Decompositional Changes: Rookie Cop Thinks Man Was Murdered with Hatchet!

Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan

CrimeOnline and iHeartPodcasts

True Crime

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Joseph Scott Morgan puts on his teachers cap and explains Decompositional changes and what really happens in the first minutes, hours, and days after death and tells the story of a rookie cop doing a simple welfare check calls for backup after finding a victim dead in his tv chair. The still wet behind the ears cop thinks the victim was killed with a hatchet, but all of the blood and body fluid appearing on the victims' shirt is not from a hatchet, the man had a heart attack. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack talk about the disintegration of body tissues after death, known as decomposition as well as the two processes of Decomposition and how important these processes will be in the upcoming trial of Bryan Kohberger for the murders of four college students in Idaho.

Transcript Highlights
00:03.14 Introduction

01:34.93 Professor Morgan is ready to teach

04:44.28 Reason for understanding decomposition

09:51.60 Can't always see it, but you can smell it

14:43.12 People dying on toilets

19:01.43 Disintegration, breaking down what is organic

24:31.13 Autolysis and Putrefaction

29:35.64 Body decomposing

34:59.98 Rigor mortis leaves, body becomes flaccid

40:12.40 Toes and fingers dry out

44:32.69 Natural Death looks like a murder

45:35.23 Conclusion

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:05.5	Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Moore.
0:10.0	For the general public, I think that what defines my profession, the first thing that pops onto the radar is not necessarily injuries, you know, horrible trauma, sadness, grief, all of those sorts of things.
0:27.8	The one question that people seem to ask me all the time is, how is it that you deal with being around decomposing human remains?
0:42.3	That's not necessarily a one-size-fits-all question.
0:47.9	It is something that I learned to do over a protracted period of time.
0:53.8	Now, don't misunderstand me. I never got
0:57.6	completely used to it. I think that all of you out there would probably think that I was an
1:03.1	absolute lunatic if I said that I had. However, you do build up somewhat of a callous to it after
1:09.8	a time.
1:11.2	But today, we're going to discuss human decomposition.
1:17.5	And I'm going to kind of give you an insight from my perspective of death investigation.
1:24.5	So hold on to your hats because classes in with Professor Morgan.
1:29.8	I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks.
1:35.5	Brother Dave, good to be back with you, man.
1:39.1	I've been on my world tour, man, all over Europe and hitting spots in Paris and Amsterdam and Liverpool.
1:49.7	I was going to ask you if you met any Liverpoolians.
1:52.2	You know, I did meet a few Liverpoolians.
1:57.1	Pudlians, puddlians, puddians.
1:59.3	You know, the documentary called the Beatles,
2:01.7	because they're complete Beatles.
2:04.0	And the guy Jerry and the pacemakers,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 24 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from CrimeOnline and iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of CrimeOnline and iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.