Mayhem in The Morgue: Fame, Fourth Graders, and Darth Vader
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace
iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline
4.2 • 8.1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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What happens when a classroom of fourth graders learns that their guest speaker once autopsied a Star Wars actor? In this episode of Mayhem in the Morgue, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kendall Crowns recounts his career day presentations, the bizarre questions kids love to ask, and the one time he was derailed by a child named Monty. From explaining forensic pathology to grade schoolers to calming a room full of kids convinced that Darth Vader actually killed someone, this story shows that sometimes the toughest crowd is not in a courtroom, but a classroom.
Highlights
- (0:00) Welcome to Mayhem in the Morgue with Dr. Kendall Crowns
- (0:15) Career days and the mission to spread forensic pathology
- (1:00) How to make autopsy talk school friendly
- (2:15) Spielberg, Jaws, and the art of showing just enough
- (4:00) The bizarre questions kids ask
- (5:00) "Who is the most famous person you have autopsied?”
- (5:30) The Star Wars actor autopsy story
- (6:45) Chaos breaks out in the classroom
- (8:00) Monty vs. logic, round one
- (8:15) “Darth Vader gave him cancer,” Monty strikes again
- (9:00) Teacher to the rescue
- (9:45) Lessons learned about grade schoolers
About the Host: Dr. Kendall Crowns
Dr. Crowns is the Chief Medical Examiner for Travis County, Texas, and a nationally recognized forensic pathologist. He las led death investigations in Travis County, Fort Worth, Chicago, and Kansas. Over his career, he has performed thousands of autopsies and testified in court hundreds of times as an expert witness. A frequent contributor to Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, Dr. Crowns brings unparalleled insight into the strange, grisly, and sometimes absurd realities of forensic pathology.
About the Show
Mayhem in the Morgue takes listeners inside the bloody, bizarre, and often unbelievable world of forensic pathology. Hosted by Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kendall Crowns, each episode delivers real-life cases from the morgue, the crime scene, and the courtroom. Expect gallows humor, hard truths, and unforgettable investigations, ranging from courtroom drama to deaths that even seasoned pathologists struggle to explain.
Connect and Learn More
Learn more about Dr. Kendall Crowns on Linkedin, catch him regularly on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace and follow Mayhem in the Morgue where you get your podcasts.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:04.2 | Today's episode discusses the death of an individual. |
| 0:07.6 | If this type of information upsets you, this is not the show for you. |
| 0:12.7 | Welcome to Mayhem in the morning with your host, Dr. Kendall Crowns. |
| 0:24.4 | Over. Dr. Kendall Cairns. Over a decade ago, I started doing career days at my children's schools. |
| 0:29.1 | I did this in part to hang out with my kids and see them at school and maybe go out to lunch with them. |
| 0:34.5 | But my other reason was to tell people about the field of forensic pathology. |
| 0:38.5 | Not a lot of people even fully realize what forensic pathologists do beyond what they've seen on TV, |
| 0:44.0 | and they really don't know much about medical examiners. When I tell people I'm a medical examiner, |
| 0:48.9 | a lot of people think I work in the meat industry, expecting meat, like for the FDA. Other people think I work for funeral homes |
| 0:56.4 | as an embalmer. People also think I'm a coroner, and a lot of people don't even realize I have a |
| 1:01.7 | medical degree. I've had numerous career days where students were shocked to find out how much |
| 1:07.4 | education they needed to become a forensic pathologist. I've even had medical students |
| 1:12.1 | tell me in their last year of medical school that they had no idea of forensic pathology existed |
| 1:16.5 | and wished they had known about it when they got into medical school because they would |
| 1:20.2 | have taken steps to go into forensic pathology instead of the career that they had chose to go into. |
| 1:25.3 | The thing about it is, is there is a shortage nationwide of |
| 1:28.4 | forensic pathologists. There are only 400 to 500 board-certified pathologists in the United States, |
| 1:34.5 | and every year more and more are retiring, and not enough new forensic pathologists are graduating |
| 1:39.2 | to keep up with the loss. After four years of med school, it is another three to four years |
| 1:43.8 | of residency |
| 1:44.4 | in a year of subspecialization to become a forensic pathologist. It takes longer to create a forensic |
... |
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