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Aug. 22, 2023 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von

02:29:14

E459 A Coroner

On this episode of This Past Weekend, Theo Von chats with coroner Toby Savoy about what it’s like being a death investigator in today’s world. They talk about about why he got into the business of corpses, the job no rookie wants to get, bloated bodies in the bayou, his take on the opioid crisis, what he’s learned after 18 years on the job, and why you can never really trust your cat… ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ Babbel: Go to http://babbel.com/theo to get up to 55% off your subscription. Factor: Go to http://factormeals.com/theo50 and use code theo50 to get 50% off. BlueChew: Go to http://bluechew.com and use code THEO to receive your first month FREE - just pay $5 shipping. Hexclad: Find your forever cookware @hexclad and get 10% off with promo code theo at http://hexclad.com/theo! #hexcladpartner BetterHelp: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp — go to http://betterhelp.com/theo to get 10% off your first month. DraftKings: Download the DraftKings SportsBook app and use code THEO. New customers can score $200 in bonus bets instantly when you bet just $5 on any college football bet. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler. In New York, call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPE NY (467369). In West Virginia, visit w w w dot 1 800 gambler dot net. In partnership with Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races All games regulated by the West Virginia Lottery. Please play responsibly. In Connecticut, Help is available for problem gambling call 888-789-7777 or visit c c p g dot org. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS). 21+ in most eligible states but age varies by jurisdiction. See draftkings dot com slash sportsbook for details and state specific responsible gambling resources. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. Eligibility and deposit restrictions apply. Terms at sportsbook dot draftkings dot com slash football terms. ------------------------------------------------- Music: "Shine" by Bishop Gunn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek&ab_channel=BishopGunn ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers/ Producer: Ben https://www.instagram.com/benbeckermusic/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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	You've waited all year.
	You know it.
	Because that's how long it takes.
	If you want to get through a year, you got to wait a year.
	That's clockwork, baby.
	But college football is back, and so are the traditions, the tailgates, and the great offers from DraftKings Sportsbook.
	Yep.
	Kick off the season with DraftKings Sportsbook.
	Download the app now and use code Theo.
	New customers can score $200 in bonus bets instantly when they bet just $5 on any college football bet only on DraftKings Sportsbook with code Theo.com call Wayne Riggambler in New York.
	Call 877-8-H-O-P-E-N-Y or text HOPE-NY-467-369.
	In West Virginia, visit www.1800gambler.net.
	In partnership with Hollywood Casino at Charlestown Races, all games regulated by the West Virginia Lottery.
	Please play responsibly and connect with help is available for problem gambling.
	Call 887977777 or the CCPG.org.
	I'm happy to help you with cancer, and most other states vary directly.
	The DFANS got comfortable with the list of conclusions.
	Turn to sportsbook.
	All right.
	I have some new tour dates to announce.
	We've just added a third show in Milwaukee on September 9th at the Riverside Theater.
	Tickets for that are on sale now.
	I'll also be in Oakland, California, Akron, Ohio, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Nevada.
	Some of those have new shows.
	Those are all at theovan.com slash T-O-U-R.
	And thank you so much for your support.
	New merch for you merch heads out there.
	We've got some new shorts.
	That's right, the Rat Life shorts in blue, salmon, and sand.
	We've also got the new tie-dye, be good to yourself teas in Aqua, Creamsicle, and Indigo.
	Get that and more only at TheovonStore.com.
	Today's guest is a Doctor of Death, baby.
	He's that coroner.
	And he's that death man.
	He sits right there on the doorstep of the devil.
	And when the buzzer rings, he answers it.
	He's based out of Lafayette, Louisiana.
	And they got it all going down there.
	All type of death happening.
	And he's going to tell us more about it.
	I'm grateful for his time today.
	He's 18 years in the profession.
	Today's guest is Mr. Toby Savoie.
	Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song I'll be singing I'm gonna stay Shine on me
	I'm sitting here with a coroner today, Mr. Toby Savois.
	And you are a coroner.
	I am actually a death investigator for the coroner's office.
	The coroner is somewhat of a political position.
	It involves being a doctor.
	So we have a doctor that's a coroner over our parish.
	And then the majority of the work's done by death investigators like myself.
	Now, in Louisiana, they know you as the coroner.
	Just, you know, it's too hard to break down medical death investigator versus coroner or coroner's office.
	Oh, it's too hard to break down a good oyster dressing recipe over there for somebody.
	That's right.
	You know what I'm saying?
	You put too much information on somebody in Louisiana, they're going to start punching.
	That's right.
	Especially at a time of death.
	They're not registering all that.
	So we go with coroner's office.
	But we are legally death investigators.
	Okay.
	So when does someone call a coroner?
	And what is a coroner death investigator?
	I'm going to call it a coroner for the episode.
	That's fine.
	Okay.
	What is a coroner?
	So a coroner is an elected position.
	But what we do is we go out when someone dies or we're called every time someone dies that lives within our parish.
	Okay, or county.
	Or county.
	In Louisiana, it's parishes.
	So we're called if it's a natural case or if it's a homicide, suicide, any of the manners of death.
	There's different rules for people that may not be from Louisiana or from our city and state.
	If it's a natural cause, it would go back to that state of residence.
	But anytime it's an accident or just your general natural death, it comes to us.
	We have to pick up the phone and decide, you know, is this natural causes or is there foul play?
	We work closely with police.
	Okay.
	So the police give you a call.
	That's right.
	We get a call from the sheriff's office, the local city police, hospitals, nursing homes.
	And they say, Toby, we got a.
	Yeah, we have a case.
	We have a...
	But in the coroner's office, it's subject.
	So we have a subject here who's an 86-year-old laying in bed.
	Okay.
	And so then I know what questions to ask and how to pick the case apart.
	And do you guys physically go to the scene?
	We do.
	Not all scenes.
	I mean, if it's an 80-year-old who's on hypertension medicine and blood pressure medicine, heart medication.
	That's a gimme.
	Yeah.
	That, you know, has a really, really history of medical history.
	We don't necessarily have to go out for those.
	The police are there to call foul play.
	Right.
	But if they're laying in bed and they were found by their spouse, you know, it's normally a natural case.
	If they see something that may look suspicious, then we will go out.
	All right.
	But for the majority of the naturals, we don't.
	We can release those by phone and direct them to a funeral home.
	Not even a Zoom.
	You don't even have to do Zoom or nothing?
	Nothing.
	No, we just take the call, get the information.
	We still investigate the death, but we don't have to go out for everyone.
	Okay.
	So when you do go out, do you take like a toolkit with you?
	Or what do you guys, is there like, what do you bring with you?
	How do you approach a scene?
	Like if it's a death or a subject.
	So we have a bag of gear that we use.
	Now, in Louisiana, we're a poor state and a poor parish.
	When I started, they gave me a can of off and a badge.
	Really?
	Said, tell us when they did.
	No, I'm teasing.
	Oh, dad.
	But basically, basically, we go out.
	So we have tools that we use on scene.
	We need a flashlight to see around sometimes.
	The biggest thing that we do on scene after investigating the scene, which goes into a lot of things, we'll do toxicology.
	We'll draw blood.
	If the person suspected overdose or overdose might be a possibility.
	And most of the overdoses, by the way, are accidental overdoses.
	People hear OD and they think intentional.
	So, if we think drugs were involved, we'll bring a spinal needle or just a regular syringe.
	We can draw blood out of the heart, which is like a pulp fiction scene, the movie with the long spinal needle.
	Y'all go right in.
	We go right in the heart.
	There's no pulse.
	So, getting blood out of veins when they're deceased is not a thing that we can do.
	So, we take blood from the heart or we can go in through the side of the eye.
	And that's called vitriol fluid.
	And how much is in the eye?
	So, we get about, you know, four cc's out of the eye.
	It's not always.
	Some have more than others.
	Really?
	But we'll go in and we'll tap in through the side of the eye.
	Oh, you're not into the eyeball.
	Yeah, I'm into the eyeball.
	So I take a two or three inch long needle and I go in at a horizontal angle just to puncture it, and then I aspirate the fluid out of there.
	That's in the eye.
	That's in the eye.
	Yeah.
	So that's toxicology.
	And when you're getting it out the eyeball, there's less of a chance that it could clot up because we send these specimens to forensic toxicology labs.
	So when you're going through the heart and the lungs, sometimes it can have blood clots in it and other things, and they may not be able to perform the test.
	99.9% of them with blood are fine, but it is nice having that.
	And the heart's not always easy to find, whether it could be a car accident.
	They could have some major crushing going on in the chest.
	It could be a gunshot wound where there's no blood left in the heart that we can get.
	So the eye is a second option.
	And then if that doesn't work, we can actually put a slit in the belly and pull out a piece of liver and send part of their liver off to a lab to be analyzed.
	So we have a syringe with several different size needles and tools to use if we have to cut into them to grab liver to send off.
	And so that's all for taking toxicology?
	That's right.
	Okay.
	And what deaths determine toxicology?
	So you said if it seems like a natural death, you guys can almost do it over the phone.
	Right.
	If it's not, if it's a different type of death where there could have been a homicide or an accident, then you want to show up and do toxicology?
	Correct.
	And we do more than toxicology.
	We're investigating the scene, everything around it, the home.
	Oh.
	I mean, we have to, we look at everything, not only the body, but the surroundings.
	A lot of times that'll paint a picture of what's going on with that individual case.
	For instance, I had a case where the deputy was new.
	He thought it was suspicious because the 80-year-old wife woke up and noticed her spouse was cold.
	And the timeline on that case, the deputy said, he's really cold and she's just finding him.
	Well, that's natural.
	You know, you're sleeping.
	You may not notice your significant other is cold to the touch until.
	Yeah, especially if you don't have any type of intimate relationship.
	Right.
	Well, you're 80 years old.
	You've been sleeping together for 50 years, you know.
	But he thought it was suspicious.
	So in that regard, I went out and said, no, she just rolled over and noticed that he was cold.
	There's no foul play here.
	This 80-year-old lady didn't whack her husband, you know, after marriage for 50 years.
	And if she did without showing signs of any trauma, then good for her.
	You know, they've been married for way too long.
	But no, so some natural.
	Yeah, at some point, you got to give her the benefit of the doubt.
	Yeah, yeah.
	We'll go out when they question something.
	Like, so say on a scene, are the police or sheriffs, are they happy to see you?
	Or do you sometimes, do they think, oh, this guy tries to contradict what we think usually?
	No, no, they really like when we come out.
	A lot of times detectives will wait to hear if we're responding.
	If we're responding, then there could be something abnormal.
	Then detectives will also come.
	Different agencies use their detectives in different ways.
	Some respond to all, others don't.
	It just depends on the time and place.
	But there are many difficult scenes to respond on.
	But they're looking to us to help them rule out foul play and other things like that.
	Because you guys have separate training than they do.
	Correct.
	We're medicine-based.
	They're law enforcement-based.
	Although those guys really do a good job, especially the ones that have been there a while.
	Sometimes they'll call things that I may have not noticed yet, and they'll say, hey, what about this?
	And they'll also give us a description of what went on.
	They can look at the history of that subject to see, this person's been arrested several times for drug abuse or domestic violence, et cetera.
	So they're giving us information that we can use on that scene and on that investigation.
	Yeah, so take me through like an interesting call that's coming in, you know, especially down there in Louisiana.
	Dang.
	You know, I knew people that could, you know, they couldn't learn the alphabet and they took their own life.
	That's right.
	We see a lot of that.
	You know, there's a lot of preventable deaths that we can talk about.
	But, you know, a typical call in Louisiana is anything from heart disease, suicide, OD.
	But to be more specific, we've had many that they find a body floating in the bayou.
	That can be different, you know, because they've been exposed to water.
	So, you know, they may be bloated more.
	Some of the surface evidence or the trace evidence that we use is not there because they've been floating.
	You can see where turtles and other animals in the water have nipped at them.
	Oh, yeah.
	So it can be somewhat gruesome and then hard to tell, you know, why are they in this water?
	You know, they're dressed in regular street clothes.
	They weren't, you know, they weren't swimming.
	They weren't fishing.
	And they're in the water.
	Sometimes people OD and their friends have no clue what to do with them, so they throw them into the bayou.
	Sometimes these guys are just, you know, hanging out and they slip and fall and hit their head or they pass out.
	You know, we don't always know what got them to the bayou.
	Now, how do those bodies look if you roll up on a bot?
	Because I've always wanted to find a deceased body.
	I think a lot of people have.
	Bucket list of mine.
	I see them every day, but I've never rolled up on one.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It is.
	Why is that a bucket list thing for people?
	I don't know, but it happens often.
	I had a guy cutting the grass at a rent house and found a body.
	Did he get any intel or he just got lucky?
	No, he just got lucky.
	He was cutting grass and boom, he found that body.
	A lot of times if you work and stay focused and you keep working towards, I mean, you know, it's better than some lazy dude who's doing nothing finding a body.
	At least that guy's out there doing something.
	But when that lazy person finds a body, you got a question.
	How'd you find this body?
	We had one recently that was just a driver was passing by, and there was a lady in the ditch.
	Now, what was interesting was her arms were removed.
	She was a Mexican female.
	Damn, that's interesting.
	So they removed her arms because of her tattoos.
	So this was a killer dude.
	This was a hit job, correct.
	And they didn't want her identified.
	So they see this in a ditch and they call us.
	And then we got to figure out, well, where's the arms?
	So there's interesting cases like that where people just, you know, they right time, right place, and they find bodies.
	And so you say, did you roll up on that scene with no arms?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	So when you get there, what's going on?
	Like, are people milling around?
	Is somebody, you know, like, what's the scene like when you roll up on it?
	Well, in that regard, there's no families present.
	You know, it's different than most.
	You know, it's a lot of sheriffs standing around looking at the dead body.
	Now, we have jurisdiction on that body, and legally, they're not supposed to touch that body until we get there.
	Okay.
	So, of course, I would get there, look at the scene, you know, to try to find out, does she have family around here?
	What's she doing in this area?
	She's not from here.
	They'll do an investigation.
	The law enforcement will do an investigation on their part.
	And then I'll start looking at the body for obvious signs of foul play.
	And in this regard, she had no arms.
	So we knew something wasn't right.
	And it wasn't like an alligator or an animal came out and removed her arms.
	This was intentional.
	Wow.
	You know, so in that case, we would get them to an autopsy.
	Oh, yeah.
	And do you look for the arms or you just think, just kind of put a note like keep an eye out for arms or whatever?
	Like, what do y'all do about the arms?
	You don't worry about it.
	Well, the sheriff's office and law enforcement.
	They worry about that.
	They worry about that.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	I mean, of course, we all look around the scene to see if we find anything because there could be evidence on those arms.
	But many times they go, you know, unfound.
	Oh, gosh, it'd be crazy.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I had a guy find a foot once.
	It was from a fatality, but they called me, and this was, you know, weeks later.
	Hey, we found a foot.
	Would you come pick it up?
	They don't want to touch it even.
	So I throw a bag in my car and I go grab a foot.
	It's a different lifestyle, you know?
	Yeah.
	If I get pulled over, yeah, carrying anything?
	Yeah, man, I got a foot in my car.
	Yeah, bro.
	I got a 10 and a half in the trunk.
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	Dude, that's wild, man.
	Yeah, that's interesting.
	And do you put that foot in the trunk?
	You put it in the back seat.
	What do you do?
	Yeah, well, in that case, I figured it would be pretty gnarly.
	So I actually brought a disposable ice chest and packed it in there and then got it to the funeral home that they brought her body to.
	She may have been sent to cremation, but either way, the funeral home would take care of that body part.
	And I've traveled with worse.
	You know, in Louisiana, it doesn't snow often.
	We had a case years ago where it was an infant death.
	And the autopsy place is about an hour and a half away from where we live or where we work in our parish.
	So they had a baby that had passed away.
	And they asked, hey, it was snowing really bad.
	Hey, can you meet us halfway with this child?
	And I'm in my personal car.
	I'm like, sure.
	So the baby, of course, is in a body bag.
	So I'm driving down the highway with a baby in my body.
	And how big is that body bag?
	I mean, it's like a gallon or something.
	My big baby.
	Well, it's like a duffel bag for a baby.
	Oh, yeah.
	But, you know, again, you get pulled over, and I have an unmarked car.
	I'm in street clothes or normally scrubs.
	And, you know, what are you carrying?
	At least you're not in a Miata or something.
	Yeah.
	You get pulled over in a Miata and you got a baby in a duffel bag, bro.
	I kind of went over the speed limit just to kind of maybe, man, if I could only get pulled over here, you know, it would be an interesting case.
	Oh, that'd be fast.
	But no, you know, it's sad when we lose babies like that.
	But the fact of the matter is the baby needed to go to autopsy.
	And we'll do anything we can to assist in that regard.
	And if it meant driving through the snow 30, 45 minutes, you know, we'll do that.
	Yeah.
	That's some of the things that we do to help.
	So your responsibility then, you feel a responsibility to determine how people died.
	Is that it?
	Correct.
	We figure out why they died.
	We put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
	Okay.
	Some are cut and dry.
	You know, we can look at their medication, their age.
	You know, do they smoke, drink?
	How much do they weigh?
	Are they unhealthy?
	You can tell that by their homes, too.
	I mean, so I'm a Cajun investigator, right?
	The first thing I look at is their fridge.
	I don't even look at the body.
	I walk in the house and I open the fridge.
	Wow.
	And, you know, when there's pizza bones and a spoon in a jar of beans and maybe some rotten Popeyes and a couple of 40-ounce beers, I know this person wasn't living a healthy lifestyle.
	I know this person was listening in a mystical, too.
	That's right.
	That's right.
	So I'm thinking heart disease from the get-go.
	So, you know, again, we look at their home, the cleanliness, the order of their home.
	You can tell how people live.
	So a lot of times the body is a reflection of its environment that it lives in.
	Absolutely.
	Wow.
	So I was called to one case where the deputies said, this case is unusual.
	We'd like you to come out.
	And so then I go out and they had noticed some blood dripping on the floor, bloodstains.
	Out of the body?
	No, just on the floor.
	Okay, that's all they'd noticed.
	Right.
	They saw that.
	And then the body was an adult male on a couch.
	Okay.
	So I walk into the house and I mean, we're reading everything the minute we get on scene.
	Even what friends and family are there, how do they look, who's their neighbors, what area they live in.
	So I walk into the house, and this was kind of in the country.
	And the first thing I see is he had Mickey's Malt Liquor memorabilia everywhere.
	So I said, okay, okay, I like this guy style.
	He's a middle-aged guy.
	Yeah, he's a cap of SI, probably.
	Yeah.
	So I'm looking at that, and then I asked the detectives to show me where the bloodstains are.
	Well, I go and I look, and there was some cobwebs over the door.
	So I could tell that that home hadn't, that that area of the house hadn't been used just from the cobwebs And stuff there.
	But when I opened the fridge, there was an intact hog's head in the fridge with fur on it.
	Ooh.
	I mean, that's odd, you know.
	And then, so then I look in the oven, and the guy's making cracklings in an oven.
	Now, if you've ever made cracklings, you know, you're stirring those in grease.
	When you're baking cracklings on a Tuesday night and you save the hog's head to make hog's head cheese later, you're going to definitely have heart disease.
	You know, there's no foul play here, fellas.
	And that blood probably came when he was moving the hog's head from the kitchen to the refrigerator from the counter to the refrigerator.
	Oh, from the actual hog, you think?
	Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
	So, you know, that's when you're on your last limb for a snack, man.
	I mean, you know?
	Yeah.
	That's crazy.
	When you bake in cracklings, bro, you're going to have high cholesterol at a minimum.
	But, you know, again, the bloodstains triggered the law enforcement to call, and the fridge told me the story.
	Yeah.
	As well as the way the guy lived.
	He smoked cigarettes.
	He had, you know, alcohol everywhere.
	Papa was a rolling stone.
	You know, that environment told me, you know, what was going on with him.
	Right.
	It gave you a lot of clues right there.
	Yeah.
	Cracklings.
	You got to have the heat's got to be so high on cracklings, man.
	You can't do it in an oven, I don't think.
	I've never tried it.
	I don't know, but he was.
	You know, he definitely tried to.
	Pull up how to make cracklings.
	See if you can pull that.
	I just want to get this recipe.
	My sister would make them out there.
	They lived off in Gonzales.
	So we make them.
	You get a big, large black pot.
	Right.
	You put it out in the yard.
	You got to cut that stuff up, the fire under it.
	You cut that fat up and then you put it in grease.
	Yeah.
	And then you just constantly stir that grease.
	Pour into a pot deep enough that the top of oil is at least six inches from the rim.
	Place over medium-high heat.
	When the oil reaches 225 degrees on a deep fat frying thermometer, add the pork cubes and start stirring to prevent clumping.
	Yeah, so it's high oil.
	I guess you can bake them if you bake them long enough, but.
	God, that's risky, though.
	Yeah, it's just, it can't taste good.
	I don't know.
	Yeah, I couldn't imagine it because you got to really get them to pop.
	I just couldn't imagine them doing it well.
	And you do dumb shit when you're drinking.
	Maybe it was one of those nights.
	Like, hey, let's bake some cracklings.
	Yeah.
	Who knows?
	Let's give it a run.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, I don't know if it did.
	And now, did that fellow have a wife or did they seem kind of lonesome?
	No, he was single.
	He did have a family, children, you know, on scene, but he lived alone.
	Now, say if you pull up on like, let's go back to that water body, right?
	Right.
	What happens to a body when it's in water?
	Because I think sometimes a lot of people fantasize.
	It's one of the fantasies.
	I'm going to find a body.
	It's either in the woods by the interstate or I'm going to walk down by a creek bank and there's going to be a body right there.
	I think that's some of the general fantasy of humans.
	What does that body realistically look like, depending on how long it's been in?
	Yeah, so it bloats.
	You get a lot of bloating in the water.
	The whole body puffs up.
	Normally the tongue protrudes out.
	You don't think about that.
	The gases and the gases and the decomposure, you know, the bodies sink and then they rise when the gases start to fill up the body.
	And that's when we find them.
	A lot of times they'll be snagged in branches on a bayou or in the river.
	But that body's going to bloat a lot.
	And then again, turtles and other animals out in the water will start pecking at them.
	So it looks a little bit more traumatic than it is.
	But if we're unsure, we can always send that body to autopsy to try to determine exactly what happened.
	And they'll take them apart.
	And a lot of times they'll cut into their heart and realize, well, this guy had a massive heart attack.
	I see.
	You know, so there was no foul play.
	Or he's full of drugs and there's no external trauma.
	So nobody hit him in the back of the head and threw him in there.
	Yeah, maybe pull up a little water bloat for us.
	Yeah, so that's, you know, that dude looks like a Simpsons character, huh?
	He does.
	Sorry to say that.
	I feel bad as a human being.
	Oh, my gosh.
	So we go from looking pretty healthy to not healthy pretty quickly.
	I mean, that's unbelievable.
	Yeah, and, you know, especially in Louisiana, it's so hot and so humid.
	And you'd just be amazed at people that live with no electricity.
	Oh, bro.
	If you leave a baby in a yard for 30 minutes, bro, I'd have algae on one side.
	Yeah, I mean, it's just like that.
	Nature really reigns supreme down there.
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	I'm just amazed at how many senior citizens live with no running water, no electricity in August when it's 100 degrees outside.
	But it's all over Louisiana.
	You know, these senior citizens have a hard time paying for their medication, much less an expensive electricity bill.
	And then some people are just really hardcore on drugs.
	You know, we had a house one time that in the kitchen, there was a piece of plywood.
	And when the officers slid the plywood back, that's where they were using the restroom.
	They were shitting in a hole in the kitchen, and then they would cover it up with a piece of wood.
	And I mean, that's pretty hardcore in your home.
	But you're Vietnamese, too, really.
	You'll see that, you know, with people that just abuse drugs to the point of, you know, they're living in condemned homes.
	What's that been like with the drug use and stuff?
	Like, do you guys, do you guys come upon a lot of like ODs and stuff?
	Has that changed the way you even approach the industry?
	I mean, how busy has that gotten things?
	Yeah, that's, you know, when I first started, you know, 18 years ago, we would have occasional ODs, accidental ODs.
	But that has increased by 1,000 since fentanyl has hit the streets, fentanyl and crystal meth.
	The ODs are every day, every day.
	You know, it affects every age group you can imagine.
	You know, the opioid epidemic came, and that, you know, that was started, the whole opioid thing was started when hospitals started using surveys to compare themselves to other hospitals.
	It was called the Press Gainy.
	And one of the questions in that survey was, how did we treat your pain?
	So, and the reason behind the survey was hospitals all have the same equipment.
	You have the same MRI as the hospital 20 miles down the road.
	All your equipment is the same.
	But what can you do better than another?
	And that's customer service.
	So all these patients would get these satisfaction surveys in the mail.
	And I worked in the hospitals.
	And so we would actually skit things.
	So when they got home, they would remember keywords and they would rate us or they would give us a good rating.
	For instance, did they have enough time for you in the hospital?
	So we were instructed to say, is there anything else I can do for you?
	I have time.
	So it was this plan, it's a strategy.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	And so then how do we treat your pain was another one.
	And the press gaining, it was called?
	Yeah.
	And it was a, I mean, it's a great program.
	You know, it teaches people how to really, people in hospitals, how to really, you know, go the extra mile for patients.
	We do things that we don't think about.
	You know, we close that door before we, you know, do a test on you so you're not exposed.
	But we don't, you don't really know that we're doing that.
	So things like, hey, I'm going to close this door for your privacy.
	And, you know, it was a great program, but one of the things was pain control.
	So do you think that that was the motive of the program?
	Or do you think that that was just a side effect of the program?
	It was a side effect.
	So you don't think that they strategized this program just in order to get people to be able to give them, for them to notice, okay, for them to get that answer about the pain?
	Right.
	No, no, not at all.
	And it was absolutely a side effect, if you will, of that.
	Press gaining, it's called?
	Yeah.
	Let's bring it up.
	I don't know if that's still a survey.
	They still do surveys, of course, but in the 90s, that was one that 98% of all hospitals used.
	A lot of hospitals were owned by the same corporation, so you had five or six hospitals in your area, and they would do side-by-side comparisons of each other.
	And we all wanted to have the highest rating.
	Right, so your hospital wants to go for the best rating.
	We're ranked number five in the nation.
	We're ranked number three in the parish, two in the state.
	Exactly.
	So this is Press Gainey right here, and they are get to know your patients like never before.
	See patients from every angle to prioritize and predict their needs.
	You scroll down a little.
	I just want to see what it is.
	So it's about patient experience tools.
	Yes.
	So this is a company that helps practitioners, I guess, know how to best treat their patients.
	Is that right?
	Correct.
	Okay, press gate.
	When you go to the hospital, even today, when you get home, you'll get a survey in the mail.
	I see.
	And then, you know, you fill out that survey and mail it back.
	Same as when you call AT ⁇ T and they say, would you hold, you know, to complete this customer service survey?
	But so then, you know, how did we treat your pain was one of them.
	And so then physicians started ordering more pain medication, not intentionally to hurt the patient.
	This wasn't the goal.
	But you'd get a patient with a broken arm and instead of getting 15 tablets on discharge, they'd give you 60. So a lot of the opiate addictions started from the overutilization of prescribing pain medication.
	You know, a dentist might give you 40, whereas the 40 hydrocodones or Laura oxycodones, you know, instead of giving you 10, they would, you know, give you 40 or 60. So the government came in and with the opioid epidemic and they tamped that down and put in regulations.
	So we wouldn't hand out so many pain pills.
	The addiction rose by 100%.
	But it took a long time for them to come in and do that.
	Yeah, it did.
	So you guys were experiencing a lot of overdose deaths.
	Not so, yeah, yes.
	But, you know, the overdoses weren't necessarily from just taking hydro APAP.
	You know, there was always like a poly drug abuse, meaning multiple drugs being used.
	But those were still rare at the time.
	We didn't get as many overdoses as we do now.
	You know, I miss crack.
	The crack days were so much easier than the fentanyl days.
	Because why is that?
	Because it's that much more lethal.
	Oh, crack is.
	Yeah.
	Oh, fentanyl.
	Fentanyl is much more, you know, the crack epidemic was a thing.
	But then when the pain epidemic hit, that's when we really started losing people.
	So what's the difference between like a crack death and a fentanyl death?
	Well, I mean, it's basically going to be a cardiac event.
	Fentanyl, you know, you stop breathing.
	That's a very powerful drug.
	Back to the opioid, the docs were giving out medication.
	People were getting addicted.
	And then the government came in and stopped it.
	And they just cut everybody off.
	And they made it to where physicians could get in a lot of trouble if they over-prescribed.
	And then I think they came back after that just recently and said, hey, we didn't mean not to treat people with pain because then you have a lot of people turning to heroin.
	You know, when you're taking opiates and you're on them for, you know, five or six years and you're addicted, and then one day you just can't get any, a lot of people turn to heroin.
	We really didn't have a great system to get people in to rehabs.
	You know, if you want to commit somebody for drug abuse, they have to go voluntarily.
	And you can imagine that not everyone wants to go.
	Another role of the coroner's office, we have the ability to remove you from your, we can take you and send you somewhere against your will.
	Yeah, and that's the other arm of the coroner's office.
	Oh, I didn't know that at all.
	But how do you get those calls?
	Because you think the coroner or death investigators are just getting called about death.
	So who's calling you?
	Yeah, law enforcement, they know that.
	Oh, they say, hey, this guy over here, we think he should be 5150 or something?
	Yeah, he needs to be in a hospital.
	Okay.
	We need to get him to an ER and into a psych hospital.
	Can you guys help us with that?
	Right.
	So we, yeah, so that we fill out paperwork.
	The coroner actually signs off on the paperwork, and then the police can go and remove you against your will and bring you to an ER.
	But we send all these patients to the ER, and a lot of times they're let go.
	You know, I can have an 18-year-old girl that's shooting heroin and smoking crack and drinking, and she gets to the ER and they say, well, yeah, you have a problem, but drugs are your choice, so therefore I'm going to discharge you.
	And the reasoning behind that is we have a broken system.
	I don't know how you fix that.
	But so then they get to the ER, and the ER doctors know, I can't force this person to go to rehab.
	You know that if you want to quit, it has to be your decision.
	So a lot of those patients are let go.
	And then unfortunately, we'll get a coroner call on an OD from one of those exact patients that we sent to the ER.
	So you see a lot of repeat offender, hypothetically, it's repeat offenders when these people show back up or repeatedly have harmed themselves with drugs.
	And then a lot of second, third times, it's death?
	Absolutely.
	I mean, most patients, I say most patients, a lot of patients have a psychiatric diagnosis.
	So when there's a dual diagnosis, you can put them in a rehab in a psych facility.
	But even that is a five to six day stay and then they're discharged.
	And then they have to get home and take their medication that was prescribed, which they don't.
	So then they end up coming back through their coroner's office and going back to the ER.
	You know, some of these guys on drugs, there was one that really, really, that was really hard to deal with recently was a veteran.
	I know his family.
	They had played some audio recordings of this guy just crying at night, saying he needed help.
	But then he would turn to meth and get high and then refuse help.
	I mean, this guy had kills under his belt, you know, and we don't want to label people, well, he's just a meth junkie.
	I mean, these people all have problems and they didn't grow up saying, I want to be this person.
	But this one in particular, you know, went to Iraq and killed some people.
	And now he's back and he's messed up and he can't make the right decisions and eventually he'll die.
	But he has to ultimately agree to go get help.
	So it's a hard process on some.
	We lose people.
	Yeah, and it's tough waiting for somebody to get well enough or have enough of a break through their own vision or perspective to see that they need help.
	That's the hardest thing to try and, you can't really influence anybody, you know.
	I mean, you can, but it's just nobody wants to hear that.
	People don't want to hear often you need help.
	They just don't accept it, you know?
	Yeah, you can't get drugged up sometimes.
	Yeah, and you do interventions and stuff, and sometimes people don't want that.
	I tell families, you know, because we have them where, you know, the families will send them.
	They'll go to a psych unit, then they'll get out and they'll die, either by suicide or drug overdose.
	And a lot of times I'll tell families, look, you have to try.
	You have to try.
	You can't force your child to go to drug rehab.
	A lot of people are nervous about sending people because the sheriffs show up and they put you in a core and they bring you to the EOR.
	And a lot of families just are scared to do it.
	And I always tell them, you know, we don't know the outcome of this, but you have to try.
	You have to get them in front of somebody professional.
	And if they get out and they keep doing the same thing over and over, at the end of the day, you know you tried.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, man.
	That's such a battle.
	It's heartbreaking to see the effects of all that, of all like the opioid epidemic and just all the fentanyl deaths.
	But are you noticing less of those?
	Are you noticing no?
	So fentanyl deaths are every day.
	Wow.
	Every day.
	And it's, you know, I go out throughout the state, throughout the parish, and I've been giving lectures, and I'd love to do more on fentanyl.
	It's 100 times stronger than morphine.
	I forget the exact numbers on that, but it's extremely potent.
	Overall, drug overdose deaths rose from 2019 to 2021 with more than 106,000 drug overdose deaths reported in 2021.
	And that was during the pandemic.
	Deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone, primarily fentanyl, continued to rise.
	So imagine a football stadium that holds 100,000 fans.
	Okay.
	Tiger Stadium, maybe almost.
	Pretty much.
	Almost.
	So that's how many people we're losing a year.
	The next time you watch a football game in a big stadium, just imagine that many bodies.
	And that's the ones we know about.
	There's so many unknowns that we don't catch.
	But we're losing that many Americans to it.
	And it's young kids.
	Oh, it's unbelievable.
	They have pill presses now.
	So I can take an oxycodone, a real one, and I can take a fake one and put it in front of a pharmacist that has 40, 50 years experience.
	And he can't tell me which one is real and which one is fake.
	And they do the same thing with Xanax, Adderall.
	So all these things kids take.
	Everybody has a crazy aunt and they've heard the word Xanax before.
	So you have a high school kid.
	Maybe the girl's having boy troubles.
	Maybe she's on her period and a friend says, hey, take a half of Xanax.
	It'll help you relax.
	And that one tablet is fatal.
	Yeah.
	You know, and that happens.
	Because it's a pressed pill, you're saying.
	It's a pressed pill.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	And so pressed pills is where they basically replicate it, but they use fentanyl up in there.
	Correct.
	Because it is more powerful.
	It's cheaper to replicate than making the actual product.
	Correct.
	You can't get the actual product.
	So they make it look identical to the real thing.
	Right.
	And people don't know if you're buying, especially you're some kid.
	You don't know.
	No, you don't.
	And, you know, what I was told was you can bring back, you can smuggle across the border a coffee bag of fentanyl versus, you know, 20 pounds of meth.
	And you're going to have a higher profit margin on that little bag of coffee, which contains fentanyl, than you would on all that meth.
	So the cartels are sending in loads and loads of fentanyl.
	And it's snowballed into heroin.
	So we see when we were younger, movie stars did heroin.
	We didn't see much of that coming up.
	It felt like you had to have money to do it.
	Right.
	Now it's everywhere.
	Some of the people, you'd be amazed at how many good-looking young kids do heroin.
	But actually, it's not heroin.
	You know, there's one form of heroin called China White, which is a snortable form of heroin.
	Yeah, people brag about that a lot in the recovery meetings about using that.
	Yeah, you can snort it.
	You don't have to shoot it.
	So what they're doing is they're selling it, but it's fentanyl.
	Fentanyl comes in a microgram dose.
	So when you get a milligram dose, I mean, that's just a fatal dose.
	So we're seeing it every day.
	And when you roll up on a case like that, right, where are those cases at?
	What does that look like?
	What does that body look like as you come up on it?
	Yeah, so they're normally in a natural position on the couch or in bed.
	But we know, you know, this person has had repeated run-ins with the law.
	A lot of times we'll see the evidence.
	You know, they have a belt.
	You know, they've been shooting up.
	They have their belt.
	They have their syringes.
	And again, nobody touches the body until we get there.
	And I can talk to the family and get it out of them.
	Fentanyl is the worst that we've ever seen.
	And now they're mixing it with other drugs like xylosine, which is a vet drug.
	You hear it referred to as TRANK.
	This is creating these massive ulcers on people.
	But they're even having to make fentanyl stronger.
	When someone dies on fentanyl, the users in the area, you think they'd be scared of it.
	Like, I don't want to get that batch, but they want it.
	They want to know where that person got that batch so they can get a better buzz from it.
	Oh, dude.
	One time I was with my dad and he would take us to the park and he would sleep in his car while we would play it or whatever.
	And he gave us a case of Kit Kat bars or whatever.
	And we were breaking them and throwing them out to this squirrel, right?
	And the squirrel ate a bunch of it and died, right?
	And because I guess they can't have chocolate or whatever.
	But in the distance, dude, you saw like 30 other squirrels hopping over.
	Yeah.
	And by the end of the day, bro, we'd have to remember that when we squirrel hunt.
	Oh, yeah, bro.
	You get a Kit Kat.
	I don't know if it works with that new white chocolate one, but I know like the original one.
	The old school one.
	Bro.
	I mean, you could look in the distance of the park and you just saw them off just hopping over.
	Don't tell somebody from Louisiana that Kit Kats are going to skyrocket.
	And that's what we do.
	We squirrel hunt.
	You know, dude, you'll shoot anything if it's in a friggin' tree up there.
	There's a parish.
	If a rope swing gets a little wild, somebody will gun it down, bro.
	There's a parish in Louisiana, and up until literally a few years ago, the school board, opening day squirrel season, the school board closed down so everyone could go in the woods on that opening day.
	I mean, can you imagine that?
	The whole town is absent on opening squirrel season.
	Yeah.
	Everybody, all the men and kids are in the woods, and all the women are in the bars.
	That's a party.
	You know, that's a party.
	All the squirrels.
	But yeah.
	So the fentanyl deaths has been high.
	That's been really, really crazy.
	It's out of control.
	It's out of control.
	ODs used to be, you know, death is seasonal.
	We have different deaths in different parts of the year.
	We know what to expect.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah.
	So, you know, wintertime, you're going to get your, you know, a lot of naturals because the weather's changing.
	Oh, yeah.
	You're going to get hunting accidents, you know, Cajuns falling out of tree stands, breaking their neck.
	You know, they, you know, everything imaginable in the woods.
	You got Cajuns with guns in the woods.
	So then you get into the springtime.
	Weather starts getting nice in Louisiana.
	We don't have many, many months of nice weather.
	So then here comes the motorcycles.
	So we start getting motorcycle deaths.
	A lot of organ donors right there.
	Lots in the springtime.
	A buddy of mine's office is full of motorcycle helmets.
	And I asked him one day, I'm like, why do you have motorcycle?
	I mean, literally around his whole office.
	And he run an autopsy clinic.
	And he said, I just keep the helmets on all the ones we do.
	Yeah.
	So that's a little bit of a collector's item he's got going.
	Yeah.
	So those all had living people in them that died on motorcycles.
	Absolutely.
	Yeah.
	Motorcycles are dangerous.
	And I'd love to own one.
	But in Louisiana, we have so many roads that pop out on major highways.
	And you're doing 60 miles, 70 miles an hour on a motorcycle and a car pulls out.
	You're done.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	You know, but we see that in the springtime.
	Summertime, we see drownings.
	So every season brings its own.
	Has been natural.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Manners of death.
	Manners of death.
	You know, the holidays are expect the unexpected.
	Really?
	You get, for us, you get the most brutal, you know, tear-jerking, sad cases, especially around Christmas and New Year's, whether it's.
	Like, take me through something.
	Yeah, so a family, you could have, you know, a family dies or children, a lot of children.
	So a family that, mom and dad have three or four kids, three or four kids are killed two days before Christmas in a car accident.
	I mean, how do you deal with that?
	As a parent, it's hard enough to lose one, much less all.
	But again, that's the holidays.
	We get these heart-wrenching cases.
	I always tell people to expect the unexpected during the holiday time.
	You really have to be careful.
	In Louisiana, we drink 24-7 all day.
	Oh, yeah.
	You know, it's just what we do in Louisiana.
	And so driving, a lot of people are going to Christmas parties and events.
	Pull out in front of the business.
	Drinking and driving.
	There's preventable deaths.
	And oftentimes I'll tell friends and family that if you have to go somewhere and it's a two-lane highway versus a four-lane, even though it might take 15 minutes longer to get to your destination, take that bigger highway where you're not one-on-one with traffic.
	Because I'd guess that 70% of the cars you're passing are drivers under the influence.
	And that's all year long.
	I mean, you realize how close you come to other cars when you're on a back road, you know, trying to get somewhere.
	Well, especially in Louisiana, bro.
	Yeah, there's no lights.
	The roads are dark.
	And also, I remember even back in the day, man, when you got out of work, you got a freaking beer.
	Yeah.
	You'd see people all the time driving home at the stock, going across the causeway or something, and they wave at you and they show you their beer, bro.
	It's part of the culture.
	I don't know about anywhere else, but in Louisiana, we have places where you can pull up, drive-in windows, and get margaritas.
	That's just common.
	Well, you could stick your head in a stranger's fucking house window and they'll put a shot of brandy in your throat.
	That's right.
	That's right.
	You know, if you need it.
	So, yeah, that's just Louisiana, bro.
	It's just part of it, you know, I think.
	So that makes road safety that much more dangerous.
	Take me on like a, has there ever, has there been a case, like take me on a heart-wrenching case?
	You know, and I don't know, I feel horrible even saying that, like, but take me on one that really took your heart out of your body, man.
	Well, first, I want to give my condolences to the police officers that have been shot.
	Lately, where I'm from, the parish that I live in, neighbors of our parishes next to us.
	We're on Vermillion, where are you guys?
	In St. Landry.
	Okay.
	So Lafayette Parish, Evangeline Parish, just in the last week, they've had three or four incidences where officers have been shot and killed.
	So it's really sad.
	Those are always tough.
	Police officers are good guys.
	We were all scared of them when we were younger.
	But when you get to know these guys and they're all great people, and it's hard to see.
	I had an officer that was shot years ago, and it was such a surreal thing to zip up an officer in a uniform.
	He had the black stripe across his badge.
	I guess that was around 2015 when they started doing those black stripes on their badges.
	And it was such a surreal event to do.
	But back to those heart-wrenching cases, for me, it would be friends, family of friends.
	Yeah, if you had to roll up on somebody and then it's somebody you know?
	Yeah, that's the thing is when I'm getting to a car accident, you know, in my hometown, I start seeing cars that I recognize.
	And as I'm walking up to that, to the wreck, you know, I might see a Nissan Ultima or something.
	And for a minute, your heart drops like, oh, is that so-and-so?
	My best friend lost his wife unexpectedly.
	And so they had moved in from Tennessee.
	And he had lost his wife unexpectedly.
	And that was really hard.
	They had three young children at the time.
	And it was hard dealing with that case.
	A 13-year-old girl taught me more that night than, I mean, still to this day when it was right around Christmas.
	And I can remember having to take them to the ER to show them their mother.
	And it was tough.
	She said, Mr. Toby, all I want for Christmas is my mom.
	And, you know, we put so much effort into Christmas and presents and holidays.
	And here I have this 13-year-old girl.
	It really puts things into perspective for you.
	And still to this day, I do my job because I was able to save my best friend's life by being able to remove him when he was depressed.
	You know, suicide is real.
	And he ended up getting help.
	And I had to help him get help.
	But, you know, I feel if I wouldn't have reacted after that event, that he may not be with us anymore.
	So that's what keeps me going in this case.
	So there's some personal involvement there in certain situations.
	Your ability to, you guys are like, oh, well, if there's drug use here, I can help send this person or, you know, help commandeer them in a direction maybe that could help them if they're willing to go.
	If there is like, if I'm associated with someone who's passed and I'm associated with a friend, I can lead them into therapy or keep tabs on them.
	Or I've seen enough instances where you statistically know, hey, bud, there's probably a 50% chance you're going to stay alive after you've lost this person in your life.
	You really need to keep tabs on yourself or get some help.
	Absolutely.
	Wow.
	Absolutely.
	That's funny.
	I didn't know the coroner, you know, I didn't know some of the access points that they had and some of the direction signs that the coroner's office can point people in.
	You don't think about that.
	You just think about somebody rolling up and making a call, Satan's line judge.
	You rolling up and you just the referee.
	You call them into heaven or you call them out.
	You know, only the coroner can arrest the sheriff.
	And that's from the early on, you know, 1900s, if not earlier.
	So when a sheriff, the sheriff needs to be arrested, only the coroner can go out and do it, which is interesting.
	Yeah, there's all kinds of things that we do.
	There's also sexual violence and when rapes are involved, that goes to the coroner's office.
	And they do, you know, we normally send people to get raped kits done, but domestic violence and things like that also fall under the coroner umbrella.
	We do a lot of things.
	And is it straight rapes or gay rapes?
	Like, do they all happen?
	It would be, well, I guess they all happen, but I don't know how to answer that one.
	When a woman is assaulted.
	And it could be woman or man?
	Absolutely.
	Wow.
	Absolutely.
	We'll refer them to an ER where there's the appropriate staff to do that.
	Yeah, we're a rural coroner's office.
	Now, how can they trump?
	How can somebody trick you?
	How do they trick the coroner?
	Say if somebody, say there's a police officer or something, right?
	Say somebody in a town wants to trick the coroner.
	A body is deceased.
	Ah, okay.
	And they want to, and maybe they did it, right?
	Or there's some espionage going on.
	How do they trick, how do they get it past the coroner?
	Because I've heard that if you can trick the coroner, sometimes you could get away with murder.
	That would be a true statement, but it's hard to trick the coroner.
	Right.
	I don't know that.
	Well, if someone does, we had a case, for instance, where the wife shot the man, and he was laying there, deceased.
	He was a farmer.
	There was a shovel on the ground.
	And, you know, farmers don't put their tools up dirty.
	They're going to clean that shovel before they put it up.
	So there's a muddy shovel laying on the side of a deceased man.
	And the wife said it was self-defense.
	So when we walked up to the shovel, we just picked it up and dropped it from, you know, two or three feet and all the dirt fell off.
	So you mean to tell me you shot him twice?
	We could see that he grabbed his wounds.
	And so did he lay that shovel down nice and gently after you pumped a few in him?
	Or did you stage that there?
	So things like that, that always don't make sense.
	You have to really think about some of those things.
	But we have ways we can tell.
	Let's say you strangled someone or used a pillow.
	That's one that's often thought about.
	When we're doing our assessment, we can see a thing called patikii.
	So it's basically retinal hemorrhaging.
	So when we look into the eyes, we'll see little red dots.
	And we know that that person was strangled or suffocated.
	So let's just say, you know, I kill somebody and then I hang them.
	Well, I can tell if they were breathing when they were hung versus not.
	And that's all based on that retinal hemorrhaging.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	So we have a lot of another thing is lividity, the liver mortis.
	So if you die laying on your back, after a few hours, your body will appear red on the surface that's laying on the ground because blood, when it stops flowing, drops.
	So if I walk into a house and you're laying on your stomach, but your back is red, well, somebody moved that body for sure.
	So we can tell when people try to, and a lot of times it's they roll them over to do CPR.
	Most of the time it's innocent, but there's ways to tell.
	So that's when the forensics come into play.
	We look for deception when we're talking to people.
	We get stories from family members and even social media.
	You'd be surprised that since the evolution of social media, how much that helps us.
	Yeah, I saw they had that case in South Carolina, that Murdoch case or something.
	If you saw that or not, where the man allegedly killed, I think he was convicted of shooting his wife and son.
	But they had some social media of the kids where it was just been a few minutes earlier and they could hear the dad's voice in the background.
	So they determined that they had been in the same space at the same time or something.
	Cell phones, you know, Facebook, you know, I've had a case where the guy posted, I'm sweating like a whore in church, and then he's found deceased and he's holding his chest.
	Well, that tells me he had a heart attack after I examine him and rule out foul play.
	Maybe an adult say, man, people like to say, you know, how bad they feel on social media.
	My leg's killing me today.
	Well, we can tell if they threw a blood clot.
	So when somebody throws a blood clot, they have this cyanotic or bluish color from the nipple line up.
	And that tells us, okay, they threw a blood clot.
	What is throw a blood clot?
	Well, so basically a piece of fat gets clogged up in your pulmonary and cardiovascular system, and you die.
	I mean, it can happen to any one of us at any second of the day.
	Oh, God.
	I mean, you throw a blood clot.
	It's called a pulmonary embolism.
	And what do you do right when it happens?
	What do you do if you want to live?
	You start CPR, but sometimes you can't save them.
	I mean, most of the time, it's really hard.
	Now, there are tests that can determine if you're likely to have one.
	So they start you on blood thinners.
	Okay.
	You know, very common that people are on blood thinners, people with heart disease.
	We can manage that with blood thinners, but you can't stop them all depending on the size of the clot.
	It's called a DVT, deep vein thrombosis.
	And majority of people in Louisiana, what happens is the veins and the legs narrow.
	Oh, yeah, I've seen some.
	And that's from anything from nicotine to poor, you know, high cholesterol.
	Bad shrimp.
	Oh, yeah, bad shrimp.
	Too much boudin cracklings.
	You know, all your arteries and veins get clogged up and there's not much room for error there.
	So a piece of fat breaks Off and you're out, lights out.
	Damn.
	You know, we've had people in the ER.
	I mean, I'm sorry, in ICU, they're there for a blood clot and they code, and there's not much we can do to save them.
	But we'll look at social media, and the person might say, you know, hey, I just recently had a surgery on my leg, or my knee's been throbbing, or my legs are throbbing, or my calf is, you know, swollen.
	People post all kinds of things.
	So that can help us paint that picture as to what may have happened in the death.
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	Wow, the corner.
	So, yeah, I guess there's a lot more to the corner than I thought.
	You know, there's a lot of avenues going on over there.
	It's a lot of investigation into very basic stuff like home appearance, body appearance, you know, weight.
	Were they compliant with their medicine?
	Did they see their doctor?
	Did they go to the doctor often?
	There's so many things that we can tell about someone that's deceased.
	Now, what about like a suicide?
	Like, say there's like a hanging or something, you know, what's that kind of, what does a body look like?
	I feel so morbid asking about some of this.
	Yeah, well, how much would you be surprised what bodies look like from certain events?
	That's what I think I'm, because in my mind, I think I envision walking up on a body and it's still like, oh yeah, there's, you know, that's Jerry.
	Right.
	You know, but would you even know a lot of times who the person is?
	Absolutely.
	You can tell who they are.
	Things that change are their eyes.
	We call that fixed and dilated.
	Okay.
	Their eyes are open and staring into space.
	Their pupils have dilated.
	So, you know, their face kind of has a different appearance, or we can tell by their eyes that they're not with us.
	That's actually what he's looking at there is the retinal hemorrhaging.
	Wow.
	So if you try to smoke, if you try to suffocate someone or when they hang, they'll have those retinal hemorrhages from the veins in your eyes.
	Yeah, and you can't breathe, so it causes those hemorrhages to form.
	But bodies look like bodies.
	You can tell.
	Suicides are tough.
	they're supposed to leave the body hanging or in its natural state until we get there.
	We need to look at the ligature marks, which is actually the rope where they made the knot.
	Where's it at?
	And then, of course, it bruises the body.
	So when you have a perfectly symmetrical line on their neck, you can tell if somebody maybe grabbed a wire and choked them and used force to do that because it's an even line.
	But when it's not even and the ligature mark is consistent with how they were hanging, then we can tell.
	And there's, you know, either there should be petite eyes.
	So we know that this person died by hanging.
	One of the, you know, and we use humor.
	It sounds bad, but we use humor to get through some of these cases.
	No, we had a police officer interview and he said the same thing.
	He goes, sometimes you'll see cops standing around laughing.
	They have to do it.
	You have to, because what you're dealing with is really hard to see.
	So we're not, you don't pick on the, you know, you don't make jokes about the deceased per se, but, you know, you joke with the officers and you try to lighten the mood some.
	Everybody can relax a little bit more.
	And one thing for hangings is you always put the rookie on the front of the body.
	So when you have to cut a body down, you know, you can't just cut them and let them drop.
	You want to protect their body.
	So you put the rookie cop in the front.
	And so when you cut that rope, that last little bit of air comes out of their mouth.
	And so that's the worst place to be standing is when you're actually removing someone from a rope because they exhale.
	Oh, that's that last puff, huh?
	It's that last, yeah.
	It's like an afartment out of the front.
	Exactly.
	And it's rough.
	So it's a long one, brother.
	So when you say, hey, you know, put John on the front, everybody that has experience knows that's not where you want to be.
	Dang.
	And who catches him?
	You got to catch them?
	Well, you know, everybody kind of helps.
	Whoever is around.
	Oh, I thought it was like the bouquet at a wedding or something.
	Yeah, sometimes it is.
	We rely on the fire department, and those guys do a great job.
	We have bodies that are, you know, house fires or more so motor vehicle accidents where the body's been burned beyond recognition and they're stuck to the seat.
	You know, we can always call out the fire department.
	And those guys come and, you know, cut bodies out of cars and they'll help us put them in the body bags.
	Same as, you know, decomposure.
	You know, you get bodies that have been in a home with no electricity for three or four days or weeks and the body is basically liquefied.
	Really?
	I mean, it's like a skeleton with like a puddle near?
	What is it like?
	And the worst smell you could imagine.
	I mean, everybody says when you smell death, you'll, you'll know it if you smell it again.
	But, you know, scraping those bodies up is tough, you know, and sometimes you, you know, if it's a large person, you got to get the fire department out.
	Recently, I had one that was up a staircase that like kind of like the one you have here that spins up.
	And the person was 300 pounds.
	So we had to call in some extra muscle to get that subject down, you know.
	So the fire department really comes out and helps us.
	And how big is a body bag if it's a body big?
	Do you all make big bags?
	Yeah, they make, you know, small, medium, large, and extra large, you know, for those people.
	You ever needed to double bag somebody?
	Yeah, it depends on the body bag itself.
	We can do things to, you know, when it's really messy, suicides, gunshots to the head, we can wrap the heads in bags before we put them in the body bags and things like that.
	And that body bag in some ways is a very, very sacred thing.
	Not sacred, that's the wrong choice of words, but that's where all the evidence is.
	So if you're working a homicide, when you put that body in that body bag and seal it, only we can do that.
	And once it's sealed, it's not allowed to be broken until it gets to the autopsy facility because you'll have evidence on that body.
	You know, even maybe the sheets they were laying in and all that can go into a body bag.
	And we've had cases where the funeral homes, you know, for whatever reason, wanted my new body bag.
	So they would take the person out of the body bag and put them in an old one that's patched up with duct tape and send them to autopsy.
	And you can't do that.
	Just to save the money?
	They wanted to keep that bag?
	That's a nice bag.
	I'm going to keep that one and throw them in this one.
	You can't do that.
	That's really important evidence.
	Body bags are an important thing that we use.
	Sometimes it's just to get the body out where there's a lot of people around.
	So we'll put them in a body bag or on the side of the road.
	We'll have them put in the body bags.
	But they're also used in the collection of evidence.
	And so when you open a body bag up and an officer walks through the body bag, it's like, man, you just walked through my evidence.
	Are you shocked sometimes by like the ineptitude sometimes of certain newbies or just whatever on forces?
	Yeah, and you know, you learn to deal with it.
	People just don't know.
	They don't know what they don't know.
	Agreed, man.
	But I've had, you know, I've had.
	So when I see an officer struggling in a home and the smell is really bad, if I see you struggling, I'm going to slow down because I can deal with it.
	I've trained myself to where the smells and things don't bother me.
	But, you know, I'll watch that officer kind of eyes are getting watery.
	Their face is red.
	They don't like where they're at.
	And I'll kind of slow my investigation down.
	Like, what's his date of birth?
	And oh, let me go dig for that.
	So just as a way to kind of help them?
	Well, no, I'm not.
	Put them through it.
	I put them through it.
	You know, I'll slow down when I see him struggling.
	You're going to make them put him on the grill a little.
	Yeah, that's right.
	That's right.
	Boy.
	You know, do you know where his last address was?
	And they're like, oh, my God.
	Oh, I just want to get out of here.
	But I've had officers throw up on bodies.
	Really?
	Right on top of the body.
	Yeah, and we're sending them out to autopsy.
	So it's like you just put all your DNA on there.
	It's like a baptism at Arby's, baby, right there.
	That's horrible.
	Yeah, well, speaking of Arby's, we can talk about that one later.
	What happened?
	There was a death at Arby's?
	Yeah, in Lafayette.
	Oh, of course.
	They found a lady in the cooler.
	Did they?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Wow.
	Yeah, we got to meet, huh?
	Yeah.
	I mean, poor thing, though, she was stuck in there.
	And she got stuck on accident?
	Yeah.
	I think the lock malfunctioned and they found her the next day.
	But that was in a small town.
	Ooh, there's a dead body in Arby's.
	I mean, even my brain went to, oh man, did somebody put her in a freezer?
	I'm not thinking walk-in cooler.
	I'm thinking small cooler.
	Here we got it right here: New Iberia.
	Arby's manager who died in the freezer.
	The family's attorney inspected the Arby's this week and is now telling all.
	As part of his inspection, attorney Paul Scrabanek locked himself in the Arby's freezer to get a sense for what she went through in her last moments.
	The thermometer read between negative 20 and 30 degrees.
	As soon as they opened the door, I got a feeling that I didn't want to be in there with the door shut.
	Pierces your clothes, you go stiff.
	He was in the freezer for four to five hours.
	Is that what it says?
	Go back?
	Scarbatic says, oh, the woman was in there for four to five hours.
	Employees that was that there.
	It's under my understanding from talking to one of the employees that there was that was there with her son when he found her, that she had completely frozen.
	Wow.
	Hypothermia.
	Do you think that's a nice way to go, kind of?
	No, not at all.
	I mean, look, you ever get cold?
	I can't imagine, you know, what that poor lady had to deal with in that circumstance.
	And her son is just weight.
	Yeah.
	It's tough.
	What does that body look like?
	Did you roll up on it?
	No, that was in another parish.
	But, you know, I'm sure she was cold and stiff with, you know, but pretty normal.
	What position do people die in a lot?
	Is there a lot of you...
	I know that may sound crazy, but I think it's like a protective mechanism, you know, like I think I would be like.
	Yeah, just holding your figs and yeah.
	Or like maybe, I don't know where my head would be, but or I would.
	You think you'd rather die with your mouth closed or open?
	What is like a cooler, not cooler, but like what's like.
	Yeah, I mean, we find bodies in all, you know, a lot of people collapse, fall face forward.
	A lot of people in bed.
	I think mouth open probably.
	Yeah.
	Like, you know, then you're almost like opera singing.
	Yeah, something are like, hey, bruh, you know, we find them, we find bodies in all.
	Are a lot of guys holding their junk?
	Yeah, some.
	Not all, but it happens sometimes.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	Yeah, I always wonder, is there a position that's best?
	Say I'm going to die, right?
	Right.
	And the last thing that I can do is be helpful to the people that are going to find my body and to the coroner's office.
	What's the best way for me to die to make it easier on whoever's going to make it easy on you guys and the staff?
	Well, I guess dying in a bed.
	Okay.
	That's the easiest way.
	That's the best way.
	It's clean.
	You have covers over you.
	It's easy for the family.
	Families oftentimes want to see their loved one.
	We have to clean them up to a degree.
	Sometimes they can't see them, you know, because it's such a morbid picture.
	But, you know, dying in bed is very common on your back.
	One time I had a guy die standing up, and I'll never forget that.
	They called me out to an apartment complex somewhere.
	And so as I'm walking into the scene with one of the sheriffs, a friend of mine, they're like, well, that's him.
	And we're not quite in the house yet.
	And he said, he's standing right there.
	And I said, what do you mean he's standing?
	Well, the guy died standing up.
	And for a minute, I thought they were messing with me.
	I'm like, y'all, y'all, y'all got to be messing with me.
	So I even like tapped him on the leg before I, because, you know, he had just, the way he had fallen, he was standing up out of sync and his head just kind of landed on the, he just kind of wedged himself in and his legs were locked.
	And that's how we found him.
	It was so odd, you know?
	That's interesting.
	Yet if he really just kind of locked in there, he's just getting his steps in, I guess.
	I don't know if he was brushing his teeth or what that was, but I didn't believe him.
	I'm like, that can't be him.
	And they were like, I'm telling you, he's standing up.
	Well, that's one.
	That's one for the books.
	Yeah, because what are the odds of that?
	It's like when you watch those videos of those people trying to throw a bottle in the air and make it land, you know?
	Right, right.
	I've only had one die standing up in 18 years.
	Oh, wow.
	So it's a rarity.
	That's very rare in my opinion.
	Now, and how tough is it?
	Like you like, if there's ants, do you guys ever deal with animalia death?
	Yeah.
	Do you guys, does corner deal with that too or no?
	Yeah, we deal with all deaths.
	Now, don't get me wrong, we've had people call us because they have a dead dog or they got bit by a dog and it's like, oh, you call in the coroner's office.
	Go to the ER.
	Call your neighbor and call him an asshole.
	Yeah.
	You know, that's what's happened.
	But no, animals, well, so if you die in a home that's locked with animals, those animals will eat you really fast, especially a cat.
	Dogs will hold out until they have nothing left to eat, but a cat will remove your head in 24 hours.
	And I'm talking literally hair on the floor, no head, and nibbling into their chest.
	Even cats that were loved by their owners, or is it just cats that you think had something with the owner and they're going to say, this is my time.
	Yeah, no, they're absolutely feeding on you.
	You know, I don't care how much you love that cat and that cat loved you, he's going to eat you.
	And, you know, sometimes we get to cases where you can tell that the cat or dog had been nibbling.
	You know, it might be on the face or the cheek or so, the toes.
	But then sometimes it's unbelievable.
	And it was one of my first cases.
	And I just never imagined that they could do that much damage.
	Smaller dogs.
	Now, a lab won't.
	Labs, for some reason, don't eat their owners, you know, unless they're locked in for months.
	I guess they would.
	But I find it more weenie dogs, small dogs, and cats.
	Cats don't, they don't wait.
	You know, it's like a cunass around a barbecue pit, a Cajun, I should say, around a barbecue pit.
	They smell that odor and they start nibbling.
	So people start snatching.
	They want to appetize.
	Next time you're petting your cat, just know that when you die, he's going to eat you.
	He's going to pet you back with his teeth.
	Absolutely.
	And how soon after?
	We talking 30 minutes after?
	Yeah, probably an hour or two, I guess.
	They knew this.
	they start nibbling.
	And I love my cat.
	You know, we have cats and dogs.
	How could you still love your cat knowing how they're going to eat me?
	Yeah, I don't care if they eat me after I'm dead.
	You know, that's cold as hell, bro.
	Think about that, man.
	My buddy Dodge, bro.
	We've been friends forever, right?
	He's laying there, dude.
	And I fucking carve a little bit of him off.
	Yeah, it's pretty intense.
	I make a fucking sandwich or something out of my boy, fucking Randall.
	Yeah.
	Well, after an hour.
	They do it.
	They do it.
	You know, I'm kind of new to cats.
	We just got one to keep the mice down, but yeah.
	Oh, he's going to keep the mice down.
	He got a long, he's playing the long game, though, dude.
	Yeah.
	That's when they lay on your wrist.
	They checking your blood pressure, dog.
	That's what that cat's game is.
	They're waiting for you.
	They licking their lips.
	Wow.
	As is the weenie dog.
	But weenie dogs will do it too?
	Yeah, small dogs.
	I find that small dogs, well, they'll jump up on the lap of their owner and, you know, I guess start nibbling.
	Will you eat the wiener to jump too or not?
	I've never seen one, but absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	Most of the time, I kind of feel like they're nudging you to see if you're still alive, maybe licking you at first.
	And then when you don't respond, they just go after it.
	It's pretty intense.
	And what about like a turd?
	Say the body's in the wild, it's in the water or something.
	Do they eat the junk?
	They eat the junk off a body or not the waist?
	Well, usually the body's covered.
	So it's going to be arms.
	Oh, okay.
	So it has clothes on.
	Yeah, you're going to have pants on.
	And how big was your waist get if you get bloated?
	I'm like a 34, 35 inch waist.
	In the bloating stage, the body's I think he's like a 43 or something.
	You do swell and get a lot of edema.
	And then it starts to almost liquefy.
	We've had cases where we have to move the body or pull that body out.
	And I've grabbed the leg of somebody.
	And when I pulled, everything came off, all the skin.
	You pull the whole leg off.
	Yeah.
	It didn't detach the leg, but all the skin in the body.
	If you kept pulling, would it have?
	No, I don't think it would have pulled the leg off, but all the skin just, you know, that does happen, but the body's so frail at that point.
	Do you think you have some infatuation with death?
	Why are you able to handle this sort of thing?
	I couldn't handle some of the images that we pulled up, right?
	I mean, really?
	You know, like what makes you think you're able to digest that visually and emotionally and everything?
	And how does it digest for you?
	Yeah, you know, I started healthcare really young in life, high school.
	All my friends were taking shop and I decided to take a nursing aid class.
	I figured I'd be able to bathe the girls.
	Well, that didn't work out so well.
	Body shop, homie.
	You know what I'm talking about?
	I should have took shop.
	That would work.
	But always had a fascination with healthcare and then I went into other things.
	And at one point, cardiopulmonary respiratory therapy.
	So we manage life support systems.
	Okay, so then you're getting close to death.
	So you're on the edge right there.
	RT does, deals with trauma.
	You know, we're the airway in that regard.
	So we're involved in every traumatic death.
	RT, when you say that.
	Respiratory therapists are always in the ER working for major codes and car accidents and things like that.
	So you were around a lot of that.
	So, yeah, I mean, we manage the life support system.
	Sometimes we have to pull the plug or turn the machine off.
	So you'd have to actually pull the plug?
	Yeah, well, you just turn the power off, but yeah.
	You'd think you'd at least pull the plug, like at least it's.
	Eventually you do.
	I mean, you have to take the machine out.
	But, you know, terminating life support on somebody, by the time you're at that stage, they've done brain tests to see if there's any brain activity.
	And these people don't want to live on a machine.
	You know, it's not like they're alive and talking to you at that stage.
	But again, we see all, you know, we see a lot of trauma.
	And I've always had this, I've always wanted to see, I wonder what paramedics and police see.
	You know, I wonder what people look like when they don't make it to the ER.
	I can remember having a, my brother was in the Iraq war, the first one, a long time ago, and he brought back some pictures.
	And he had some pictures of extremities and things.
	And I was just fascinated to see that.
	I don't know why I was born that way.
	But I was really fascinated to see some of that.
	Not a la carte, huh?
	Yeah.
	And so then later in healthcare and seeing trauma, we don't, you know, for someone that's not in healthcare, yeah, it's, it's, it's hard to see and imagine, but I don't, you know, I don't necessarily see my eyes are, I'm looking at science and anatomy.
	You know, that's just a femur or that's just a brain.
	This is parts of the anatomy that, you know, we've, that we've, you know, studied and seen before.
	Yeah.
	So it's not like I'm seeing you.
	You know, I'm not seeing Theo.
	I'm seeing, you know, I just in general, brain and knees and whatever.
	Yeah, I mean, people say, how can you be a coroner?
	Cause you see bad stuff.
	Well, an orthopedic surgeon will take your arm off and they're dealing with blood and, you know, all kinds of things.
	And they remove your arm and then put it back on.
	You know, so it's the same thing, kind of.
	It's just what we see.
	Do you ever feel like, so you determine the time of death?
	Yes.
	Wow.
	And how do you know if you get it right or whatever?
	Like, does a buzzer go off or something?
	Like, how do you...
	Okay.
	There are things that can be done.
	You can do a liver temperature.
	You can, you know, the stage of decomposure.
	If there are maggots and bugs on the body, that can give you a window of how long they've been down.
	You know, flies lay eggs.
	And then you can even take the maggots and send them to a lab, and they can tell you what their age is.
	And that can help you determine time of death.
	But that's a bit extreme.
	There's other ways.
	You know, when was the last time you spoke to Johnny?
	You know, when was the last time anybody saw him?
	What were his complaints when you saw him?
	When was his last Facebook post?
	When was his last phone Call.
	So you can kind of get a window into that time of death.
	Even rigamortis, you know, it comes on and then it lets go.
	And there are certain time amounts on that.
	So we can figure out, you know, an approximate time of death.
	You know, unless you're working in the ER and they stop breathing or the paramedics are there because maybe they're sluggish, but they're not completely deceased.
	You know, that's an exact time.
	But other than that, it's a guess based on evidence.
	When they call us, we issue a time of death.
	It's when they contact us.
	So we get called on Johnny by a nurse in the ER or a police officer, and I immediately look at my watch and say, okay, time of death is 10.15.
	That's not the exact time they died, but that's when they notified us.
	Okay, close enough.
	Yeah.
	And if you get it right, you don't get like a notification on your phone?
	Like nobody.
	No.
	There's no reward or anything for getting it right.
	No, no, not at all.
	Now, it does help the attorneys and when there's lawsuits happening or, you know, they need to get as close to the time of death as they can for homicides because then it puts people in different places.
	You know, where were you at 1050?
	You know, so it's that, you know, that's why sometimes it's really important to know as close as you can get to that actual time of death.
	And is there like a toe, you guys do actually, you always hear about toe tags, right?
	People put a toe tag on a body.
	Is that true?
	So we don't put it on the toe, but, you know, labeling that body is very important.
	If I'm going to send you to autopsy, I don't want to mix you up with someone else or I don't want to send you with nothing.
	And then they, I always type a report on my death.
	Everything I see, I have to type and put into a report.
	So when that pathologist is reading that report, I'm painting a picture for him.
	And that helps him in his autopsy.
	In fact, I brought you one.
	I brought you your own personal toe tag here.
	I want to hang that on the wall.
	Gosh, this is...
	I don't know if my mom would be happy if I accept this right now.
	Oh, to be determined.
	To be determined.
	Yeah, yeah.
	But you also put that under sex.
	Well, I think I have you in NOLA.
	That's good.
	Yeah, that's where I was born at.
	Yeah, I could see myself dying over there, bro.
	That's a great conversation piece, you know?
	Yeah, it is, actually.
	That's not a bad thing.
	Dude, thank you.
	Yeah.
	Sweet of you, bro.
	Dude, you, speaking of New Orleans, during Hurricane Katrina, did they bring in a lot of coroners to help out?
	What happens when there's a natural disaster like that?
	Yeah, we can.
	Did you get called in?
	I didn't go to New Orleans.
	Actually, I volunteered for Lafayette because there was a lot of, not coroner, but healthcare in general.
	Oh, I see.
	So there's still, yeah, there's a lot of other recurring deaths and even in the outlier areas.
	Yeah.
	I'm just thinking of Katrina because it was one of the more known hurricanes.
	I think, what else was there?
	Ida?
	I'm trying to think, what else was over by you guys?
	Hurricanes, yeah, Ida.
	There were some in Texas.
	If there's a big natural disaster, is it like all hand, we need all corners to this part of the country?
	Does that ever happen?
	Well, we do have protocols.
	You know, if a plane falls out the sky and there's, you know, 100 people, we do have protocols.
	We can reserve a cooler truck.
	We can call Walmart and say, hey, one of your big, you know, freezer trucks, can we, you know, borrow one?
	There's a whole team of people that were prepared for that, mass shootings and whatnot.
	It's important to identify who each person is so we can contact their families.
	And, you know, yeah, we had a, you know, I've worked with the NTSB on an airplane.
	We had a little, it wasn't a lot of bodies, but it was.
	And what is NTSB?
	So that's the, the, the, that's the, when a plane goes down, it's the federal agency that investigates plane accidents.
	Okay.
	And that one wasn't unique because we had a little small Cessna that fell out the sky.
	And, you know, those guys come in and do their own autopsy.
	And it's amazing from just wing damage of the plane.
	They can tell you exactly where that plane was going in what direction to try to figure out what went wrong with that plane.
	Have you rolled up on a plane crash before?
	So I was called to one, yeah.
	And that had to be, from your own perspective, probably interesting because that's not a common thing.
	Yeah, it was interesting to say the least.
	It was, you know, two guys, and it was actually a tough experience because somebody was flying over in another plane and had taken a picture of that and posted it, and then they took it down.
	So when something happens in a small town, everyone starts talking.
	Hey, I heard there was an airplane accident or a motorcycle accident.
	Well, everybody thinks of their loved ones.
	And in this case, family was reaching out to the deceased.
	And it's hard to watch that phone ring and just stare at it and know that this person is trying to get a hold of their loved one.
	That can be tough to see.
	You just know that that mother or father is trying to get a hold of their son.
	So that probably happens often then.
	You're at a crash site and there's a ringing phone.
	Right.
	Or any, yeah, any site.
	You know, news spreads fast.
	You know, I think Johnny Ode'd within Johnny's phone just starts blowing up.
	You know, people are trying to call him.
	I mean, I lost my best friend and we didn't have phones back then, but trying to contact him.
	So that's very common that phones will just ring and ring.
	And you don't want to make that notification over the phone.
	You don't.
	No, you want to send an officer out there or sometimes we'll go with him.
	You will.
	Yeah, we don't have to, but I've done several ride-alongs.
	It's not an easy thing to do.
	You know, when we go out to a scene, we're often forgot.
	We're the last responder, right?
	When we go out and your loved one is deceased, whether it's sudden or natural, families are in a different mindset.
	They rarely remember us from that case.
	And I always give people my personal cell.
	It's like, look, you're going to have questions later.
	Call me.
	I'll sit with your family and tell you exactly what went on.
	Have you ever had someone try to call you and like, just like lost and like trying to like get you to bring their loved one back to life?
	Like, have you ever had any, um, yeah.
	And I can't share all that information.
	You know, I can't share everything that I see and find with the public.
	So I'm 100% right, but some people, maybe it's a suicide and they don't believe that this Person would have done that.
	And they're, you know, did you investigate it for a homicide?
	And it's like, well, believe you, me, that's the first thing I do.
	You know, so we do get those calls from time to time.
	The hardest part, and we were talking about suicides earlier.
	You know, the blood and guts don't bother me.
	But for me anyway, when I read a suicide note, that's what sticks with me.
	I can remember every one I've read.
	For some reason, it's personal at that point.
	Not, hey, I'll be in the barn, confine me in the barn.
	You know, maybe a child emails their suicide report note to their family.
	Can you imagine?
	And or just a long letter, it makes it more personal, and that sticks with me longer than anything else.
	What do those entail a lot of times if you're looking through them notes?
	What are they putting in there?
	Well, you know, don't blame yourself kind of thing.
	I'll always be an angel on your shoulder and just real personal things.
	You know, I didn't do this because of you.
	For some reason, that sticks in my brain more than the actual scene.
	Yeah, it's just hard to deal with sometimes.
	You know, that changes the mood, if you will.
	Has there been a debt that really just blew your mind and how tough it was to deal with?
	That's something that maybe it attached to something you had personally in your life or an experience that helped you learn about yourself?
	Yeah, that's the, that, you know, those are when you'd ask me about personal ones.
	I guess when I see, you know, I have children and when maybe like not that long ago, I had a 22-year-old lose his dad.
	And to watch that 22-year-old walk up to his father in an ER, you know, I could imagine my children coming to see me.
	And, you know, those hurt.
	Same as with babies.
	And, you know, all those things are hard to see.
	They really take a toll on us.
	And, you know, there is no out for us.
	We have to deal with it best we can.
	They're not always easy.
	You know, my escape is music.
	I listen to music on the way there, and I'll listen to music on the way back.
	And it's on the way home.
	And it's two different types of music, depending on what I've seen.
	But we all need that escape.
	Yeah, like what will you put on, like some Creed's Clearwater?
	Or what kind of tunes are you talking about?
	Are just something like a Mozart?
	Or what are we?
	Yeah, no, I mean, my music tastes are all over the map.
	But, you know, heading out to scenes, I'm jamming to some Allison chains or some Metallica and I'm just getting it up.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I'd like to.
	Yeah, I'm rocking.
	But, you know, when I'm leaving, I'll go mellow.
	I'll go from, you know, maybe some counting crows to some, sometimes even black gospel music.
	I mean, my brain just goes to, you know, depends on the case and what I see.
	But yeah, music's an escape for me.
	You know, it gets me out of that.
	You know, I don't do this full-time.
	We all have other jobs.
	We're very, we're paid off of the budgets and we don't have much.
	I mean, I literally, when I go out and draw blood on the weekends or vitriol fluid, when I get home, I throw it in my fridge at home in the butter, in the butter dish.
	My kids know, hey, dad, I found my little boy.
	Hey, my dad has dead people's blood in there.
	You know, we work around our jobs.
	Oh, damn, that's Satan's condiment right there, boy.
	Damn, that's a blast.
	So, I mean, we've deserved, bro.
	We're really on our own.
	Yeah, my kids are desensitized.
	You know, back in the early Windows 98, when you could set your screensaver to just roll through your pictures on your computers, every once in a while, one would get away from me, and it would just be this gory picture, and I'd have to take it down.
	But, you know, I've, you know, yeah, my kids are just desensitized to say the least, but they hear me telling stories about what I'm working with.
	And so they know how dangerous drugs are.
	They know one thing, you know, I wanted to talk about preventable deaths and deaths that we see too often.
	Yeah, that's a great question.
	Like if you were a parent, if you were just a human being, you know, you mentioned earlier, like the holidays is kind of a time where you need to be a little bit more cognizant because things happen then, you know.
	Things happen fast.
	Yeah, not to take a two-lane highway if you can't afford lane.
	It's so funny after living in a bigger city and you get back to a smaller place.
	Two-lane roads, like highways, seem so dangerous.
	It's crazy to think that both of us are just going to pass each other safely with all the common accoutrements they have.
	People having cell phones, whistles, you know, perversion toys or whatever.
	And two people are going to go by each other at 70 miles an hour safely.
	Yeah, those people are on fentanyl and heroin and coke and mushrooms and you name it.
	And they're five inches from you or your children or your family.
	You really see things.
	So for me, ATVs and four-wheelers scare me.
	I've had even seasoned farmers will die on four-wheelers.
	And it's kind of a thing.
	Kids love to ride four-wheelers and they're just so dangerous.
	If they flip on you, they're going to break your neck.
	There's a great possibility of that.
	The same with you hear of Polaris Rangers and other UTVs, four-wheel golf cart-like four-wheel drive things.
	People don't consider the flip ratios on those things.
	And I've had several cases where three or four children die on them.
	You may go to tractor supply and get a cheaper $8,000 for a four by four that you four wheels.
	And people think, well, that's safer.
	But the flip ratios are terrible on those cheaper ones.
	And they flip when kids are just riding them in the yard.
	So that's my big thing is four-wheelers.
	I'm scared to death.
	I've always have been to let my kids ride them just because of what I see.
	Yeah.
	Well, I think, look, you're the guy who knows.
	You're the guy who's standing at the finish line and seeing who's finishing early and what the causes of those finishes are.
	And if you say that it's motorcycles, if you say that it's four-wheelers, then that's what it is.
	You know, that's some of the risk of things.
	Yeah, don't ride a horse if you don't know how to ride horses.
	Mardi Gras is a big deal.
	A bunch of people in Louisiana, everybody gets drunk and rides horses.
	I mean, horse throws you off, you hit your head, you're done.
	You're drunk on a trailer.
	You fall off that trailer, it runs over you, you're gone.
	I mean, we see Mardi Gras an interesting time.
	I literally throw a pillow in the back of my car because I might be on the road all night.
	You know, we see a lot of motor vehicle accidents, you know, and drunk driving, you know, hold my beer and watch this kind of deaths.
	You know, where I've had guys trying to jump other cars and, you know, dually's wrapped in trees 15 feet above the cement that were reduced to the size of a very small car.
	Yeah.
	Sophia.
	Yeah.
	So, you know, Mardi Gras is an interesting time to say the least.
	A lot of accidents.
	You know, obviously you get brought on all kinds of calls and having a certain level of humor, like trying to keep things humorous if you can.
	Right.
	You know?
	Right.
	Are there ways you do that at crime scenes?
	Are there crimes where you've just been like, you guys can't help but laugh at the just the fact that it even happened?
	The circumstances surrounding.
	Yeah.
	Well, one I had, it wasn't really a coroner's call, but I was called out to death by a city police officer.
	So I get there.
	And, you know, when I, again, we're in a parish of 80,000.
	A lot of people know me.
	They know what I drive.
	You know, I can't go to a friend's house and have a cup of coffee without my phone ringing.
	Hey, did so-and-so die?
	I'm like, no, I'm just hanging out, you know, still alive and well.
	But I got called one time and the guy was still alive.
	They were doing CPR and he had a heartbeat.
	So as I'm walking up to the house, I see the families, I see their posture change like, oh shit, the coroner's here.
	It's not good.
	And, you know, so I walk in and the paramedic says, we got a heart rate.
	And I'm like, he's not dead yet?
	Who called me?
	So I immediately walk out and I wave at the family.
	And that guy's still alive today.
	And you can imagine them saying, you were so sick.
	Wow.
	The coroner came.
	You know, those are, you know, we see crazy things.
	One lady was told to put jelly.
	She had a really bad infection.
	She was putting jelly between her legs.
	Okay.
	Somebody said, put some jelly on it.
	Well, she was really.
	Like, what you mean, like smuckers or something?
	Well, that's what she was using.
	Normally it would be more of a KY jelly or something for that.
	And her legs were purple.
	And it was like, what's going on here?
	And her neighbor said, you know, well, she was putting jelly on it.
	And it's like, wait, what?
	You were using smuckers?
	That's the wrong kind of jelly.
	But, you know, we've seen wedding rings around penises.
	It's like, man, how'd you even get that on there?
	Yeah.
	Wow, that must have been, that's a big promise.
	Yeah, yeah, huge.
	You know, we see bizarre things like that that people do.
	Autoerotic deaths are actually very dangerous.
	We actually get not a lot, but enough of them.
	And that's where people are pleasuring themselves and also hang themselves?
	Yeah, they're starving their body of oxygen.
	Okay.
	Doing that, you need a spotter because it's so common for people to die when they're doing that.
	Well, shit, if you got a spotter, you don't even need to do it usually.
	Well, it depends.
	But yeah, I guess, yeah, people's into different stuff and people are autistic.
	People, you know, bad things can happen in that regard.
	Just bizarre, bizarre things.
	Now, back to the, we were talking about animals.
	I had a call from police and they weren't sure.
	They didn't see a gun, but it appeared that someone had, there was foul play based on the face of the decedent.
	Okay.
	And that was just rodents that had gotten in the middle.
	Yeah.
	So it looked, you know, suspicious of a homicide.
	You know, so.
	But enough rats get in there.
	That's right.
	So we can get out there and say, no, no, this is, you know, we'll still send an autopsy to be sure in some cases.
	They'll make a cheese out of anything, huh?
	That's right.
	Post-mortadella.
	That's right.
	That's right.
	I'm fascinated by that cat that took somebody's head off.
	They'll take somebody's head off, huh?
	Yeah, completely.
	Completely.
	I mean, where do they hide it somewhere?
	No, they eat it.
	Oh, my God.
	I mean, but bone.
	I mean, they eat bone.
	There's no skull left.
	It's gone.
	It's a wig on the ground next to a body, if you can imagine.
	And down into the chest, I could see their left main stem from their lung.
	And it's just amazing how fast a cat can eat you.
	So, you know, have a dog door, have a cat door.
	Not a bad investment.
	Let them leave, huh?
	You know, they can get in and out the house as needed.
	Yeah, we had a lady that had a cat, she had a panther living in her house, and she didn't even know this old lady.
	And it killed someone.
	A panther?
	Yeah.
	Like a real panther?
	Yeah, she didn't know.
	She thought it was like a rescue cat or whatever.
	And it killed someone at a surprise party.
	Wow.
	Imagine that.
	Dogs, I've had dog accidents.
	You know, I love pit bulls.
	They're gorgeous.
	Dobermans, beautiful animals.
	But I've seen people that they've just reacted and grabbed their neck and killed them.
	You know, those animals can be great and they can be dangerous.
	What about some unique animal deaths?
	You ever rolled up?
	Because Louisiana, bro, you know what I'm saying?
	Anything.
	Some people, you know.
	You know, other than having a good pet, having a pit bull as a pet and it biting the owner and getting them in the right spot, you know, that.
	No alligators.
	No alligators, not yet.
	Now, now, bodies that have been shoot on by turtles and possums and other animals when they're dumped into the water, that's hard.
	You know, that's tough.
	But again, that's, you know, not a whole lot of animal deaths.
	Now, riding horses and not knowing how to ride, like I mentioned.
	Horses can really mess you up, you know, if you don't know what you're doing.
	It's a big animal.
	Oh, yeah.
	At Mardi Gras, once I saw two horses making love when the cops were still on their back.
	Oh, wow.
	Yeah.
	Well, we see that.
	And that's, you know, somebody joins the Mardi Gras ride with a horse that hasn't been fixed, a stud, and they'll climb the back.
	You know, yeah.
	And, you know, that's.
	Oh, that's harrowing as a kid seeing your stepdad, you know, getting overtaken by some animal.
	Yeah, well, yeah, that's a thing.
	other crazy cases or anal insertions.
	It's like what people...
	For pleasure.
	Oh, okay.
	You know, we would see that a lot in the Eeyore, but I had a case where the guy obviously didn't want to go to the Eeyore.
	And so he had had a hammer and was using the backside of a hammer.
	To put in his buttocks?
	Right, right.
	And that can perforate your colon and then you get really septic.
	Yeah.
	So, you know, things like that.
	Damn.
	You know, another interesting case would be huffing where people use keyboard cleaner to get high.
	And those deaths occur in parking lots of stores.
	Most frequently, you're going to find a huffer in the parking lot at Walmart.
	Oh, because they get out and get a lot of stuff.
	And so I had one guy, actually a veteran, and that's how he would stop his nightmares.
	It was the only thing that worked.
	And so law enforcement's on scene, and they're like, we can't find any drugs, but there's air cans everywhere, you know, and that's dangerous.
	The worst is when you think you're doing like huffing like one of those things and you accidentally get one of those horns.
	Yeah, I can imagine.
	That's a wake-up call.
	Oh, yeah, dude.
	That's the Lord trying to say, hey, look, bro.
	Time to stop.
	Yeah, I'm going to rescue you real quick, daddy.
	That's a worse, man.
	The synthetic drugs that you see.
	So next time you're in a gas station, just look around.
	They sell kratom.
	They sell all sorts of stuff.
	My nephew is on the street.
	Zaza.
	So Zaza.
	Is words or something?
	What the fuck?
	Look up Gas Station Dope or whatever.
	Gas Station Heroin.
	Yeah.
	He was on.
	So there's Kratom and, you know, there's.
	The worst one that I'm seeing now is, well, that's still for sale is.
	T-Neptine.
	T-Neptine, right.
	That's Zaza.
	So what that is, it's an antidepressant.
	It's actually a tricyclic antidepressant that tags to the MU receptor, which is your opioid receptor.
	So supposedly, if you take one, it gives you that opioid feeling.
	But you're taking an antidepressant on and off and in large amounts.
	And that's very dangerous.
	Yeah.
	And once so, I mean, you can take commonly prescribed Lexapro for a week or two.
	And when you try to stop, you start having these, you start detoxing on this medication.
	So people that get on that stuff can't come off.
	It's actually, when I was reading on it, it's worse than heroin, the withdrawals from that stuff.
	And speaking to gas station owners, they said, people come in here every day.
	They scrounge up 30 bucks to buy a bottle of this stuff.
	And they do it every day, every day.
	And kids can buy this kind of stuff.
	They can go to a gas station and buy some bullshit, you know, that you don't really know what it is.
	When the synthetic bath salts and the synthetic marijuana came around, at first it was a synthetic marijuana, and we didn't really get any, there wasn't anything bad happening.
	But then they outlawed it and then it came back.
	And that's when it got really bad.
	That's when people, and I'd never seen this, but people were chewing other people's faces off.
	And it completely changes their psychopathology.
	They just go crazy on it.
	And these companies, they keep making them illegal, but they keep adding a different chemical to it so they can sell it again.
	And this was really, we would, you know, bad batches.
	There's never a good batch, but we could tell when there were bad batches because of the psych units.
	We would get a lot of people that needed help being committed to.
	Bad batches of these fake weed or those.
	Fake, yeah, fake marijuana or bath salts.
	And we get calls where, you know, Jimmy's in his underwear holding a crawfish talking to God in the middle of a street.
	And he was on that stuff.
	I had one guy that was doing 60 miles an hour and jumped out his truck while driving.
	And that's what he was on.
	You hear of a red rover with somebody probably.
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	No.
	I don't know what the voices in his head were telling him, but he bailed on that truck.
	Yeah, it's dark the things that can happen, man.
	And so is there moments where, like, so say if you are, because you're kind of like, you determine if people are dead or not.
	Right.
	Yeah?
	Well, yeah, they're dead.
	I mean, yeah.
	Have you ever had somebody and they're not dead?
	Yeah, that's, well, in that one regard where they still had a heartbeat.
	Okay.
	But yeah, no, it's never, are they dead?
	I mean, even the law enforcement and people can tell, you know, when someone's not breathing.
	You never showed up and be like, this guy ain't dead.
	No.
	Okay.
	No, not yet.
	Not yet.
	Have you ever put somebody in a body bag and you low-key had like some like, you didn't like that person and you were like, not like you were personally like, I'm glad they're dead, but there was a little party, like a, because we all have kind of twisted parts of our souls that felt a little bit of joy, you think?
	No, no.
	I've never had that happen.
	Even the biggest enemies, you know, I don't, you know, they died.
	Their family's going to be upset.
	It's, you know, yeah.
	But I hear you.
	I guess the right person hasn't died yet.
	Right.
	Maybe one day.
	Yeah, because I think of myself as a loving person, but I can't, you know, we all have, we're all very complex individuals and uncomplex.
	And so I think I'm just wondering if part of me, if I ever put, you know, did the put that zip rub on somebody, if I'd be like, yep, you know, got him, you know, or something like that.
	Yeah, not yet.
	Not yet.
	We try to be as compassionate as we can.
	And, you know, there's family and children involved and it's tough.
	Do you get invited to a lot of the services and stuff?
	Do you have to go to that thing?
	Are you guys required to go to any funerals?
	No, not really.
	Only for friends.
	Really friends.
	And maybe there's a few cases that were just really hard where the family was struggling.
	And I'll go in there and give them a hug.
	You know, COVID was a thing.
	And COVID was really rough.
	Really?
	My opinion on COVID from what I dealt with, when it started, you know, we, like I said, death is seasonal.
	And March, April, May, it eases up.
	That's our slow time.
	We don't get as many deaths.
	Now, you know, ODs and suicides and homicides are 24-7 now.
	I mean, that happens every day.
	But the end of spring, early summer is when we don't get as many calls.
	And I can remember training somebody, and she would say, When am I going to get something good?
	When am I going to get something good?
	And I kept saying, Just be patient, just be patient.
	You know, it's like bass fishing.
	You might have just some normal everyday stuff, and then boom, you get a big one.
	Yeah.
	Well, I used to work fast food too.
	And I remember everybody wants to do the fries or something like the first day you're there.
	You know, it's like, dude, you can't just do that.
	COVID came and we had heard rumors that there was this virus.
	And my wife and I went to Colorado and we were aware, but it wasn't out the box yet.
	And then shortly after we got home, we just started getting phone calls and phone calls and phone calls.
	I mean, I still have PTSD from talking on the phone.
	You know, in healthcare, we didn't know what was going on.
	People were dying left and right.
	I'm talking, I would have one hospital on the phone and I'd have to say, can you please hold?
	And I would answer the other one.
	I'd have three calls coming in every hour.
	And that stayed constant for, you know, three or four months.
	Just the amount of deaths we had.
	Now, Louisiana, we have a lot of unhealthy people in general.
	And when, you know, COVID was the same, same thing every time.
	It was before the nurse would tell me, I'm like, well, wait, let me guess.
	The patient came into the Eeyore, wasn't breathing.
	Y'all put them on a CPAP.
	Y'all ventilated them a while.
	They failed that.
	Y'all put them on a ventilator and the family withdrew care.
	Am I right?
	And they were like, yep, you got it.
	It was the same manner of death every time.
	And it was rampant.
	We didn't stop.
	And they had some people saying, oh, I don't believe COVID.
	And you're pronouncing these people and blaming it on COVID.
	Sure, they had diabetes.
	They were obese.
	They had all kinds of problems.
	But the volume of deaths that took off at that time was unbelievable.
	And it was a lot of my, it made it awkward for my, a lot of people I know, my friends, I've lost friends to that, friends' parents.
	You know, it was just, it made it awkward.
	I'd go hang out with my buddy and he knows, you know, he knew that I pronounced his father.
	And there was a lot of that going on during COVID.
	People ever get mad at you for pronouncing their family deceased?
	No, no, no.
	But it just kind of makes it awful.
	They don't blame it on you, huh?
	No, but it does.
	It made it awkward.
	And so when you look back at that time, right, because there was tons of things being said about COVID, right?
	Right.
	Right.
	Especially, you know, things like, oh, it's not real.
	Right.
	Right.
	So you would dispute that totally.
	Absolutely.
	There's no doubt something came along.
	Yeah, I've been up for four days answering the phone.
	I mean, I went through, I saved them.
	I went through five, five subject notebooks in a month.
	You know, it was overwhelming.
	Did you think that the like the manner of like treatment, like, because a lot of then there was a lot of rumors, like, oh, people put people on ventilators.
	They shouldn't have.
	That's what killed them.
	Do you think that there could have been some, and we don't know, you know, I don't know a lot of this stuff.
	Right.
	You may have more insight than I do.
	Do you think that as people as the medical profession was figuring out how to best handle people, that they, that that could have contributed to more deaths?
	I think we found better ways to treat them and make them manageable.
	You know, steroids were the first thing that popped into all of our heads because they couldn't breathe.
	We need to shrink that soft tissue and give them steroids.
	Later they said, you know, laying prone or on your stomach made it easier to breathe.
	Ventilators, coming from respiratory therapy, when the lungs get stiff, you have to go to a pressure ventilation.
	And it's actually called ARDS, A-R-D-S.
	And it's an acute respiratory failure in adults where their lungs actually become stiff.
	So when we're ventilating someone, we're using a volume-based air to open and close their lungs.
	But when they had COVID, their lungs would stiffen up.
	And the only way to truly ventilate them, to get their CO2 down, was to jack up that vent on pressure support, on a pressure ventilation, that is.
	So you're sending in with a pretty high PSI, you mean?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	We were ventilating them with air pressure instead of just that volume flow based.
	And we had to.
	That was the only way you could get their lungs to open and close.
	And then eventually they would stiffen up.
	So when people were saying COVID's not real and, you know, it was, you know, I knew the treatment and I knew what was going on.
	And we've never had a stretch where everybody needed pressure ventilation.
	It was like, what is going on with this?
	And that's what happened with everybody.
	We just couldn't ventilate them.
	Sure, diabetes played a factor.
	Sure, congestive heart failure played a factor.
	You know, we didn't get many young, healthy people that died of COVID.
	But the rate and the amount was overwhelming.
	So I knew it was real and it was scary.
	You got to understand that, again, I told you I had a can of off and a badge as gear.
	Well, the police departments and even us, we didn't have much PPE at the time.
	So I would be on scene and, you know, pronouncing someone with COVID and I'm looking around and the cops had homemade masks, you know, talking tampon, I mean, maxi pads and panties stretched over their ears to block their airway.
	Some guys wearing, yeah, like a Halloween costume.
	Yeah.
	And I, you know, I can remember one time where on a scene, and, you know, when you find a large amount of money on a scene and you're in that moment and you, you open a duffel bag and there's, you know, $80,000, it's just human nature to do, you know, wow.
	You stare at it a minute.
	Not that you would take it.
	It's just interesting.
	But you deserve 10% of this.
	Yeah.
	You know what I'm saying?
	You fucking got it.
	You walk over there.
	Yeah, that's my tip.
	That's that tariff, bro.
	But so one time, you know, this guy was, he came in.
	He worked in an offshore or something.
	And, you know, when we're trying to figure out why this 50-year-old guy or 40-year-old guy is dead, we opened his bag.
	And, you know, sometimes we'll find drugs and other things.
	But in his bag, he had some true 3M masks.
	And I can remember that.
	And we were all just salivating over it.
	Like, wow.
	You know, he'd probably taken them from offshore, but we didn't even have that protective gear.
	And just to see him with a case of those, it would be like, man, I would love a box of those right about now.
	It was scary, you know, because we didn't know what COVID was and what it could cause and family and children and getting home.
	I'd sit outside every night and watch TV and stay away from my family because we were so exposed to that.
	Vaccinations, that's a whole nother story.
	But, you know, I took one because I was just seeing too many deaths.
	Yeah, I can imagine from your perspective, that had to be crazy.
	Yeah.
	Because you're like, here's this new thing.
	We don't know what's going on.
	A lot of people are saying that it doesn't exist.
	A lot of people are saying that it's, you know, that it's man-made.
	A lot of people are saying these things that like whatever methods we're using to treat people or what's killing them, you know.
	Yeah.
	There were people on social media, friends of ours, that were going out of their way to tell people that it was all a bunch of bullshit.
	And, you know, don't wear a mask and don't do this.
	And here I'm sitting with compositions in every part of the house with deaths.
	And I'm thinking, why are you going out your way to tell people this isn't real or it's a political hoax or what, you know, it was tough.
	Yeah.
	Well, I can certainly from you.
	Come follow me around and let me show you how real this is.
	You know, it was, it was, people had their own opinions about it.
	So I never got involved into the, you know, who said or why it's here.
	Yeah.
	I just, well, I think at first I didn't know if it was real.
	I don't know.
	I've always been super untrustworthy of a lot of stuff.
	So, but, but also I never got different people's experiences are different too.
	Some people never got sick.
	So they never had any, you know, and then they never knew anybody that got sick.
	Right.
	So then to some people, it's like, what is even going on, you know, and that's their reality, you know?
	And you can't blame them.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	That's what I'm saying.
	You can't blame some people.
	You can't blame their reality.
	I think some because that's their truth.
	How could they know anything else?
	Right.
	But then I think there was a lot of uncertainty and also just people not trusting the news anymore.
	There used to be a time where you trusted the news, right?
	Absolutely.
	You felt like it was genuine.
	It at least had some semblance of the best interest for humanity.
	And that was kind of eroding right then.
	So I think at that point, when both those things are happening at the same time, you know, a lot of conspiracy theories are, or sometimes what can later be seen as truthful.
	You know, a lot of stuff that was conspiracy then, now people are saying it was correct.
	So it's just, you know, a lot of that's kind of absolutely.
	And there were alternate ways to treat yourself.
	Joe Rogan was, you know, right about some of the medications and therapies he encouraged, as well as talking about obese versus healthy people.
	And all that was spot on.
	Yeah.
	You know, but it was tough to witness and see and pronounce a lot of friends.
	And I knew it was real.
	Right.
	Especially right where you are.
	I mean, you standing right there at the finish line, dude.
	Absolutely.
	Do you ever feel like you were like when people die, does it feel like they're going somewhere else?
	Do you feel like, do you think like, all right, this person's going to heaven or this person's going to hell?
	Or do you ever have any little thoughts like that?
	Yeah, I have opinions, you know, on some people that I might know, but me too.
	I don't say nothing, but me too.
	Yeah.
	No, my, you know, you know, they're in a better place.
	I often think, you know, God, it's going to be hard to lose my father or my wife.
	And then I witnessed my father-in-law die of cancer, and he was struggling there at the end.
	And to know that he was no longer struggling.
	And when he finally passed, there was a peace, you know.
	So I think I can accept that in some regards later in life because you see the really bad deaths and you see people that struggle.
	And sometimes it's, you know, I'm glad they were, God took them, you know, away from this pain and suffering.
	So, yeah.
	Yeah.
	Do you feel like, do you ever feel like people are going, like, do you get any insight, I guess, into just being around death so much, right?
	Because a lot of us aren't around it.
	Right.
	We can't even go.
	You know, we people want to find a dead body.
	They can't, you know, people are.
	But you get to be around it, kind of.
	Do you ever feel like that people are like, do you ever get any insight if people are leaving to a better place or if they're like, do you feel anything like that?
	Do you think you get any more insight than just the regular person sitting around wondering what the afterlife is like or anything?
	Well, but in those instances, I'm so overwhelmed with evidence and looking at things that I'm not really – But as far as the afterlife, I know in my faith that they're going to a better place.
	But I have, you know, back to your question, I guess I've joked and said, well, this guy's going straight to hell.
	Sometimes you got to.
	But yeah, he's going straight down.
	But again, that's just personal joking and stuff like that.
	Yeah.
	You know, so Crystal Meth came, and that drug is really rough on people.
	It turns people into monsters.
	Really?
	It really does.
	These people, I mean, they just turn into demons.
	They do things that most normal people wouldn't do.
	But it's interesting when I have someone that abuses meth and I go into their home because these people are up all night fidgeting.
	They can't sit still.
	They do electrical.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, they do electrical.
	Sometimes they want to, I've had people take electrical wires and try to create things and they shock themselves.
	But what's interesting sometimes is the things they make, like drone deflectors.
	I went into a house once and they had all these weird things hanging.
	And I actually went home and built one just as a memorabilia.
	But they'll take an electrical cord or rope and then they'll sew or wrap a barbecue spatula on the end of it.
	It makes no sense.
	But they would put them in all the corners of their houses and I'd ask families like, hey, what's that?
	What's going on with all this?
	A dream catcher out of Arby's, huh?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And it's like, hey, that's what he said deflected the drones.
	so it's kind of cool.
	Like, oh man, you know, the paranoia would set in, and it's interesting, you know, it's sad and it's terrible and all of the above, but it was interesting to see some of that.
	It is some of the creativity.
	There's a lot of odd creativity in myth.
	You can tell when you go into a house, when there's calculators taken apart and just things that, you know, are disassembled everywhere.
	You know that, okay, this person was on some type of amphetamine.
	You ever had to go, you ever found somebody hiding somewhere real neat?
	Like, or somebody died during hide and go seek or something?
	Yeah, well, you know, there was a guy under a house once, you know, and, you know, no clothes on.
	I wouldn't like that part.
	Yeah, naked under a house, eating popsicles.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	I mean, that's different.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	That's a different way to do it.
	PCP, you know, that makes you a bit crazy.
	But, you know, truck drivers, we get truck driver deaths a lot.
	They're from out of state.
	Why?
	Why do you get truck driver deaths a lot?
	Well, not a lot, but we get them.
	We have truck stops, and a lot of times they'll pull over.
	And look, truck drivers aren't healthy.
	I mean, they're big guys because they drive all day long.
	And, you know, sometimes I'll get called out and I'll be in somebody's truck.
	I've never been in a truck driver's truck before until I started doing this.
	And I'm looking at how they live.
	And, you know, they notify their parents by their family by phone.
	And so, you know, maybe the wife's flying in to get his personal belongings.
	And the truck's full of condoms.
	And it's like, oh, man, I don't want this wife coming into his truck.
	So, you know, hey, can we throw this stuff out?
	You know, before the wife gets there, yeah, give him a little.
	It's respectable, dude.
	I don't want the family's last thoughts to.
	Yeah.
	You know, so there are different cases and different positions that we're in for sure.
	It's just, it's an interesting job.
	And, you know, I'm very sympathetic and compassionate when I'm, you know, we all get faster as we work.
	We get faster at things we do.
	You know, we learn how to do them faster.
	And every once in a while, I have to stop and remind myself to slow down and to make eye contact with that family and to be really compassionate.
	Yeah, that's the nature of everything, I think.
	Once you get in the flow of something too much, you know.
	Yeah, you do it too fast.
	Yeah.
	And you don't stop to, you know, maybe spend that extra time with them to reassure them that, you know, that their family's taken care of.
	So things like that.
	Yeah, I mean, it's easy to even joke about, you know, from being removed from it.
	You know, it's like, it's easy sometimes to try and make levity of some of the situation, you know.
	Are there things that you guys have done like in the moment or things ever that happened, you try to keep some levity in the situation?
	Because, yeah, the only opposite to such a dark moment is some levity, you know?
	Well, tease the officers, joke around with the officers on scene, not so much the person laying there, but you try to pick up their spirits, you know, in all sorts of ways, you know.
	Sometimes you can ask them to hold something and they think they're actually doing something that needs to be done and they're just holding a needle.
	And, you know, an hour later, they're still standing there holding that needle.
	And it's like, you can let that go now.
	But yeah, you have to have a bit of humor.
	Otherwise, it'll eat you up.
	Yeah.
	You know, what's sad is for folks like us, you know, we're underfunded.
	We use our own cars and, you know, the things we do, we don't have protective gear.
	So when I go out, we recently just got some, but when I go out to, say, a homicide, which is, we're seeing so many of those now, African-American kids are dying by gun violence and Caucasian kids are dying from drug overdoses.
	And it's overwhelming.
	But when we get called out to a homicide, a shooting, you know, in one of the cities close to us, they're rated the number one dangerous place to live in Louisiana per capita for the homicides within my parish.
	And so it might be 3 o'clock in the morning, and I go out to a shooting, and I'm walking up to that scene.
	Well, by the time I get there, I'm again, last responder, right?
	So I get there.
	By the time I get there, everybody in the neighborhood and family and friends are all on scene.
	So I'm parking three blocks, four blocks deep and having to walk through a crowd of people that I don't know that are upset, angry, high, you name it.
	And I have to go to find that body and the police officers.
	And it can get hairy, you know, and I'm in scrubs.
	You know, I'm not dressed in a bulletproof vest or anything.
	I've been on scene where shots were fired.
	It was a block away, but when you're in scrubs and shots are fired, it's pretty tough.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, because somebody's already dead.
	Yeah.
	I would have started saying that.
	Hey, you know.
	Yeah.
	Well, there was a case in North Louisiana where the guy had was shot and the paramedics were working on him.
	A friend of mine was actually on this scene.
	And so they're working on him.
	And a guy walks up and says, hey, man, is he going to make it?
	And the paramedic said, yeah, I think he's going to pull through.
	And the guy shoots him right there.
	Boom, boom, boom.
	Puts three more rounds in him.
	So scene control can be tough when there's two officers and 300 people.
	Yeah.
	Just recently, and again, my condolences go out to this officer who was just killed in another parish next door to us.
	I mean, great guy, really good guy.
	And there wasn't many people there for scene control.
	And one of my friends was, showed up as a marshal.
	And the whole crowd was telling him it's about time one of y'all died, you know, and just saying things that, you know, y'all all need to die.
	And, you know, you have guns, but we have bigger guns.
	When you're by yourself, you know, at 10 o'clock at night with 300 people cussing at you, I mean, that's hard.
	And that's hard for those officers.
	Yeah, they don't get paid enough.
	No, and they don't.
	They don't at all.
	They really don't.
	Nobody would.
	And a lot of these young officers haven't been through health care.
	And they see things that I see.
	We see them more frequently, but still, those young officers that are 22, 23, they're looking at things that they've never seen before.
	You mean victims and stuff like that?
	Yeah, well, every death that I see, decomposed bodies, you name it, children and babies.
	And it's tough for those guys.
	And I have a partner's in a company where we do psychological evaluations for law enforcement.
	Oh, that's wonderful.
	Yeah.
	So we have a team of psychologists that review, they take them through different tests and instruments and determine if they're suitable for law enforcement.
	And right now, the only people that are applying for law enforcement are high risk.
	And that's what makes it tough for city police.
	You've got to hire somebody who was shoplifting two months ago.
	So they're not getting a good batch of officers right now.
	And cops in general have been put down.
	The whole defund the police.
	Oh, yeah.
	All that stuff's ridiculous.
	So it's, yeah.
	And you have people moving out of cities.
	There's just so much violence.
	There's so much crime in a lot of cities.
	I was just in Memphis the other day and it's beautiful, great city, right?
	Gets really dangerous, you know.
	There's a lot of like, there's a lot of shootings, a lot of black crime, too, you know, unfortunately.
	Like when I was growing up, two of my best friends, my black friends got killed by other young black men, you know.
	I think it's just a bummer.
	Some of that happens because it makes it scary to live in certain places.
	Very.
	And then it's like, if you want to move away from places like that, people say, oh, well, it's like white flight or it's a racial issue, but it's like, it's just fear.
	It's like you just want to be safe.
	It's, you know, it's, I don't know.
	And there's, look, there's all types of violence, but it's sad to see a lot of that.
	A lot of these kids are 14 and 15 years old.
	Man.
	And they, you know, trade in video games.
	And, hey, I'll buy that game from you.
	Okay.
	I'll meet you.
	And then hand on the video game up and shoots them.
	So they're not, it's not all drug-related deaths.
	Some of it's over, you know, you called me out on Facebook and they kill them.
	I mean, I don't understand that.
	They're not scared to go to jail or prison.
	And they do, when they're 18, they get let go to some degree.
	But it's just, it's an overwhelming amount of young, healthy kids dying on both sides.
	I mean, again, the drug abuse is rampant and the homicides are rampant.
	So you're noticing more in white community, it's drug overdose.
	Absolutely.
	And in black community, it's more gun violence.
	Absolutely.
	It's scary to see the disregard for life.
	Yeah.
	You know, and the accidental ODs.
	And I can't stress enough that the synthetic drugs that are being sold in stores are dangerous.
	You know, it throws these kids into seizures.
	But they're being sold in stores?
	Absolutely.
	You can go.
	Oh, you mean like at the gas station?
	Gas station.
	Tratum crack, gas crack, all that kind of stuff.
	Gas station heroin, yeah.
	Does Mitch.
	Yeah, whatever.
	It's called Adderall.
	It's called Adoll.
	And kids go buy this.
	And that might not kill them, but they have seizures.
	That's what kills them is they'll have a major seizure when they take this stuff.
	Can't believe we allow that stuff to be sold then.
	Yeah, it's they say watch Alabama for some reason.
	Everything starts in Alabama with that kind of stuff.
	And then Alabama outlaws it.
	But as soon as they outlaw it, something else is coming back.
	So it's scary raising kids.
	Even on social media, you can get on Instagram or any of the platforms and order drugs.
	And while we're sitting here, I can order a pound of cocaine and have it shipped to my house and it'll be here in three days.
	Dude.
	And kids have access to that.
	Going home with y'all then.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah, what do you want?
	No, I don't.
	But you're right, though.
	If there's VPNs, people can, you can get like drugs.
	The Postal Service is the biggest distributor of illegal narcotics in the U.S. You know, it's scary raising kids with gun violence and just all these different things that can yeah.
	Yeah, it almost seems like it's just becoming like another country that I think than it seemed like when I was growing up, you know, when I was a child.
	Drugs didn't kill you back then.
	No.
	You know, nobody shot you.
	It's different, you know.
	Yeah.
	But there are still, you know, there's still positive things that I can help people with.
	One area I did want to mention is babies.
	My godchild just had a baby.
	I like babies.
	Yeah.
	I see, you know, we work babies.
	We have not a large amount, but babies die, newborn babies.
	Some of the things you can do is, you know, when we raised our children, they all slept in the bed with us.
	We put them right there in bed with us.
	And luckily, we never lost a kid.
	But if you have a baby, I've never pronounced a baby in a baby bed or a pack and play, one of those little small cribs.
	You know, what happens is parents will put babies in the middle of a king-sized bed because they're so small they can't even roll yet.
	And they put them in that bed and they'll basically suffocate.
	We all used to say it was SIDS, but it's truly positional asphyxia.
	So that airways like a straw.
	And if that straw kinks, but as long as you're using baby products, you know, like a baby bed, I've never pronounced the baby, unless, of course, they were using like an adult blanket in a baby bed.
	So there's things you can do in that regard, you know, to that's things I can teach people.
	So not have your baby in bed with you.
	Don't put your baby in bed with you.
	Don't put them on the couch sleeping while you wash dishes.
	Because they'll roll off.
	They'll roll off, they'll get wedged, or the pillow is so soft that they can't adjust their head and neck.
	You know, so there's things I can teach people that, you know, how preventable deaths.
	And babies is one of them, something that I can, you know, share with new parents.
	Yeah.
	Oh, it's super important.
	Yeah.
	So, you know, bad shit can happen when you do everything right.
	You know, so you just got To be careful, and every day is a gift, you know.
	Do you think there was a reason you got into that line of work then?
	Do you think there was like something that like you had this like you know, this dark side that led you into it?
	It seems like you came a little bit more through like the medical profession or through the insurance, like just was it the what were you guys selling, you said?
	Or what products were you working with before you got into?
	Well, I was in respiratory, you know, so I but I've always had a I've always leaned towards healthcare.
	Um, I've always worked in the trauma area of healthcare.
	Um, so you loved something fascinating about it a little bit?
	Yeah, I've always just had it.
	I was just born to do this kind of stuff.
	You know, I don't, I don't do the coroner's office for money.
	It's not a, you know, I saved my best my best friend's life and I look back on that and, you know, it was a blessing to have that ability.
	Amen.
	To be able to just be there and be a part.
	Yeah.
	If you hadn't been there, who knows?
	Yeah.
	So that's a real gift.
	But yeah, I don't know what shifted me into it.
	It's kind of like I was always set up to do this kind of stuff.
	Yeah.
	You know.
	And you can handle it.
	Absolutely.
	And to your retired police officer, he was like, man, those guys can eat.
	Yeah, we can eat.
	You know, that doesn't bother me.
	I can eat a meatball sub or Buddha and cracklings in an autopsy break room.
	Damn.
	You know, when you're hungry, you're hungry.
	Yes, but damn, boy.
	I don't know.
	I wouldn't have a French dip, though.
	That seems a bit much.
	Yeah, it's pretty good.
	I like French dip.
	I would do that at home, I think.
	Yeah.
	Now, we don't eat standing over a body.
	You got to stand off to the side.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	There's a little break room.
	You'll get it.
	You'll hit it with it, you know.
	And Fluss down in Southeast Louisiana, bro.
	Or if you're down in Southwest, a lot of the bodies down there could be caused by Dustin Poirier, too, dude.
	That's right.
	If you're down in Southwest Louisiana, bro.
	If you got a good ass whooping.
	I'm not saying he's a serial killer, but I definitely know.
	Right.
	Right.
	I bet if you, you know.
	And, you know, fighting, we had a young guy died.
	He was punched once.
	Uh-oh.
	And it was a hard enough hit, and he collapsed and hit the cement.
	And that's really unfortunate.
	But again, it doesn't take much, you know?
	Life's pretty fragile.
	Does it seem like that?
	It really is.
	It really is.
	Every day is a gift, man.
	Some of the things we get frustrated with our family and friends are not worth the frustration because they may not be here tomorrow or you won't be here tomorrow.
	And I learned that.
	Yeah.
	Have you learned that?
	Has that had a big effect on you?
	That's really fascinating.
	Yeah, you're like, this is not a big deal.
	Yeah, it's really not.
	You could be pumping gas and a tire flies off a car and takes you out.
	I've had single trees fall on cars, just the most bizarre things.
	But when God's ready for you, he's going to take you.
	God.
	And so, yeah, it makes you aware of your surroundings, but you can help people.
	You can, you know, back to the preventable deaths.
	You can tell people what not to do.
	And, you know, it helps you through life.
	Do you ever worry about your own ego?
	Like, I would be like, oh, I'm like, you know, like I have some special gift or something.
	Does that ever no, man?
	I'm real laid back.
	What you see is what you get.
	I'm Cajun, you know?
	Yeah.
	I just kind of roll with the flow.
	I'm not special, you know.
	I don't get speeding tickets.
	That's a plus.
	That's fair.
	It's nice knowing the police.
	Yeah.
	I keep a blood vial with, I don't even know what I have in it, maybe coffee.
	I keep it in my glove box in all our cars.
	So if I'm going to Houston and I get pulled over, ever since Ebola, man, cops don't like body fluids.
	So if I get pulled over, you know, I'll whip out that biohazard bag with some coffee in it.
	Hey, I'm transporting this to whichever direction I'm going.
	You know, I'm bringing this to Methodist.
	Oh, it's body fluids.
	You can go.
	They don't even want to shake my hand on scene.
	Oh, man, they give me a little fist bump or an elbow.
	Sometimes my hands are dirty and intentionally I'll say, hey, can I borrow you ink pen?
	And they're like, no, bruh.
	You know, can I hold your flashlight?
	You know, I need to look at this.
	And they like, no, bruh.
	So, you know.
	Do your hands get dirty on the scene?
	Yeah, I mean, but I'm wearing gloves, right?
	So there was a case, you know, I have to put my hands in it, you know, the worst of the worst, worst of the worst.
	And there was, there was a pedestrians is something I didn't talk about, man.
	Pedestrians are dying.
	And what is pedestrians?
	Pedestrians, people walking.
	Oh, God.
	Man, so you had mentioned, you know, going out and maybe having a beer or two.
	Well, you go out and have a couple of drinks, one drink at a dinner meeting, then you eat dessert and have a cup of coffee, and you're driving back on that dark two-lane road at 11 o'clock at night.
	There's going to be somebody walking in black clothes on the street, and you're going to run over them.
	I mean, it happens.
	And as soon as you do that, they're drawing you blood.
	But pedestrians are dropping like flies, and we're so distracted.
	Right, because people on their phones.
	Yeah, I mean, look, I text and drive.
	I'll be the first one to admit it.
	And sometimes I'm driving, I hear that rough sound when you venture off the road, you know, and I'm like, oh, you know.
	Oh, yeah, that's the fucking Lord's Braille right there.
	That's right.
	And look, man, that could have been somebody standing right there.
	It happened.
	It used to be walk with traffic.
	Now I tell people, man, walk against traffic so you can see who's coming because everybody's distracted.
	Oh, that's such a great point.
	Yeah, that's totally changed.
	Absolutely.
	Walk towards traffic so you know.
	Yeah, you have to be the one who's alert now.
	They're not alert.
	Unfortunately, people are walking towards traffic looking at their phones.
	So even they swerve out, you know.
	Bike riding, man.
	We were raised on bikes, you know, the Team Murray Mafia, you know.
	And we don't let our kids, when they were younger, I don't let them ride bikes in town anymore because people aren't paying attention.
	Adults on bikes getting mowed over, you know, it's.
	Adults on bikes is weird also, I think.
	You don't need to be wearing them tight pants anyway and that helmet.
	But if you do decide to do that, do it in a track.
	Yeah.
	Because, man, we've had friends that have gotten hit on highways and they're not dead, but they've taken really bad, had really bad accidents.
	so, yeah, we see, I forgot where I was going prior to that, but we do see a lot of pedestrians.
	No, I think you're just talking about preventative things, you know, with that, you know, like things to look out for.
	You just want to cover everything, too.
	I know that you wanted to, you know, just be able to share a lot of information as to like, I think we've learned a lot about like all the different areas your job kind of encompasses, you know, the different types of things that you can see that come in, you know, the different responsibilities of the coroner's office that we didn't know about.
	And then it's your affiliation to it, you know, that you're not some kind of dark lord or anything.
	Yeah.
	That you are just.
	I don't have any Adams family tats.
	Yeah.
	You know.
	Yeah.
	You know.
	You're just a man that can handle it.
	I'm a little different.
	You know, I'm definitely not right, but you know.
	So we have a Willie Nelson mannequin in my house.
	He's a full-size mannequin.
	People are always like, man, what's that?
	You know, my kids even, when they were, they were scared of him.
	But I had a crazy aunt who had mannequins as company.
	And she was living in New York, Covington, if I'm not mistaken.
	And when we moved her back, she had all these mannequins.
	And I was a young kid.
	And every time we would go to her retirement home, they were in different positions, wearing different clothes.
	And that was her company.
	She was really had some psych issues.
	Yeah.
	So when we had kids, I'm like, you know what?
	I need to carry that family tradition.
	We need a mannequin in here.
	So we had one.
	We took it on Arkansas vacation with us.
	And the camp next to us just wasn't quite sure about us because I pointed facing their cabin, right?
	And then I found a Willie Nelson mannequin in a place that the guy sold it to me.
	And it's just a lot of fun.
	It's different.
	It's weird.
	Yeah, it's cool.
	We took him to New Orleans in a wheelchair and pushed him around, but most people didn't even notice him, you know?
	Yeah.
	But I would set him somewhere and just watch people walk by and say, excuse me, you know.
	So, yeah, we're different people.
	We, you know.
	Well, yeah, if you play in a mannequin, if you're taking mannequins around in wheelchairs, I think that that is a, I understand that.
	I think it all makes perfect sense now.
	But yeah, I think you got to have some fun.
	Louisiana's always been like that.
	Absolutely.
	People always having fun.
	My mother loved Willie Nelson.
	I'm trying to think.
	We grew up near a prosthetic place.
	They was making processes over at this joint, and they'd throw a lot of them out, the ones that didn't come out good.
	Oh, wow.
	So we were always beating the shit out of each other with fucking legs.
	Yeah, just ambidextrous legs and all kinds of shit.
	That's awesome.
	It wasn't really legit, you know?
	Right.
	So kind of adjust your perspective on things.
	Absolutely.
	You know, Louisiana's always had a decent, you know, I think it's not a place where there's a lot going on.
	You know, there's not a lot of big businesses.
	I don't think there's any Fortune 500 companies in Louisiana except maybe Entergy.
	And I feel like they probably, I think that they moved out.
	But so it's a lot.
	It's just about people and having fun.
	Yeah, that's Louisiana.
	Have a good time.
	Yeah, it really is, man.
	And I think you got to make the best time you can, no matter what you're doing.
	And you guys are in you guys, police officers, it's just a position where, you know, it's not very rewarding.
	And you catch a lot of people on their worst day.
	Absolutely.
	The worst days.
	Yeah.
	Nobody calls like, hey, coroner, you're having a great time.
	Right, right.
	Like I said, I can't go have a cup of coffee with a friend without them thinking that, you know, they did a small town, you know?
	Yeah, dude, you're almost like that plink, like that, like a roulette ball, you know?
	Yeah.
	You just drive around a neighborhood and then you stop wherever you want.
	Especially during COVID, you know, you could park anywhere when somebody's dead.
	I just stayed home.
	I mean, it was like Monty Python, you know, bring out your dad, you know, but I'm not dead yet.
	I mean, that's what it was.
	You know, it, yeah.
	It's an interesting, it's an interesting field for sure.
	Well, look, man, I just, yeah, well, I appreciate you coming in, man.
	I appreciate you spending time.
	And it's really nice of you, dude.
	This has been cool to learn about.
	You know, I think we like to just learn from different occupations and stuff.
	And so now I know a lot more about what a corner does.
	Yeah, it's always interesting and somebody has to do it.
	And, you know, we try to get the job done as compassionately as we can.
	So really appreciate you having me on.
	Yeah, man.
	You're the guy that does it, man.
	Toby Savois.
	That's right.
	Thank you, bro.
	Louisiana.
	I appreciate it.
	Yeah, dude.
	I'll have to come down there, bro, and catch a body.
	Y'all do ride-alongs or not?
	No, we can.
	Yeah.
	You have to throw on some scrubs or a lab jacket.
	But yeah, we'll bring you.
	I'll do that.
	Yeah, it'd be cool, man.
	I would love to come down.
	We could get Discovery to do a rural coroner's office.
	Yeah.
	Watch me check the fridge and call out groceries.
	I like that, bro.
	Yeah, that'd be a cool game show.
	You call out the groceries, then we guess who's dead or whatever.
	Yeah.
	Or why?
	Yeah, exactly.
	Well, it all pretty much be heart disease, but yeah.
	You know, that's true.
	The number one killer, man.
	That's right.
	Things we live on.
	Yeah.
	Toby, I appreciate you so much for your time.
	Thank you guys for coming out.
	It's been a great opportunity to come out here and talk.
	And I hope this podcast even saves a few lives.
	People may hear what not to do, you know, or be more aware of their surroundings.
	And that's pretty righteous.
	I was thinking about that, especially during the holidays, especially about times when you're like, well, is it worth it to take this road for a couple minutes faster to get home?
	What's really the safest possibility for myself or my family?
	Because, yeah, there's a lot of dangerous turns out there these days.
	And it's up to the individual, really, in the end, you know, to try and put themselves in a best situation, especially when our country or our laws and stuff like that aren't even going to do that anymore for us.
	Right.
	Absolutely.
	Toby Savoy, thank you so much, brother.
	Thank you, man.
	I appreciate it.
	You bet.
	Now I'm just floating on the breeze.
	And I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
	I must be cornerstone.
	Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of mind I found.
	I can feel it in my bones.

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