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Game of Crimes

237: Pt 1: NYC's Top Death Investigator Reveals What She Saw

Game of Crimes

Game of Crimes

True Crime

4.81.5K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2026

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Murph sits down with Barbara Butcher, a former medical legal investigator for the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.  After navigating the counterculture era, battling Alzheimer's patients' suffering, and becoming a physician assistant, a life-changing interview with the Chief Medical Examiner set her on a new path. "Forget the money, do what you love." She did, and through forensic science and crime scene investigations, Barbara spent decades investigating homicides, suspicious deaths, and humanity's darkest moments alongside the NYPD. Enjoy these true crime stories.

Transcript

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0:00.0

A medical examiner can be doing an autopsy on a guy who's got a gunshot wound to the head.

0:06.7

But what he doesn't know is, is it a homicide, a suicide, or an accident?

0:11.6

Forensic pathologists, they don't go to scenes.

0:14.3

They can't leave an autopsy in the middle of it and go out and look at somebody.

0:17.7

That's my job.

0:18.6

I go to the scene of death and I examine the body.

0:22.7

I examine the circumstances and the surroundings. I work with the police to determine the context for

0:32.1

the death. I'm Steve Murphy, DEA Special Agent Retired and now host of the Game of Crimes podcast.

0:38.1

If you've seen the Netflix series Narcos, then you know my story.

0:42.6

I now bring you stories of heroism and bravery from our law enforcement and military heroes

0:47.9

and occasionally from the criminals that they faced.

0:51.9

Welcome to Game of Crimes.

1:04.5

Music criminals that they faced. Welcome to Game of Crimes. Hey, gang, welcome back to this week's episode of Game of Crimes with Murph in the

1:08.5

morning. Got another fantastic guest with us today.

1:11.8

And this one is a little bit different. But before we get into that, just want to say,

1:15.5

thank you so much for continuing to come back every week. You folks, I tell you what, you're the

1:20.2

only reason I do this because there's no money in it, but it's worth doing. The individuals that I

1:26.0

bring on here go through things that protect all of us

1:30.1

so that we don't have to go through those things. And this one today, oh my gosh, I read her book.

1:36.1

And I've seen some stuff in my 38 years of law enforcement, but I haven't seen anything like this lady's seen.

1:42.9

So very quickly, if you haven't checked us out on Patreon yet, Game of Crimes has a Patreon channel. Just go over to patreon.com slash Game of Crimes. We've got some serious stuff on there. We've got some silly stuff on there, but we have a lot of fun. Also, you'll get four-day early access to the audio portion of each week's episode. And so one of the things I can do for you.

2:02.4

So come on over and check us out.

...

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