237: Pt 2: She Investigated Ground Zero After the Towers Fell

Game of Crimes

True Crime

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2026

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Veteran New York City Medical Examiner investigator Barbara Butcher, who was one of the first forensic professionals to enter Ground Zero, continues discussing her amazing career as she reveals the raw, emotional reality of working the largest victim identification operation in American history. Barbara shares the surreal moment she entered a city buried in smoke and ash, and what it was really like sorting through remains to give grieving families the answers they desperately needed.

First responders, forensic investigators, and volunteers from across America worked around the clock — driven by compassion, duty, and an unbreakable commitment to honoring every single victim. Hear firsthand how these heroes coped with trauma, exhaustion, and heartbreak — yet never stopped. This is a story of resilience, sacrifice, and humanity in America's darkest hours.

This is Game of Crimes — real stories from the people who lived them!!

Transcript

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0:00.0	When I was in training, I was watching the autopsy of an eight-year-old girl who'd been smothered and strangled over a $50 bag of cocaine, horrible case.
0:12.3	And I asked the forensic pathologist, I said, how do you do this every day?
0:16.5	How do you see this tragedy and still go home and go on?
0:19.6	She said, Barbara, what you have to do every
0:21.9	single day. When you leave here, you surround yourself with things of beauty, art, nature, music,
0:28.8	love, food, everything that's beautiful in the world because only beauty will counteract
0:35.0	the horror, the death, despair, and destruction that you will experience every day.
0:40.6	I'm Steve Murphy, DEA Special Agent Retired and now host of the Game of Crimes podcast.
0:45.6	If you've seen the Netflix series Narcos, then you know my story.
0:50.1	I now bring you stories of heroism and bravery from our law enforcement and military heroes
0:55.4	and occasionally from the criminals that they faced.
0:59.2	Welcome to Game of Crimes.
1:14.5	You folks came back again today.
1:18.0	Thank goodness, because, man, this is one of the best interviews.
1:22.0	I shouldn't say that because all the interviews we do here on Game of Crimes.
1:25.5	But this one is so different, I'm truly enjoying this.
1:27.6	I'm learning a ton, not that it's going to help me now that I've been retired for a number of years, but it's answering a lot of questions. Our guest, again, today is
1:34.1	Barbara Butcher, who has her book out, What the Dead Know. At the end of this interview today,
1:41.2	I will show you where you can get the books, Amazon, like everybody
1:45.0	else, but we're going to talk about some other things.
1:47.4	She was a death investigator for the medical examiner's office in New York, amongst many
1:52.2	other occupations that she's had throughout her life, including being a forensic scientist.
	...

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