’s a place where murders occur. The reports are there hasn’t been a murder in seven years in this town, Moscow, Idaho, prior to this. How difficult does that make it for investigators arriving for the first time on this scene? It’s truly an unprecedented crime scene for them. In your experience, how difficult does that make their process of beginning this investigation?

MORGAN: It makes it very difficult because if you’re not used to rolling up on a scene that is this extensive — and, let’s face it, this horrific — it’s a shock to the system and many people listen. It’s even a normal reaction for police to say, “I can’t believe what I just saw,” particularly that are not used to seeing this level of violence and other people will begin to show up — we call them “lookie-loos” — and they want to come in and take a look at the scene. Well, that’s a bad problem. You don’t know who’s coming in and out of the door before the thing is completely locked down and you lose vital evidence that way.

Also, remember, there were other friends. There were friends of these victims that were called to the residence that showed up one by one and were there. So, we don’t know what impact their presence had in the scene as well. Was anything changed? Was anything altered? And, you know, I go back to, I have a real problem with them. There were articles released from the scene because they claimed that they had “sentimental value,” Clay, all right? That walked out the door. That stuff is gone now, forever and ever, amen. I have a problem with that.

We locked down Parkland — or the authorities locked down Parkland — for years down there. After that shooting, they knew who that shooter was. And we still don’t know who did this, but yet things have left the scene because they had sentimental value. I have a problem with that. I wish they just locked the whole thing down and not given anybody any further access to it until the scene can be completed, we see this thing to the end, and possibly to court.

CLAY: There would be a tremendous amount of blood, is it fair to say, for four people to be stabbed to death like this? This this crime scene would have been just totally suffused, drenched in blood. Is that accurate?

MORGAN: Yes, it would, particularly the focal area immediately adjacent where the attack took place. I would refer to that — more than likely, based upon show-of-force injury cases I worked over the course of my career — as supersaturated with blood. It would be awash in blood.

CLAY: The killer or killers would have also been saturated in blood.

MORGAN: Yeah.

CLAY: So is this something where they basically have to burn all of their clothing in order to avoid leaving a trail? I mean, any vehicle they got into, even a trained assassin would have left all sorts of blood evidence in that vehicle as well, right — or, certainly, on the walk.

MORGAN: Yeah, you have transfer evidence, contact evidence, smears. If someone has just blood on their on their forearm… You might not… You know, people don’t think about it. When they walk through a door, maybe they’ll brush up against the facing of their door, that’s stuff that we look for. This person would have had blood on them. I’m just wondering if there were any contact transfers relative to that sort of thing and then their point of leaving the property, were there any blood trails leading out? Does any of it progress on the ground outside of the residence?

Do we have any passive dripping, like from the tip of the blade of the knife, which will see if somebody stands in one place with a supersaturated instrument in their hand, they kind of passively drop down to the floor. And we can read things into that and try to get an idea as to what happened in that moment. So, yes, they would have had certainly trace evidence that was transferred from them on to on to the victims and vice versa as well. It’s… You know, it goes back to Locard’s Principle. It’s over a hundred years old. That says, “Every contact leaves a trace.” That’s our touchstone in forensics, that’s what we live by, and that holds true in this case. “Every contact leaves a trace.” No matter what you do, where you’ve been, where you’re going, you’re going to leave something of yourself behind. And yeah, the person would have been covered in blood.

CLAY: In your experience in Atlanta and New Orleans, we’re now into a sixth week. What do you think the chances are that we capture whoever did this?

MORGAN: I think that there is still a very high probability because, look, we’ve got four victims. That means that you have — just based upon the deaths alone, you have — four opportunities that trace evidence that can be tied back to a potential perpetrator was left on each one of those victims. Your chances, I think, increase exponentially. It all depends. You know, the science is fine. You know, we’re going to call the boys down at the lab, you know, that kind of thing. And we can process all of the biological evidence, the trace evidence and all that sort of thing.

But what this is going to come down to, Clay, at the end of the day is going to be good old fashioned shoe leather. Getting out there, knocking on doors, having interviews. And here’s one of the weird things about this case, one of the odd things, is that, you know, I’m a college professor, and so I understand that a college environment is a transient environment because the people that go to school there don’t live there full time. When people bolted after that word went out that this had occurred, did you know that probably I think they said that less than 50% of the student body returned after Thanksgiving break?

CLAY: Yeah.

MORGAN: And some of those kids are not coming back, and you know if you’ve ever interviewed anybody, an eye-to-eye interview is the most important thing. How much information did those kids take with them that left the campus that the police are never going to be able to have a sit down with them face to face? And time is whittling now. You know, the freshness of their memories, all that sort of stuff is beginning to diminish. They’ve got to get out there, talk to these people, and keep knocking on doors, is what I would say.

CLAY: Last question — and by the way, so many people called in. Our staff has been funneling your questions to me. So, I’m asking everything that people are calling in. Do you think the killer is still in that vicinity or does it feel to you like someone who would have been transient and left the community based on the evidence that is out there in public?

MORGAN: I think that they may have bolted as well, but I think that they had a very strong familiarity with this environment, with the environment of the scene and with this little town in Idaho. And this is not a town you wind up in by accident. It is a town that exists in isolation. It sits along a major interstate highway. But you just don’t show up here by accident. This is a place you have to have a purpose to be. It’s a beautiful little college town where a lot of people have gone to college over the years, and they love it. It’s gorgeous up there. But you don’t wound up there by accident. This person knew this place and they knew it well, and they knew it well enough to single out this one house that’s in this back area of a Fraternity Row that’s kind of hidden and sequestered. I don’t know that the victims were targeted here. I think that the residence probably was. You have to take both of those things into consideration when you’re trying to solve this.

CLAY: Who would you tell? Obviously, Joseph Scott Morgan. We’re going to share your information for people to be able to follow. Who else to you is worth following on this case if people are super intrigued and want to stay up to date on it?

MORGAN: I would say probably Brian Entin more than likely. He’s over at NewsNation. He’s been on top of this. He’s on the ground day after day after day, every single day out there, and probably Angenette Levy with Law & Crime. Both of them are doing stellar work, kind of reporting from the scene. You see them out there. Those are the two people I would direct, you know, to get to get kind of ground — you know, the information from the ground. They’re out there (chuckling), you know, in the cold with their, you know, their headgear on in their heavy coats and all of that sort of thing, reporting from the same day in and day out.

CLAY: This has been outstanding. You were only scheduled to be on with us for one segment. We got so much reaction — and frankly, you can tell by all my questions, I really appreciate the time that you are spending with us. He has been Joseph Scott Morgan, distinguished scholar of applied forensics, Jacksonville, Alabama; a former senior investigator both in New Orleans and in Atlanta; host of the Body Bags podcast on iHeart. Thank you so much, sir.

MORGAN: You bet, Clay, and, hey, Merry Christmas to you, buddy.

CLAY: Merry Christmas to you and your family as well and to everybody out there listening also.