Mayhem in the Morgue | H.R. Huffing Stuff
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace
iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline
4.2 • 8.2K Ratings
🗓️ 21 June 2026
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Everyday household products can be used to get high. Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kendall Crowns explains how substances like spray paint, canned air, Freon, and other chemicals affect the nervous system, limit oxygen, and sometimes trigger fatal heart rhythms. Through cases involving whipped cream canisters, dental nitrous oxide, hairspray, and jenkem, Dr. Crowns shows why these deaths can be difficult to diagnose, often leaving few obvious autopsy findings and relying heavily on scene investigation and toxicology.
Episodes Mentioned:
Mayhem in the Morgue | Foraging Misadventures
Mayhem in the Morgue | Minty Fresh
Highlights:
(0:00) Welcome to Mayhem in the Morgue with Dr. Kendall Crowns
(0:15) Huffing, bored teenagers, and the pre-internet search for ways to get high
(4:30) What huffing means and why inhaling chemical vapors can be deadly
(5:15) The household products commonly abused as inhalants and how these chemicals affect the brain
(7:15) Spray paint, “chromers, ” and the autopsy clues that can point to toluene exposure
(9:00) Canned air cases and the unusual scene findings investigators often encounter
(10:15) Nitrous oxide abuse, a dentist found dead in his chair, whipped cream cans, and whip-its
(15:30) How plastic bags increase the risk of asphyxiation and the lasting damage caused by chronic nitrous oxide abuse
(17:15) Freon, frostbite injuries, and sudden sniffing death syndrome
(20:30) A hairspray huffing death with misleading alcohol levels in the vitreous fluid
(23:00) A 17-year-old found dead in a bathtub, a bottle found at the scene, and Dr. Crowns’ firsthand jenkem case
(29:00) Hydrogen sulfide toxicity, drowning, and Dr. Crowns’ closing advice
About the Host
Dr. Kendall Crowns is the Chief Medical Examiner for Travis County, Texas, and a nationally recognized forensic pathologist. He has 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 sharp medical insight and dark humor to the often misunderstood realities of forensic pathology.
About the Show
Mayhem in the Morgue takes listeners into 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.
Connect and Learn More
You can learn more about Dr. Kendall Crowns on LinkedIn and follow Mayhem in the Morgue on TikTok at @mayheminthemorgue. Catch him regularly on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and be sure to follow Mayhem in the Morgue wherever you get your podcasts.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:03.4 | Guaranteed human. |
| 0:05.3 | Today's episode includes information about the deaths of individuals. |
| 0:09.2 | If this sort of thing upsets you, this is not the episode for you. |
| 0:13.1 | May I suggest you watch a movie, maybe something like Mad Max Fury Road. |
| 0:18.7 | Welcome to Mayhem in the morning with your host, Dr. Kendall Crows. |
| 0:28.6 | Today's episode, H.R. Huffing Stuff. Last century before the existence of the internet, people would have to figure things out by going to the library or just by trial and error. |
| 0:41.7 | No matter what the topic was, you had to put some effort into it to find the information out. |
| 0:47.1 | And I have friends that would spend their day researching and trying to figure out ways to get drunk or high. |
| 0:54.0 | I've talked about them before on episodes like foraging misadventures |
| 0:58.4 | when they were trying to lick toads, |
| 1:00.7 | and the Listerine drinker on the episode Mint E Fresh, |
| 1:04.3 | and today I will be talking about some of them again. |
| 1:07.7 | The question I always get asked is, |
| 1:09.8 | Why did I hang out with people like this if I didn't |
| 1:12.6 | do drugs or drink? And the answer is, in school, I didn't fit in with any particular group completely, |
| 1:19.2 | but I favored the non-judgmentalness of the heavy metal enthusiasts and the stoners. And these are the |
| 1:25.2 | groups of friends that were constantly trying to get high. |
| 1:28.2 | Why did I hang out with them? Well, people often thought I was high because I was always tired. |
| 1:33.8 | I fell asleep a lot in class, and my eyes always look sleepy, and people still think I look high to this day. |
| 1:41.7 | The reality is, I always got up every day at 4 a.m. to throw papers with my dad, |
| 1:47.5 | and I also often didn't go to bed before 11 p.m. because I was working on schoolwork. So on |
... |
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