Forensic Pathology with Dr. Greg Davis | Show Notes

Forensic Pathology with Dr. Greg Davis | Part 1 of 3 | September 14, 2021

Forensic Pathology with Dr. Greg Davis | Part 2 of 3 | September 14, 2021

Forensic Pathology with Dr. Greg Davis | Part 3 of 3 | September 14, 2021

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Show Transcripts

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Forensic Pathology with Dr. Greg Davis Part 1 of 3

Wendy Lyons:

Morning, the podcast you’re about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to The Murder Police Podcast, forensic pathology with Dr. Greg Davis, part one of three. Hello, I’m Wendy.

David Lyons:

And I’m David.

Wendy Lyons:

Welcome to The Murder Police Podcast. David, why don’t you tell us what we can expect on this podcast with Dr. Greg Davis?

David Lyons:

This is going to be interesting for the people that really want to get educated in the field. We’re going to have a three part mini series where we actually went to University of Kentucky in the pathology department and interviewed Dr. Greg Davis there. Greg and I go back a long way. When I was in homicide, he was one of the medical examiners in Frankfurt, Kentucky. One of the things I always thought about and why I wanted to interview him for the podcast so much, is that like the other medical examiners, when you stood at that autopsy table with them, they were educators. So you’re not talking about somebody that just goes and does a process, and then gives you a report or anything, the entire step of the way Greg and the others would tell you what they were doing, why they were doing it, and they would pull you over to the table to show you what they were seeing to describe it. So I felt like if we could get him on the podcast, he would come off as an educator and he did.

David Lyons:

So what we’re going to hear from Greg is you’ll get to hear the role of what a forensic pathologist think, medical examiner, and autopsies, and plus they do much more is. And we’ll also hear Greg’s journey and how he got to the field. And he’ll take that and translate it into what he thinks people need to know if they’re interested in getting into the field too, because, again, he’s an educator now.

David Lyons:

Big thing too, is that Greg is going to take it way past the movies and television, like we usually try to do, and talk about the emotional impacts of working in forensics pathology. And I will say this, and we’ll key it doing the show and I’ll have some show notes, but Dr. Greg Davis actually has his own podcast. It’s called Dr. Greg Davis on Medicine. It can be found at WUKY on internet and all the major platforms, but I’ll put links on the show notes for people to listen to it. It’s really interesting, they’re five to eight minutes segments about anything to do with medicine, a really good source to listen to. So with that, let’s jump in and get into part one, and then the listeners can download two and three when they’re available.

Wendy Lyons:

All right, sounds good. Hello and welcome to Murder Police Podcast. Today we are interviewing Dr. Greg Davis with UK and my husband, David Lyons. Greg, how are you today?

Dr. Greg Davis:

I’m doing great. Thank you so much, Wendy. Appreciate it.

Wendy Lyons:

Thank you for taking your time to talk with us. David, how are you doing today?

David Lyons:

Doing good. Really excited to be around Greg. It’s been a couple years since we’ve seen each other and many more years since we worked together, so I’m excited to get caught up [inaudible 00:03:18].

Dr. Greg Davis:

I am as well, David.

Wendy Lyons:

Well, Greg, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you do and who you are?

Dr. Greg Davis:

I am a faculty member here at the UK, University of Kentucky College of Medicine. I’m a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine. I’m associate director of the UK Healthcare Autopsy Service. And I am director of the Division of Forensic Consultation Services for the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.

David Lyons:

I’m not going to complain about being busy anymore. Yeah, for sure.

Wendy Lyons:

I don’t think you should.

David Lyons:

No. Well, what kind of personal background, what you’re willing to share, about things that made you tick and get interested in this maybe?

Dr. Greg Davis:

Well, I guess I should start with saying I was born and raised the early part of my life in East Tennessee and came to the university of Kentucky at age 17 as a college freshman, fully intending as an English major to go back to East Tennessee or Eastern Kentucky and teach high school English, that was my dream. And along the way, I started volunteering and then got a paid job at the old emergency department at UK and quickly sort of caught the medical bug. And one day, one of the head nurses and one of the resident physicians told me I should apply to medical school. And I’ve never been overburdened with self-confidence and my immediate response was, “I’m not smart enough to be a doctor.” And I still remember the nurse burst out, laughing and said, “Honey, you don’t really have to be that smart, you just got to work really, really hard.”

Dr. Greg Davis:

You certainly have to have a level of studiousness, but she was also right about just applying yourself a lot over the years. So I got interested in medicine and was at that point going to be a, like a lot of entering medical students, I thought I was going to be a primary care physician in Kentucky or Tennessee, quickly got the bug of pathology. It was a specialty that I wasn’t even aware of. We had a wonderful course director and he really imbued us with understanding that pathology is a specialty in medicine that deals with the diagnosis of human disease in any form, whether we’re talking gunshot wound, cancer inflammation, congenital defect. It’s a pathologist of some sort who makes that ultimate diagnosis and either works with fellow healthcare providers or the criminal justice system to get that information across to the folks that need to hear it.

Dr. Greg Davis:

So he really in inspired me, I was super squeamish as a medical student at the University of Tennessee in Memphis, before I did my residency training back here in Kentucky. When we worked on our gross anatomy cadavers in anatomy lab, I was the guy who stood five feet back and read to my colleague out of the manual and he did the dissection. And now he’s a geriatric psychiatrist in Tennessee and I’m a forensic pathologist, so go figure.

David Lyons:

That’s unreal. I’ll tell you what it, and that was educational for me because when I think of pathology, I think strictly of diseases, viruses, flus-

Wendy Lyons:

Petri dishes.

David Lyons:

Exactly. And I never associated it with the physical violence or anything like that, so that’s interesting.

Dr. Greg Davis:

So pathology is divided into two great camps as a specialty. There’s anatomic pathology, think of anatomy, what you can see with your naked eye or under the microscope. So there’s three main branches of anatomic surgical pathology. If you’ve ever had a biopsy, a colon biopsy, a skin biopsy, we’re the folks that read that and make a diagnosis and let your clinical doctor know what’s going on. Cytopathology, the study of cells, so think pap smears, fine needle aspiration biopsies, body fluids to make sure there’s not cancer cells in there, that cytopathology. And then autopsy pathology, which is an examination of a deceased person to more fully understand whatever clinical diagnosis they may have had during life, to discover if a crime has been committed, either by omission or commission, neglect or a positive act on the part of another person.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And then there’s clinical pathology, think, you were talking about Petri dishes, Wendy, microbiology, the blood bank, clinical chemistry, which includes clinical toxicology, the study of drugs, medicines poisons, and man, that’s all clinical pathology. And as we’ll probably discuss, is inextricably bound also with forensic pathology, which is a subspecialty of pathology that is the application of medical and scientific principles to the investigation of sudden unexpected, unusual or violent death. It’s interesting, I hope we get a chance to chat about it. It’s the one medical specialty in the United States where you actually practice it differently depending on where you are in the country. If I’m a OBGYN, I’m going to deliver a baby the same in New York City as I do in Lexington, but forensic pathology and death investigation, the laws governing what we do and how we do it, are very different. And I’ve practiced in different states and it’s really fun and unusual.

Wendy Lyons:

Why do you think that is, that it varies so vastly from one state to another?

Dr. Greg Davis:

We have a really patchwork quilt of death investigation systems in the United States. Some states and counties have coroners who are elected officials who may or may not have medical training. And here in Kentucky, we’re super blessed that our coroners, regardless of their background, are trained in death investigation before they’re ever sworn in with that same constitutional oath that I took when I became a notary public. But before they’re ever sworn in, they have to go to Eastern Kentucky University’s department of criminal justice training for intensive death investigation training. Other states, like my original home state at Tennessee, the only requirement to be what’s called a county medical examiner, analogous to a county coroner here, is that you have an M.D. Or a D.O., that you be a physician, which looks really good on paper, but we don’t get any death investigation training in medical school.

Dr. Greg Davis:

So the irony is, our lay coroners in Kentucky, for the most part, do a much better job than, let’s say, when I was at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, they have a very similar system to Tennessee. Most of the county death investigators are physicians, but they’re untrained. So rhetorical question, who would you rather have doing a death investigation that you’re working on, a coroner who may be a funeral director, but has a lot of experience with real training, or a family doctor in an outlying county who’s got 60 patients in her waiting room and all of a sudden gets a call out to a potential crime scene? You can see already that you’re probably going to get more bang for your buck, as it were, with that county coroner.

David Lyons:

And that’s interesting because I think the first thing I used to think of is that conflict of interest that could exist. If I own a funeral home, I’m drawing up business while I’m picking them up. But it’s neat, I’d never consider it, but you’re right, that practical experience of going to death, after death, after death, would mean a lot more.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Well, and the funeral director… So Kentucky, coroners are everything from retired law enforcement officers, homemakers, nurses, doctors, funeral directors. The funeral directors in Kentucky who are coroners, they can’t obviously suggest their own funeral home to the family, that would be a conflict of interest. But I’ll give you a comparison contrast between Kentucky and North Carolina, where I worked for a while. A typical call, I would get in Kentucky, let’s say from… Can I mention names?

David Lyons:

Yeah.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Wonderful death investigator, firefighter, law enforcement officer funeral, director and coroner in Rowan County, a fellow named John Northcutt. Typical call I would get from John is, “Hi, Greg. I’ve got a 37 year old white male with a past history of hypertension, diabetes, and smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. He was last known alive here. He was found dead here. Normally I would just sign the case out without autopsy due to natural disease, but he’s had a running feud with a neighbor and his wife tells me that the back door to the house was jimmied in last night. And I don’t see any marks on him, but just for everybody’s peace of mind, can we run the body to Frankfurt and have you do an autopsy and reassure us that everything’s okay?”

Dr. Greg Davis:

So that’s a typical Kentucky call. Typical North Carolina call I might get, and again, I hate to generalize, but, “Dr. Davis, this is Dr. Smith from up in Mount Airy. I’ve got this dead body in my ER, I need to get it to you. Oh, okay, doctor. Well, can you tell me a little… No, I don’t have time for this. I’ve got a bunch of patients to see. I’m just going to have the body transported, you take care of it.”

Dr. Greg Davis:

Now, again, as a citizen, which system would you rather be under? I made a lot of wonderful connections in North Carolina, I had a wonderful time there, I love the people I was working with, but I jumped at the chance after five years to come back to Kentucky now 25 years ago, because I love this system that I was trained in. And over time you get to know the coroners, you get to know the law enforcement officers, the defense attorneys, the prosecuting attorneys, the judges. And that’s really where if we’re going to talk fun and work, and joy and work, it’s not doing a dissection of a deceased person, it’s those connections I’ve made such as with y’all. I never would’ve met y’all but for the fact that the work we are engaged in.

David Lyons:

Yeah. In answering that too, with that contrast you made, I think that helps people because a lot of people get frustrated with how the decision, whether the autopsy is made or not. And especially in the true crime world, you’ll hear a lot of questioning as well, “They didn’t,” or, “They went straight to cremation.” And of course we can’t answer every case that comes up, but that’s a real good description of how that goes, real good description.

Dr. Greg Davis:

David, it’s really funny, in the 35 years I’ve been doing this, and I don’t know if this is due to popular television shows or what, but the biggest objection I used to hear when I first got started was, “What do you mean you’re going to do an autopsy? We don’t want you to.” And now the biggest objection we often hear is, “What do you mean you’re not going to do an autopsy? We want you to do one.” And I really don’t know why there’s been that shift.

Dr. Greg Davis:

But the coroner in Kentucky has complete discretion when she is called to a scene as to whether an autopsy is done. Now, under Kentucky law, they have to do an investigation in a certain set of circumstances. Essentially, and this is true nationwide, if the death is thought to be not natural, homicide, suicide, an accident, undetermined, just plain weird, the coroner is going to get involved. And under law, they have to do what’s called a postmortem examination, but that can be anything from just eyeballing the body and taking some pictures, up to and including sending the body to, in Kentucky, Frankfurt, Fort Thomas, Louisville, or Madisonville, depending on where you are in the state for an autopsy. There’s no death that requires that an autopsy be done in Kentucky. That’s not true in some other states where they maybe have their hands bound to actually order an autopsy in certain circumstances.

David Lyons:

Interesting. That’ll clarify a lot for a lot of listeners for sure on how that works.

Wendy Lyons:

So if that state medical examiner requires that to be done, as you said, if it’s suspicious circumstances, do you all ever have family who kick back and say, “No, we don’t want that done, we don’t believe in that”? Maybe it’s a religious type thing or they just don’t want it done. Have you ever experienced that of, “You need to do it,” and they’re saying, “No, I don’t want to do that”?

Dr. Greg Davis:

Sure. And I want to clarify one thing, Wendy, it’s not the medical examiner who mandates that the autopsy be done, it’s the discretion of the coroner. So we have a hybrid system in Kentucky where the coroner does the death investigation and then the medical examiner, which is synonymous in Kentucky with forensic pathologist. That word medical examiner may mean different things in different states, but in Kentucky it means the same thing as a forensic pathologist, an individual who’s gone to four years of medical school, a minimum of four years of residency training after medical school in general pathology, and then a year of fellowship or subspecialty training in forensic pathology. And at that point, if your training director says you’re okay to practice, then you’re actually allowed to sit for the board exams to become, what’s called a board certified anatomic clinical and forensic pathologist.

Dr. Greg Davis:

So we have really good ones here in Kentucky. And so we, in that capacity as forensic pathologists, act as a consultant to the coroner. So we may get a call at 3:00 in the morning from Wendy, who’s the coroner in county X saying, “Hey, I’ve got this death. Do you think it’s my jurisdiction? Yes or no. And if yes, do you think it needs an autopsy?” And we’ll work together to come to that decision? And so in answer to your question about if family’s push back, I want to compare and contrast two different types of autopsies.

Dr. Greg Davis:

There’s the hospital autopsy where the legal next of kin gives permission, usually a spouse or an adult child or a sibling. If the clinical team or the family’s just unsure about what happened, the family or the physicians may request an autopsy. And in those cases, we can only do what the family says we can do, like, “We want you to do a chest only autopsy, because we think he had a heart attack,” or, “A head only autopsy, because we want to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease,” but we can’t go beyond the bounds of what the family tells us to do, that’s a bright line.

Dr. Greg Davis:

As opposed to, a medical examiner coroner autopsy, where the coroner under KRS 72, Kentucky law, authorizes us to do an autopsy. And at that point we have complete discretion to do… We can do an external only and draw blood for toxicology, we can do a directed exam where we open the body, but don’t take the organs out. Or we can do a complete autopsy where through two major incisions, one over the top of the scalp and one called a Y incision that goes from the shoulder to the breast bone, to the pubic bone, we can look at the contents of the head, neck, chest, abdomen, and pelvis, and get bodily fluids to test for toxicology, get pieces of tissue to look at under the microscope to make a diagnosis, but that’s completely at the discretion of the coroner and me.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And that may sound like it’s kind of harsh, like, “What if a family objects?” But the law was written in such a way as to recognize that sometimes there’s a conflict of interest between the family’s wishes and the overarching wishes of the state. For example, if a spouse shoots a spouse and then says, “Nope, wait, you can’t do an autopsy because I don’t want you to,” or, “It’s against my religion.” That’s an obvious conflict of interest.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Now in cases that aren’t quite that blatant, we will work with families because there’s no Christian faith stream that is against the autopsy, but there are some Islam faith streams and some Jewish faith streams that either feel pretty sketchy about it or are downright against it. And we will sit down with those families and work with them as best we can to work out a mutual solution.

Dr. Greg Davis:

So for instance, in Jewish tradition and Muslim tradition, a lot of times the body should be buried by sundown the day after death. So instead of our regular 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM, we may come in at 3:00 in the morning and do an autopsy. We may make it more goal directed, meaning if the person was shot in the chest, maybe we won’t open the head if the family doesn’t want us to. If they want to have a representative present at autopsy, such as a faith leader, who’s a nurse or a physician, we would warmly invite them to be there just to communicate to the family that we don’t desecrate bodies, we don’t show them disrespect. I would say, frankly from a philosophical or spiritual perspective, that we’re actually honoring the dead by doing a good autopsy and getting the information to the interested parties that need it. Whether that interested party is a grieving spouse or children, prosecuting attorneys, defense attorneys, homicide detective, to me, that’s honoring that person.

David Lyons:

Real quick. You’ve talked a lot about different collaborations. And I wanted to focus on something for the listeners that they may not understand is that here in Kentucky, with regard to the coroner and a death scene investigation is that the coroner actually owns that scene. A lot of people see the police, they see the homicide unit there, but that’s at the coroner’s request just like when they communicate with you. And I think it speaks a lot to the fact of how important that relationship is between a police department and the coroner’s office, because if that ever falls apart, that can be a problem. But it’s one of those things that I’ve always experienced in Fayette County to where people… It’s like everybody always knew what their limitations were or what their capabilities were and got together on that. And from the outside it looks like, okay, the police roll up on these, but it’s neat to understand that the coroner actually controls that scene.

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Dr. Greg Davis:

And I think too, David, like a lot of things in life, reality is the exact opposite of what we see on TV. TV loves conflict. And so the coroner or the medical examiner and the police are always engaged, and even the police within themselves are always engaged in these turf wars. And, “It’s my scene, darn it,” and that sort of thing. And I think I’ve seen that maybe once in 35 years and that definitely was not here in Kentucky. There’s this sense of mutual cooperation.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And I think whether you’re a law enforcement officer, a physician, an attorney, or just engaged in a personal relationship, my definition of competence is knowing what you don’t know and acting accordingly. And so what I teach my trainees is just because you got an M.D. or a D.O. after your name, that cop who’s been working for 25 years is going to be able to educate you, just like you can educate her about medical things.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And so the most, if you will, most gratifying scenes that I’ve ever been to is where there’s that mutuality where law enforcement folks by the nature of their training are going to see things I don’t see, by nature of my medical training, I’m going to see things they might not see. And then we put those together in a synergy, in mutual cooperation, really is sweet. When you hit that sweet spot of an investigation where you figure it out because of that mutual trust and security.

Dr. Greg Davis:

I had several experiences when I first came back to Kentucky where I went to scenes here in Fayette County and in some surrounding counties and I could tell I was being evaluated like, “Okay, is this guy okay? This going to be an arrogant doctor is he going to be an okay guy?” And I think we quickly came to the realization that we were okay for one another. I will tell you, I’ve only in my career had two conflicts with either a police officer or a prosecutor and those were very quickly resolved. And I don’t know if you want me to tell you about them, but…

Wendy Lyons:

We’d love to hear it.

David Lyons:

Just no names, maybe.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Oh, no names, no names. There was one in a county of North Carolina where I gave a prosecutor and a law enforcement officer some information that did not fit their perception of the case. And the prosecutor said probably one of the most chilling things to me I’ve ever heard in my career, he said, “But I thought you were on our side.” And if there’s one point I want to get across to your listeners, it’s not for you and we’re not against you. We are not there for prosecutors, we are not there for law enforcement, we are not there for defense attorneys. We’re there for all of them, but none of them, in the sense that our true constituent is the trier of fact, the jury or the judge. And the torpedoes if the information that we give you as a law enforcement officer or as a defense attorney doesn’t fit your perception of the case. Our job is not to fit the facts to your case, our job is to educate you and ultimately the trier of fact, as to what is consistent or not consistent with your theory.

Dr. Greg Davis:

So a lot of what I do when I go to court is, the prosecutor over here says, “Dr. Davis, we think it happened this way.” And I say, “Well, yeah, based on the findings at autopsy, it’s perfectly consistent with happening that way.” And then the defense attorney will come up on cross and she’ll say, “Well, wait a minute, doctor, our theory is it happened this way.” And a good proportion of the time, I’ll say, “Well, yeah, the findings are equally consistent.” Take a gunshot wound of intermediate range, for instance, that in and of itself is consistent with a homicide or a suicide, or even in rare instances, an accident. We’re not going to make that diagnosis of manner of death at the autopsy table without input from law enforcement, coroner, witnesses, et cetera.

Dr. Greg Davis:

The only other conflict I got into, and with apologies to your listeners who are law enforcement officers, it was a homicide detective I’d never met and this was in another state. And I will preface this, I’ll build a foundation with, I hate stereotypes. Cops are humans, doctors are humans, coroners are humans. And don’t get me wrong, we love to joke with one another, never at the expense of the deceased person because they can’t fight back, but just I know from personal experience with you, David, that there’s a lot of good natured ribbing between folks that goes on and it’s part of what keeps us human sane in a really, at times, hostile environment.

Dr. Greg Davis:

But my first encounter with this one homicide detective who I’d never met, and it would’ve been different if I’d known him, I walk into the autopsy suite at 7:00 in the morning and he says, “Are you the cutter?” And my response was, “Are you the pig?” And I saw the look on his face and I burst out laughing and I said, “That’s what you said sounded to me. So we’re going to start over and you’re going to say, ‘Are you the pathologist? And I’m going to say, are you the case officer?'” I said, “And if I came across as a jerk, I apologize. Ask your peers, I’m a pretty nice guy, but I absolutely despise the term cutter because I think it’s offensive, not to me, I don’t care about me, it’s offensive to the deceased. We are not cutting them, we are examining them, words matter.” And I would never want a family member to think, “Well, he cut on my loved one.” I would rather them say, “He did a detailed examination so we could get the best answers we could get.” So those are the only two conflicts-

Wendy Lyons:

Was it downhill from there? Or did we start again and it got better? Or did it just keep going down hill?

Dr. Greg Davis:

No, we started over. And I said, “If you treat me and the deceased with just a modicum of respect,” I said, “I’ll be your best friend and we’ll get along great.” And I think he probably vetted me with his colleagues, “Who’s this jerk, Davis?” And they were all like, “He’s not a jerk. What’s going on? What happened?” I think the only other conflict I ever got into in another state was when there was an accident where young teenage mom and dad were trying to lull a colicky baby to sleep.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And they had heard that if you put an instrument that causes white noise in the bedroom, it’ll lull the baby to sleep, like a white noise machine that grownups use to sleep well. These poor kids, they didn’t mean badly, but they were dumber than a box of hammers and they put a hair dryer, a handheld hair dryer in the bassinet with the baby. And I guess it worked for a night or two until the second or third night, the muzzle of the hair dryer tipped over and blew hot air on this baby, and I think caused him to die very quickly of hypothermia. But because it had run for several hours, the baby had what are called postmortem burns, burns that weren’t caused during life, but after death.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And the prosecutor in this county in another state really wanted me to make a determination of homicide, and I called the death an accident. I said, “There was no intent to harm, there was no wanton disregard for human life,” Things that we tend to take into account when we call something a homicide versus an accident. It’s the only time in my career somebody’s yelled at me. For whatever reason, she just really wanted this to be a homicide so she could prosecute these kids for murder. And I testified in front of the grand jury that, “In my opinion, it was an accident. Obviously you grand jurors need to do what you think is right,” but I don’t think they returned an indictment on this poor family.

David Lyons:

Yeah. I think for me, a red flag in my career was whenever kids were involved, it was just like, if you throw a wrench in the cogs to make time, you go get the second wrench because the emotions fly so high. And I used to watch that. I remember I went to one time where we had likely a SIDS death, but there was a mark on the baby that some people were assuming was a grill fork. And I think you call them a postmortem artifact where it was just simply as soon as the baby was rolled over for a while that went away. But I remember watching that and throwing water on that really fast because those rushes, the judgment will kill you every time. There

Dr. Greg Davis:

Is a saying in forensics that you have to be careful about letting the emotional tail wag the rational dog. And we all get upset when kids are involved. People that are in positions of disempowerment, children, elder abuse and neglect, these are the things that rightfully anger us. But when you go into the autopsy suite, when you’re at the scene, there’s a psychological defense, but also a good tool of disconnecting your emotional part. I’ve been to scenes where relatively young and inexperienced officers or medical personnel are just yelling and screaming and cussing because they’re so angry that something happened. And I always take them aside and say, “I get it. You’re absolutely right, but you have a job to do right now. And your judgment is clouded while you’re acting in such a fashion. And I can’t tell you to feel in a certain way, but if you need to go out, take a few breaths, collect yourself so that you can come back in here and do your job, that’s what you need to do.”

Dr. Greg Davis:

Interesting fallout of that kid case that I just mentioned. I got a call from a news reporter that I knew real well and liked. And he woke me up out of a sound sleep and he said, “Greg, why did you determine that that death was a accident, not a homicide?” And I said, one of the dumbest things I’ve ever said in my career, and thank goodness this guy gave me a mulligan and didn’t print it, I said, “Well, as far as I can tell, stupidity is not a crime in this state.” Implying that the parents were stupid, but not malevolent. And then I was fully awake and realized what I just said to a major newspaper reporter and I said, “If you print that, I’ll probably find a way of never speaking to you again.” And he goes, “Greg, everybody deserves a mulligan, I’m going to give you one on that one.”

David Lyons:

But there’s some truth in that, not that people are stupid, but I think sometimes people forget that, again, you started out, we’re humans, and not everything works out perfect. And I think that’s why you have to have a mindset when you approach these things, is that not everything is malicious, not everything is directed at people and intentional. I got used to that after a while and that frustrated people.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Well, you know David, I’m glad you brought that up, because I actually, and I would say this even if we weren’t chatting together, I cite you as an example of somebody who taught me a very important lesson relatively early in my career. I think I’d been a medical examiner for about five years and you and I were working a homicide together and I muttered some things under my breath and cussing angry about a particular case, and I can’t even remember. But you said, “Well, let me give you some perspective on this case,” because you knew both the victim and the perpetrator. And essentially you humanized the perpetrator for me in this case, because you knew who they were, you knew some of the circumstances. And I remember full confession tearing up behind my mask and thinking, “Well, isn’t this ironic, the law enforcement officer’s teaching the doctor to have a little sympathy for human beings, and that’s a little role reversal, isn’t it?” But not really, that’s what good cops and good docs do, is they recognize people as humans, but I’ve always talked about you in that particular case.

David Lyons:

Well, thanks. And I think too, that it comes back to, again, what TV and movies, I’ve always said they tear us up and they tear up your profession too. Because when you talk about how we’re not against you or for you, I thought I might have reversed that, but if you look at most TV shows is that all those people see when they see forensic people is slamming into a case. It’s a head on, full freight train without tapping the brakes, even in Dexter where he obviously had a conflict of interest.

Wendy Lyons:

Love Dexter.

David Lyons:

Yeah. That’s her [inaudible 00:35:19].

Dr. Greg Davis:

That’s a great show.

David Lyons:

She can’t get enough of it.

Wendy Lyons:

Love Dexter.

David Lyons:

But there again, we battle that. And the other thing too, is that for policing, for example, for decades, ever since you could put anything on film or recorded, it’s always put police in that hard light of not having a heart, not understanding, being very tunnel visioned and everything. And I’ve met a few, I’ve met a few, there’s no doubt about that. But in reality, that job teaches you that. And then again, the real frustration is on the outside where people see a really horrific car crash. And right now more never on social media, They should go to prison the rest of their life.” Well, you don’t have enough facts to determine that. And that same logic could be applied to you or a family member tomorrow, that if we don’t forget people just sometimes make mistakes. And sometimes, those mistakes, yeah, they’re tragic, but you have to consider that stuff when you’re dealing with these people.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Oh, absolutely. It’s something that we learn, I think, as physicians and living in this borderland between the criminal justice system and medicine, that’s something that I’ve seen over the last 35 years, that oftentimes when we’re young and dumb, we think, “Okay, everything is black and white.” And we start to see nuance with experience, that certain things are always wrong of course, and need to come to the attention of criminal justice systems, but you also see nuance in shades of gray, where once you thought things were black and white. There are so many things I think of the way I was brought up in the 60s in East Tennessee, my mom would be charged with child neglect now, and I think of it as an idyllic childhood. They let me wander in the woods with my dog and come back home when either I’m hollering or sun’s going down for supper. Gosh, I think my mom would probably be up in front of child protective service.

Wendy Lyons:

Well that and abuse. A lot of people didn’t realize back in that timeframe, especially East Tennessee, I would imagine, I know certainly Kentucky, there were many times you just had to go on out there and get your own switch, because you’re going to get it when you get back in the door. And especially where I grew up Bourbon County here in Kentucky, if you acted out at school, that always got back home to your mom before you got back home off the school bus, and then you’re in trouble for somebody else having to tell her. So like you said about the child neglect, the abuse would’ve applied too, but we didn’t act up back then.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Oh absolutely. And David, you mentioned something. I think we have this thing in medicine right now where it’s called patient-centered medicine, which seems axiomatic, it should be about the patient, not the doctor or the nurse. And I think it’s analogous to community-oriented policing. I remember as a kid, I knew all the cops that were on the beat in my neighborhood, they knew my name. And I think that’s where a lot of the law enforcement folks I work with are going back to, is establishing those kind of relationships.

Dr. Greg Davis:

When I went to Winston-Salem for my first faculty position, the first thing the lead homicide detective did was get me in his car and drive me around for a day and introduce me to a bunch of folks in the community, people he’d busted people who he’d worked to help rectify things because they were victims. And that was really a huge impression on me was that this guy who was a fairly high up captain in that particular police force still knew everybody’s name. And yeah, obviously in a big city, you can’t always do that. But I think establishing trust is something that, again, is a parallel between a forensic pathologist and a law enforcement officer.

David Lyons:

I think we’re in the middle of another evolution of that and I’m glad to see it happen. I think two things separated us, I’ve always told people the best thing that happened in policing proficiency was a police car, is that you could get to point a to point B, but as soon as that window rolled up, we lost. And it’s hard and then you add call volume. But the other thing too is I keep coming back to the media, it’s almost like life imitating art, is sometimes I look at our culture and policing and wonder how much of this is people seeking to be what they saw at Showcase Cinemas last week. That’s real I think and maybe somebody can do some more research other than me on that.

David Lyons:

But in the end, I think like we’ve talked about before with a lot of the things we’ve seen in the year and a half, and today is in 2021, is what we’re hearing from most of the community is, “Hey, just tighten it up a little bit, get to know me. Don’t be in a vacuum, don’t be somewhere I can’t approach.” And I know as my career progressed, that was my favorite thing was going back to those anchoring points and working inside the community. And you said it best knowing people by their name, that’s a cool thing.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Well, and I think, I’m an educator first and foremost, I always wanted to be that English teacher, and I still have a little bit of that in me. And so with the advent of CSI and a lot of the other programs that have raised awareness of professions and yet have also torn us up, in that sense, I get a lot of queries from high school and college students about becoming a forensic pathologist. And I walk this fine line between, “I want to support your enthusiasm.” I want to welcome you years from now as a fellow member of this profession, but I also want you to know what you’re getting into. So if you’ve read a bunch of Kay Scarpetta novels and think that you as a medical examiner are going to be arresting people and diving into inky, dark waters to rescue victims, that’s not what we do.”

Dr. Greg Davis:

If you’ve watched the TV shows and you want to become a doctor because you think you’re going to hang out in lounge and drink coffee and chat people up, that’s not what doctors do. It’s funny, these misperceptions… One of my favorite silly movies is So I Married an Axe Murderer with Mike Myers. And I forget the name of the actor, who’s a detective, and he goes to Alan Arkin, who’s his chief of detectives, and he goes, “I’m just really disappointed. I became a cop so that I could hang onto a helicopter’s landing gear and chase the bad guys and stuff and I haven’t gotten to do that yet.” Whereas I think mature physicians and law enforcement officers know that the real sweet spot is not hanging from a helicopter or rescuing a fictional character, it’s those moments, again, coming back to personal relationships and trust, it’s those moments where we’ve worked together to make sure that justice is done.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And I think as Americans, we would all agree, I’ve said this time and time again, my second worst professional nightmare is I screw up and the bad guy, walks. My first professional nightmare is, I screw up in some innocent person gets accused of something they didn’t do. And I’ve actually been cross-examined on that in court. And it’s like, yeah, I stand by that. I am an American. My grandparents came to this country to escape a system that would shoot 99 innocent people to get that one guilty party. I’d rather live in a community that gives me the benefit of the doubt.

David Lyons:

Amen. Well, I’ll tell you, first of all, up until today, that movie was our best recruiting tool on policing. We’ll have to find another one now because the helicopter game is out, you can only BS people for so long. But I’ll tell you what, now would be a good time actually, because you touched on it and let’s shift into it. For these people that are interested in a career, and I can tell you we have a large listener base of people that really consider things inside the criminal justice field and inside investigations a lot, what would you tell somebody that was interested in anything where you’ve been? How to prepare? What mindset to have? What they could do? What would be some advice you’d give that person?

Dr. Greg Davis:

Well, first of all, as I mentioned before, it requires going to medical school. And I’m going to give a free piece of advice, a trade secret.

Wendy Lyons:

Hey, you know there’s more to this story, so go download the next episode like the true crime fan that you are.

David Lyons:

The Murder Police Podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded and edited by David Lyons. The Murder Police Podcast can be found on your favorite Apple or Android podcast platform as well as at murderpolicepodcast.com, which is our website. And it has show notes for imagery and audio and video files related to the cases you’re going to hear. We are also on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and YouTube, which has closed caption available for those that are hearing impaired. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us a five star review on Apple Podcast or wherever you download your podcast from. Subscribe in order to play this podcast and set your player to automatically download new episodes so you get the new ones as soon as they drop. And please tell your friends. Lock it down, Judy.

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Forensic Pathology with Dr. Greg Davis Part 2 of 3

Wendy Lyons:

Warning. The podcast you’re about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised.

Wendy Lyons:

Welcome to the Murder Police Podcast, Forensic Pathology with Dr. Greg Davis part two of three.

David Lyons:

But I’ll tell you what, it now would be a good time actually to kind of, because you touched on it and let’s shift into it. For these people that are interested in a career, and I can tell you, we have a large listener base of people that really consider things inside the criminal justice field and inside investigations a lot, what would you tell somebody that was interested in anything where you’ve been, how to prepare, what mindset to have, what they could do? What would be some advice you’d give that person?

Dr. Greg Davis:

Well, first of all, as I mentioned before, it requires going to medical school. And I’m going to give a free piece of advice, a trade secret. For those listeners who think about going to medical school, when you write your personal statement, my suggestion is I don’t want to be prescriptive, I don’t want to be that guy, but I review a lot of essays from people who want to go to medical school that say things like “I’ve always been interested in the human body.”

Dr. Greg Davis:

Well, so is every other human being that was ever born. My unsolicited advice is, if you can get across that you’re also interested in people. And again, I hate to harp back to this ad nauseam, but it’s all about the relationships. If anything is going to keep us sane and engaged and having fun with what we do, it’s those personal relationships.

Dr. Greg Davis:

I really don’t want to hear in your essay that you’re interested in the human body, because that’s like saying you’re interested in breathing. We’re all interested in that. I want to actually know something about you and why you’re interested in people and why you’re interested in becoming a physician. What I tell those young people, and sometimes not so young people, we have a lot of non-traditional medical students who’ve had other careers before they go into medicine. We’ve had culinary chefs. We’ve had engineers. We’ve had lawyers. We’ve had nurses. And we’ve had people straight out of college come to medical school. But in the North American system, it’s four years of college, four years of medical school. And then you apply for residency training.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Residency is specialty training. So if you want to be a pediatrician or an OB/GYN or a surgeon or a pathologist, you apply for residency in that specialty. And the four years are training in anatomic and clinical pathology that we talked about before. So you build this foundation now for eight years after high school to get your MD or DO, they’re essentially the same, and then another four years, so that’s 12 years after high school, and then one additional year of training in forensic pathology. So when you hear the word fellowship, that means sub-specialty training.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Forensic pathology is a sub-specialty of pathology. And at that point, once you finish your training, as I mentioned before, you then are qualified by your training director to actually take the board exams, to become a board certified forensic pathologist. It’s a long road. It is a difficult road. As that nurse said to me back in the 70s, “You don’t have to be a genius, but you have to work really hard.” You can also have a life while that’s going on too.

Dr. Greg Davis:

People do have personal relationships and raise families and that sort of thing, even in the midst of this. But it’s not easy. And I think that’s the informed consent that I like to give people thinking about doing this is it’s not easy. I think another misperception is your whole time is doing autopsies. The autopsy, the word autopsy comes from Latin and Greek roots. Auto refers to self, opsy, like optics, optical. You’re just looking for yourself. You’re not taking somebody else’s word for it why this person died.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And so what I tell these folks who are interested is yes, I get a lot of intellectual gratification out of doing a good physical exam of a deceased person. The first part is an external exam, just like you’d get at a doctor’s office. The second part is the internal exam through those incisions. The third part is looking at the microscopic sections of heart, lung, liver, et cetera, and looking at the toxicology results. Perhaps it’s a drug intoxication or poisoning or something of that nature. That’s sort of the third part. And then you put it all together in a synthesis to do a final report that goes to the coroner and ultimately to family members, law enforcement, prosecutors, defense attorneys, et cetera.

Dr. Greg Davis:

That communication is really the most important part, because the autopsy in and of itself is a laboratory test, and laboratory tests are worthless unless you can interpret them and what they mean in the context of a particular case. The teaching example I always use in court is an autopsy’s going to look the same if somebody jumped off a building, slipped off a building or was pushed off a building. And so working with the coroner, working with law enforcement to try to figure out how did that person leave that roof, that’s going to make a huge difference in the manner of death – homicide, accident, natural, suicide, not determined versus the cause of death, which is going to be the same in all those scenarios, which is acute deceleration injury, blunt injuries from a fall.

Dr. Greg Davis:

But that communication, that interpersonal availability, if you will, I think again, it’s what keeps people sane, engaged, interested, and avoiding burnout. Burnout’s a huge issue in medicine. It’s a huge issue in law enforcement. And I don’t mean to say I have all the answers, but I think one of the huge causes of that is forgetting why we’re here in the first place and forgetting that idealism. Whether you go to the police academy or go to medical school, your first goal should always be you wanted to help people, not that you wanted a badge or stethoscope around your neck.

David Lyons:

Good point, because I think in our industry, that’s something where goes wrong is there’s a little disillusionment going in and then not enough intrinsic gratification, it turns in extrinsic and that police are dealing with that everywhere right now too. So for sure if somebody’s interested in this, one of the things that’s not coming into textbooks is having some people skills and that’s what I keep catching from you and I agree completely is that none of this is that technical. The technical part is going to take some work, but I would agree. I can’t imagine ever sending a case to you all back when I was in the unit and us being back at the office without even… Because we went. This wasn’t a phone call. I’m almost laughing because I think it happens in some places or when you talked about in North Carolina where the coroner’s like, “I just don’t have time for this. I’m going to send it to you.” I can’t imagine that and what the lack of result might be and the frustration.

Wendy Lyons:

Well, and I wanted to ask also, that was some great advice you gave for someone who may be looking to enter this career. But on the flip side of that, what advice would you give to detectives or law enforcement that has to work in conjunction with you and your office?

Dr. Greg Davis:

I think get to know us. Just like the same advice I give to my folks is get to know law enforcement, know their names, have coffee with them or a meal with them because you are interdependent. They need the information that you glean from the autopsy and the microscopic and the tox. But you also need them to tell you about the circumstances of the scene and confessions. We talk, I’m sure this is probably true in law enforcement too, I can’t speak for law enforcement, but I can speak for forensics. We talk a lot about the holy trinity of death investigation, which is physical evidence, confessions and witnesses. And we all know that witnesses are often wrong. Maybe they’re not telling the truth with intent. But just because we’re humans, we get it wrong.

Dr. Greg Davis:

I still remember high school physics class where, and this probably get in trouble for them doing that now, but my teacher had a guy run into the classroom with a meter stick, a yard stick and bang it on the table and scared the what out of us and then run out. And so we’re all sitting there kind of shaking like what happened? And then the teacher says, “Get out your pads and pencils and write down everything you saw.” One guy said he was dark skinned, wearing a hat. Another guy said he was light skinned, not wearing a hat. So we take witnesses with a grain of salt.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Confessions sometimes can be forced or wrong or a person who’s mentally ill may confess to something they didn’t do, or they may be covering for somebody. Physical evidence doesn’t lie, but it can be misinterpreted. I’m holding up a blue, Bic pen. The science of medicine is we can all agree it’s a pen, it’s so many inches long and it’s blue. The art of medicine is well, what does that mean in the context of this particular case? Like a tox level, a person who has substance use disorder can be walking around Vine Street and Lexington with a level of heroin in their blood that would kill the three of us three times over. So did she die from that heroin or did she die with that heroin from another cause? That can be an important distinction.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Just understanding that, again, things aren’t always black and white and David, as you said, aren’t always as they seem right from the outset. We have to be careful about preconceived notions. And what I tell law enforcement and my folks is the biggest trouble I’ve ever gotten into professionally is when I go into a case thinking, “Oh, this is…” I’m doing air quotes. “This is a typical case of fill in the blank” because you’re inextricably bound to get burned when you think that way.

David Lyons:

Like making impressions on people in 30 seconds. Yeah, that’s the story. Yeah, I’ve done that forever. And I think we’re all victim of it where you walk in a room and you start to make assumptions on people within a fraction, not even a whole minute. And I’ve never had that not be incorrect in the end.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And David, I wanted to follow up on something you said about people skills. For those listeners who maybe think, “Well, I’m an introvert so I can’t do this.” I am an introvert. There’s a big, I can fake it that I’m not, but there’s a big joke in engineering and pathology and some other specialties. What’s the difference between an introverted pathologist and an extroverted pathologist? Well, an introverted pathologist stares at his shoes when he is talking to you, an extroverted pathologist stares at your shoes.

Dr. Greg Davis:

So back when I was in training, if I had to give talks to law enforcement or attorneys or medical students, my voice would be shaking, I’d have sweat running down my armpit, face would be flushed and I’ve gotten better at it over the last three and a half decades. But there’s still a part of me like many folks have that’s scared to death of speaking in public. But I’ve also come to enjoy it because I live for that moment, like when I’m testifying in court, where that juror on the second row who’s already angry because she’s only getting paid $12 a day and still has to pay for her parking and really didn’t want to be here in the first place. If I explain things in a plain English way, that’s not using a bunch of jargon, that’s not condescending because she doesn’t have the same medical vocabulary I have. And I see her kind of sit up in the chair and start to nod her head, as an educator, because that’s what we do, that’s what the word doctor means. It means teacher.

Dr. Greg Davis:

I live for that moment when I’ve finally connected with somebody. Again, ad nauseam, I just keep coming back to that. That’s what really counts. You can be, and I’ve told my trainees this, you can be the most technically proficient pathologist in the world, but unless you give that surgeon or that family member or that patient or that juror the information that they need, what good are you?

David Lyons:

Absolutely. You covered a good point too about I like that because a lot of people I think will talk themselves out of a career path or at least taking a shot at it because of confidence issues and believing why I’m introverted and whatever without understanding maybe you’ve got to push that boundary. And Wendy will laugh, if you want to hear her say BS is if I tell people when I say this that I consider myself an introvert as well.

Wendy Lyons:

He is not.

David Lyons:

And there we go. That’s the clean version.

Wendy Lyons:

He says that, and I will keep it clean today, but you’re not. You’re totally not an introvert and your face is red because you’re getting called out on it. And I don’t think Greg is either, but I don’t know him obviously as well.

David Lyons:

That’s the introversion I think, not exactly the shyness. But what I’m getting at is that that’s a neat thing for people to hear, especially when they’re young, because you know what follows that is things like imposter syndrome and the things that get on your shoulder and tell you that “Naw, you can’t.” Or it takes me back to your story, medical school. I’m not smart enough. And then somebody somewhere hits you with that neat club of “You don’t have to be smart, you got to work hard. So I love that.

Dr. Greg Davis:

I’m so glad you brought up imposter syndrome. I have struggled with it all my life. I think a lot of the good docs and cops and others that I know have struggled with it. There’s a part of me after 20 plus years of being a professor that thinks “Well, when are they going to find out how dumb I really am?” And I think that can also be used for good or ill. To have some of that in your soul is always a catalyst for trying to do better, for trying to learn more, for continuing your education, for looking for that constant quality improvement. What can I be doing better? But you don’t want to tip over into the other side of it crippling you where you can’t do anything because you’re always second guessing yourself.

Dr. Greg Davis:

But I remember being really nervous. I was testifying in a case for the defense in Sevier County, Tennessee, right next to Knoxville, the home of Dolly Parton who, if she’s not already [inaudible 00:15:47]-

Wendy Lyons:

We’re talking Gatlinburg.

Dr. Greg Davis:

That’s next county over.

Wendy Lyons:

Sevierville, yes?

Dr. Greg Davis:

Sevierville. And if Dolly Parton’s not your hero now, you need to learn more about her and she will be.

Wendy Lyons:

She’s awesome.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And her statue, I think it’s a 16 year old Dolly, a statue of hers in front of the courthouse in Sevier County. But I was really nervous because it was a high stakes case, but my brother from Knoxville, who is an attorney and a physician, came to watch me testify and critiqued me afterwards. That made me a little bit nervous too. But at that point I’d been doing this for about 25 years and he pointed out, all Big Brother water under the bridge stuff aside, he pointed out some really good things that I was doing that distracted the jury.

Dr. Greg Davis:

For instance, swiveling in my chair too much, opening and closing my water bottle. And they were obvious nervous ticks and that got across to the jury. Because again, I still struggle with public speaking to some degree. But there’s always room for improvement. But yeah, for any listeners who think, “Well, I’m too shy” or “I’m not good enough,” that may be the case, but give yourself some credit and try to feel others out in the field that you’re interested in to see if you’re the right fit.

Christine Maier:

The roar of a lion forces Savannah to choose if she’ll save her classmates or be the next featured story on the Murder Police Podcast. Hi, I’m Christine Maier, author of The Too Tall Giraffe, a children’s book about looking different, fitting in and finding your superpower. After 20 years with the NYPD, I now help kids embrace their differences, fit in or not, and find their superpowers. You can learn more at thetootallgiraffe.com.

Dr. Greg Davis:

I always counsel medical students: If you’re shy around dead bodies, that doesn’t mean you can’t be a pathologist, a forensic pathologist. I was super shy. A lot of this is acclimatization. And Wendy, you and I talked offline about this. There are things you don’t ever get used to, but you get acclimated to them. I will never get used to seeing somebody die by violent means, but I’ve sure gotten acclimated to it over the years. But it takes an emotional toll, not just the physical toll of standing up for hours on end or standing at a scene or getting up at three in the morning to go to a crime scene. And I was a scene investigator for five years in North Carolina, but there’s an emotional toll as well. And I know this is true in law enforcement. I know it’s true in medicine.

Wendy Lyons:

And you’re going right where my question was going to go. You’re right in law enforcement. We’ve talked about on previous shows how that detective takes that back home with them. It’s not just you leave the scene and it’s over and now you’re home kicked back in your recliner. I was going to ask you, does that, because of the graphic nature and what you do, does that affect you in that same way? Do you go home and, let’s say maybe it’s an infant or even if it’s all the same to you, does that affect you in that same way or do you truly just, are you able to leave the job at work?

Dr. Greg Davis:

The answer to the first question is yes, it affects me. And the answer to the second is no, I can’t leave it at work. But I can do things about not leaving it at work. I can’t compartmentalize completely. I can compartmentalize when I’m actually doing the investigation or the dissection. I’ll use an analogy for you. My dog Terrance, back when I was a medical student, was a basset hound and he got a coat hanger in his eye. And at first I thought the coat hanger had pierced the globe of his eye, it hadn’t. He’d gotten it caught between his eyelid and his eyeball. He ended up being perfectly okay, but he was howling and screaming. And I just walked over to him, I grabbed his head and I gently extricated the coat hanger. And then I sagged down to the ground and burst into tears. I was able to get the job done and then just have a little mini love my dog breakdown after.

Wendy Lyons:

Little small meltdown thereafter.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Yeah. But I think there’s unhealthy coping mechanisms and there’s healthy coping mechanisms. I have not met a human being in my life that didn’t need, whether we want to call it counseling, debriefing, therapy at some point in their life. And I don’t care if you’re the most buff cut cop on the planet or the most battle hardened physician, you are going to need counseling or therapy. And I always tell people it takes strength to admit when you need it. It’s not strength to avoid it because it will come out. Shakespeare said “Murder will out.” Meaning if you commit a murder, it’s going to be found out at some point. And I think stress will out as well.

Dr. Greg Davis:

So which would you rather do? Come home and drink too much and have a failed relationship and kick the dog, or get some therapy or counseling, if you don’t want to call it therapy, or debriefing if you’re macho, that sort of thing, whatever you call it. After the 5191 crash at the airport, one of the things I loved the mayor of Lexington for doing, Mayor Isaac made counseling available to every police officer, firefighter, coroner, medical examiner.

Dr. Greg Davis:

I availed myself to it just because that was so stressful. But it does take a toll. For the partners of people who do this kind of work, they’re obviously asked to do a lot to accommodate the nightmares that some of us have. I still have nightmares about certain cases. That’s just part of who I am now. And so again, when young folks come to me, it’s again a constant balancing act. I don’t want to quench anybody’s enthusiasm, and goodness knows we need more young people going into forensics.

Dr. Greg Davis:

For those of you who are interested in forensic pathology, it is a buyer’s market as far as when you get your training, you could probably go anywhere in the United States and get a position because we are in a demographic crisis. It’s a graying profession. I’m in my 60s. I’m probably close to the average age of a forensic pathologist and we need an influx of new folks. But recognize that it’s not all glamor. When you go to a scene at two in the morning of a lady who’s been beaten to death by the guy she hired to do some yard work the day before. That’s a lot of stuff, but it ain’t glamorous.

Wendy Lyons:

Now do you ever have direct contact with surviving family members or do you not have that relationship in your career that you have to do that?

Dr. Greg Davis:

It depends on what the family wants. Usually the coroner is the point person for communications with family. But if the coroner says, “Hey, Greg, I’ve got this family here and you discovered some coronary artery disease in the young father who didn’t have any past medical history and they want to chat with you about potential risk factors for their kids or his siblings,” that sort of thing, I’ll talk with families. I’ll always advise them in that context to go to their primary care provider for proper screening because I don’t take care of living patients and haven’t since the 80s. But yeah, we’ll talk with families if they want to.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And generally the two biggest questions we get are, did my loved one suffer? And did you discover something that’s of importance to the family that might have an impact on our kids’ health or her brothers and sisters’ health? That sort of thing. In response to that first question, it’s our mama’s taught us, it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. And I will never whitewash the truth. I’ll never lie to a family about that because once you lie about one thing, you know-

Wendy Lyons:

You got to keep right on lying about the next thing too.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Well, yeah, and you can’t be trusted after that. But there are lesser, harmful ways of getting information across to a family. We don’t get a lot of hugs in my profession, but pre-pandemic I got a couple from family members when I was able to honestly tell them that based on the physical findings at autopsy, their loved one did not suffer.

David Lyons:

They’re just looking for answers. And I’m with you too, I think sometimes that it’s the way you deliver it. Because I remember a lot of huddles that we used to have with families were you met a family and you became their advocate if you took a case. And that was probably my most rewarding part of that job is it was very humbling. Then the other big huddle you had that took a lot of coordination with medical examiners and with the coroner was in, for example, on a suicide. Because I’ve always told people putting down accurately whether or not that was a suicide sometimes took more work, if that sounds right, than a murder investigation because you can’t get that wrong. Because that determination for the family is huge. And to be able to have enough facts for them to walk them through that as gently as you can, but to erase doubt, that’s a huge issue. I just remember those conversations, they were difficult, but in the end you knew you were doing the right thing.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Well, and that brings up secondary conversations that I think your profession and mine often have with families and especially in cases of a completed suicide is, what could I have done? What did I miss? And I’m no psychotherapist, I’m no psychiatrist, but I am a human being who’s seen a lot of this. And what I have told families before is nothing. You could have done nothing.

Dr. Greg Davis:

There are plenty of ways we can treat suicidal depression or impulses, but at the end of the day, if somebody is bound and determined to do something, there’s not a whole lot we can do to stop them. I think the chief of police in Louisville or the Jefferson County Sheriff was talking about that Sheriff’s deputy that was murdered recently over there and she said, “If somebody’s bound and determined to kill somebody, there’s not a whole lot we can do to prevent that, but we can sure bring him to justice afterwards.”

Dr. Greg Davis:

And that’s something I’ve seen a lot is family guilt, not just in suicide, but in death of a child from sudden infant death syndrome, which we now call sudden unexpected death in infancy, which is just a way of saying, we still don’t really know what causes it. And we call it by this different name now because people have been acculturated to think that SIDS is a diagnosis when in actuality it’s just an admission that after we’ve done our due diligence and tried all of our diagnostic techniques, we still don’t know why that child died.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And yet we have parents who often think I should have done something different, I should have given them this food instead of that food. And we have to reassure them that there’s no way to say that that caused the infant’s death. And the other thing we do to educate, I still remember if folks are aware of the Back to Sleep program, the received wisdom when my babies were little was you put them sleep on their tummy in case they vomited they wouldn’t aspirate and suck the vomit down their wind pipe.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Well, we now know we have this Back to Sleep program where pediatricians will tell new moms and dads, put the baby to sleep on her back. And part of that is there is a decreased incidence of sudden unexpected death in infancy with babies who sleep on their back as opposed to babies who sleep on their tummy. But that doesn’t mean if you put your baby to sleep on their tummy and they die of SIDS that you killed your baby. Association is not causation. And years ago, a Jag prosecutor at Fort Knox wanted to prosecute a mom and dad because they put their infant to sleep on their tummy and the baby died of SIDS and folks in the Louisville office had to call them up short and say, “That dog won’t hunt,” as we say in Kentucky.

David Lyons:

Can’t get those wrong.

Dr. Greg Davis:

No.

David Lyons:

Can’t get those wrong. That’s a big problem with that too.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And I think a parallel to can’t get those wrong, David, is admit when you are wrong and don’t be reluctant to change an opinion. We always joke that we do it on paper, or now electronically, we don’t chisel our opinions in stone. Because if you or a family member brings me reliable information later on down the road and I have to rethink the case, I shouldn’t have so much ego bound up in it, “Dr. Davis is always right” that I’m reluctant to change my opinion.

David Lyons:

Good point. I don’t think even the ones that we cleared, if somebody came back 20 years later and said, “Something’s different.” I’d said, “Oh, wow, well, let’s look.” Because you just know that you take what’s in front of you at the time and you make the best decision you can at the time. But there’s always that little piece. I agree with you that you have to be ready for a change if that comes up.

David Lyons:

When you’re talking about your career and getting started again, I know we’re meandering, but it’s actually a fantastic conversation. This is really good. But when you’re talking about the mindset coming in, were there things that happened earlier in your career that were unexpected that shaped you later, like disappointments or anything?

Dr. Greg Davis:

Well, I’ll start with the opposite of disappointments. I started my pathology residency convinced I was going to be a community hospital pathologist. I was going to be the guy at the community hospital who did surgical pathology and read the biopsies when the gastroenterologist did a colon biopsy or the dermatologist shaved a mole off somebody’s skin and look at pap smears and run the blood bank and run the clinical chemistry lab and the microbiology lab. That’s where my initial interest lay.

Dr. Greg Davis:

My very first rotation as a pathology resident was two months with the office of the chief medical examiner in Louisville. I did my residency at University of Louisville affiliated hospitals. That medical examiner’s office had a relationship, it was also the division of forensic pathology of the Department of Pathology of U of L. I started the rotation on July one thinking, “Okay, I’ve got to endure these two months at the medical examiner’s office and then I can go on to doing what I really want to do,” which is surgical pathology.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Within a week, I knew that forensic pathology was what I wanted to do. Dr. George Nichols, Dr. LC McLeod, Dr. Barbara Weakly-Jones, they were taking me to crime scenes. We were following up doing autopsies. And it was not, again, not the autopsy in and of itself, the lab test that really hooked me. It was these people. They were cheerful. They were hard working. They had an appropriate, good sense of humor. They’d been doing it for quite a long time, and yet seemed still engaged and happy. While I enjoyed my training in those other areas of pathology, within probably two weeks of that rotation, I thought this is what I’m going to do.

Dr. Greg Davis:

As far as disappointments, I don’t mean to sound like a Pollyanna, but 35 years later, if I could do it all over again, I’d do it all over again. I made the right choice for me. And for listeners who are thinking about a career in medicine or a career in pathology, one of the really cool things is, and maybe there’s, I bet it’s similar in law enforcement, no matter what your personality, no matter what your interest, there is a place for you in medicine if you think that’s what you want to do.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And pathology is like a microcosm of medicine as a whole. We’re sitting right now in the Department of Pathology at the University of Kentucky, about 10 feet away is the office of my work sister, who’s a neuropathologist. She does mainly surgical pathology and diseases of the brain and spinal cord and muscles. Her day-to-day work is a universe away from what I do, and yet we’re both pathologists. We’re both physicians. Another buddy of mine down the hall is a blood banker. A hundred percent of his professional time is transfusion medicine and working in the blood bank.

Dr. Greg Davis:

I’d be a lost puppy if I tried to do any of that stuff. And yet we’re both pathologists. That’s one of the joys of this profession and I’ve never been bored. I’ve never regretted my decision. Now that doesn’t mean I haven’t had bad days. And I think we’ve talked about cases that haunt you and the fact that this takes a, or we will, and that this can take an emotional toll, but on balance, the reason I’m still loving what I’m doing, even at my somewhat advanced age, again, are those relationships and those people.

David Lyons:

As Simon Sinek would say, “You have a strong why.” And I love that. That’s one of the most profound things I learned in the last few years is that how important that is for all of us is that why and how can we stay true to the why, is it difficult, especially when it throws you things. Because I’m the same way is that during my career is that there were bumps, but they never outshadowed the enjoyment I got out of the career and the satisfaction of getting things done well. So that’s a good [inaudible 00:34:08]-

Wendy Lyons:

That must have been tough for an introvert like you.

David Lyons:

Well, it was. Yeah, exactly. And I’m finding it very difficult to speak on it now. So thank you for being patient.

Wendy Lyons:

Greg, I was going to ask, you talk about, and I don’t want to dive into it to relive bad memories for you, but-

Dr. Greg Davis:

No, that’s okay.

Wendy Lyons:

You talked about the cases that haunt you. And I think much, like I mentioned a few moments ago, there are those things that you just can’t get out of your head for a lack of better terms. For you, are the cases that haunt you are those the cases of brutal death or what is it for you that just when you walk in that day and you know that’s what you’re facing or when you walk in that room, what is it for you that you think “I’m going to do it, but this isn’t my preferred day.”

Wendy Lyons:

Hey, you know there’s more to this story so go download the next episode like the true crime fan that you are.

David Lyons:

The Murder Police Podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded and edited by David Lyons. The Murder Police Podcast can be found on your favorite Apple or Android podcast platform as well as at murderpolicepodcast.com, which is our website and it has show notes for imagery and audio and video files related to the cases you’re going to hear.

David Lyons:

We are also on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and YouTube, which has closed caption available for those that are hearing impaired. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us a five star review on Apple Podcast or wherever you download your podcast from. Subscribe to the Murder Police Podcast and set your player to automatically download new episodes so you get the new ones as soon as they drop. And please tell your friends.

David Lyons:

Lock it down, Judy.

---

Forensic Pathology with Dr. Greg Davis Part 3 of 3

Audio:

Warning. The podcast you’re about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised.

Wendy Lyons:

Welcome to the Murder Police Podcast, Forensic Pathology with Dr. Greg Davis part three of three. Greg, I was going to ask, and I don’t want to dive into it to relive bad memories for you-

Dr. Greg Davis:

No, that’s okay.

Wendy Lyons:

… but you talked about the cases that haunt you. And I think much, like I mentioned, a few moments ago, there are those things that you just can’t get out of your head, for lack of better terms. Are the case that haunt you are, those the cases of brutal death? Or what is it for you that just when you walk in that day and you know that’s what you’re facing, or when you walk in that room, what is it for you that you think, “I’m going to do it, but this isn’t my preferred day”?

Dr. Greg Davis:

I think I’ll start off generally, Wendy. One of my mentors, Dr. McLeod, who I mentioned earlier, told me 35 years ago, I still remember, he said, “Son, it’ll get technically easier and emotionally more difficult as the years go by.” And boy, oh boy, was that true. I think early on your learning curve is so steep. And everything is, I’m doing air quotes, “everything is cool,” because you’re seeing it for the first time. And then over the years you see patterns and you see patterns repeated. So I think the things that upset me the most are the patterns of disempowered people being victimized, the kids, the elders, people who can’t fight back. I mean, every death is a tragedy to some degree. But there’s obviously, a difference between a 90 year old who’s surrounded by friends and family and who slips peacefully away versus somebody who is untimely ripped from this world.

Dr. Greg Davis:

I mean, one thing that I think about a lot is a case from very early in my career, probably two or three months after I finished training. I was a new medical examiner in Winston-Salem and just getting established and I get a call from an outlying county, a sheriff’s detective, who says, “We have a murder outside this country Western bar.” And he starts to give me details. And I was a newbie. So with some reluctance, I called my senior colleague, the fellow who’d hired me, who was gracious and always glad for me to wake him up in the middle of the night, which he, as a cop or a doc, you got to be. And I said, “Pat, I’ve got this case and…” Can we use expletives on a podcast?

David Lyons:

Yeah, we can, if they’re… Yeah.

Dr. Greg Davis:

So basically, as I’m explaining the case, I hear my colleagues say, “Oh, shit!” And the reason he said that was the MO of the murder that I was describing to him as I was getting ready to go out to the scene was the same as one he had had about six months before from another country Western bar. Long story short, we actually were onto a serial killer at that point, who was a long distance trucker on I40, between North Carolina and California, who specifically picked out women in country Western bars of a particular body habitus and a particular type of speech impediment. That was his preferred profiled victim. Probably would not be reproducible now, but at his murder trial in North Carolina, my colleague and I essentially put on a comparison and contrast slideshow of the victim at hand with the previous victim to show that this was a pattern for this guy. And he’s still in prison.

Dr. Greg Davis:

It’s interesting. No matter what you or your listeners think of the death penalty, the other thing that haunts me about this case is he told the prosecutor, if you take death off the table, “I’ll tell you about all the others”. And for whatever reason in the early ’90s, the prosecutor wasn’t willing to do that. So one of the things that’s haunted me is how many other families are there out there who have missing loved ones who could have at least some sort of resolution to that uncertainty, I don’t use the word closure and I’ll tell you why, resolution to that uncertainty? And they can’t, because this guy’s refusing to talk, because he’s on death row. Closure, whether it’s applied… I use this for myself, too. I don’t like that word, because I think it connotes a finality.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned just from being in my 60s and losing family members and friends, it’s that you don’t, again, with the air quotes, “You don’t get over anything. It just becomes a part of who you are.” And the best analogy I ever heard, a friend of mine, who’s an MD PhD in New York and her PhD is in English, talks about, “You don’t have closure. You metabolize loss. It becomes again, a part of who you are.” When I hear folks say, “Well, the family needs the autopsy results for closure,” I always do a gentle course correction and say, “Well, no, they need the autopsy results so they can figure out what happened and figure out what to do with that information going forward.” But I think we have this particular cultural sickness in North America where we think we have to get over everything and just put it behind us and move on. And I don’t think that’s what humans really do.

David Lyons:

I don’t think I’ve met a surviving victim’s family that does. And it’s a long process. And there’s cathartic pieces to it, speaking of that person. And that’s one reason we started the podcast. And we’re going to start pretty soon, is I’m going to start into more of the missings, believed to be murdered, and victim families mainly to give them a platform to talk about who they lost. That’s an important part is to be able to speak to that. One thing that I want to touch on that you hit that impressed me is the conversation you had, that where you had that epiphany that you were working on that same MO is again, that can’t happen without a relationship with somebody. I mean, I know people are going to be, “My God, that’s all they talked about on the show.” But it’s true, because I think people out in the lay world believe that there’s this big master database. And there’s things like ViCAP, but it never gets that specific.

David Lyons:

But the importance of having that conversation to be able to say, “Oh, wow,” because otherwise it’d get lost. I can tell you too, that I interviewed people in the interview room more than once that we probably charged with a murder or two. And I’ve always tried to tell people that when you meet one, that the silicone switch definitely went to overload, is that I’ve had people [inaudible 00:07:40] that have left that room. And you just have that feeling that their capacity for doning this before is real. That was just always a lingering thing for me, is I met a few people, the knee-to-knee, that I had no doubt that this was not their first time at the rodeo. But you couldn’t scratch that. And that always bothered me. And the unanswered questions that are going to remain with that are frightening, actually.

David Lyons:

Good stuff. I’ll tell you what, I remember offline we talked a little bit. And as we kind of come around to the bend on this, before we talk about your podcast, because I want to make sure people are aware of this, is I mentioned that when we used to come to the autopsy suite, there was a sign over the door. And if you could tell us what that is, and what it means, and how it speaks to the profession, because that’s all I thought about since you agreed to do this show, was that saying.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Well, there’s a Latin saying that’s chiseled in stone, literally, over the entrance to the Medical Examiner’s office in New York City on First Avenue. And we have it printed on paper at the Medical Examiner’s office in Frankfurt. And the saying is, “Let conversations cease. Let laughter flee. This is where death is gratified to help the living.” And I always modify that when I talk to people for the first time about it, is it’s a very somber statement in some ways. And I always push back on it, because conversations should flourish appropriately in the autopsy room and even appropriate laughter again, never directed at the patient who’s dead and can’t fight back. But if David Lyons and Greg Davis want to rib each other, have at it. That’s fine. But this is where death is gratified to help the living.

Dr. Greg Davis:

I think we have one shot at a scene investigation and at an autopsy to do it right the first time. And I’m sure your listeners have heard about second autopsies. My experience over three and a half decades is, and this is probably axiomatic, they’re never as good as the first as far as the material that you’re dealing with. The person doing it may be able to interpret things really well. But to do a scene investigation or an autopsy right, dotting Is, crossing Ts the first time, that’s really the best thing that you can do to honor that deceased person and to let death help the living.

Audio:

The roar of a lion forces Savannah to choose if she’ll save her classmates or be the next featured story on the Murder Police Podcast. Hi, I’m Christine Maier, author of The Too Tall Giraffe, a children’s book about looking different, fitting in and finding your super power. After 20 years with the NYPD, I now help kids embrace their differences, fit in, or not, and find their superpowers. You can learn more at the tootallgiraffe.com.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Again, whether it’s to make sure a bad guy goes away or make sure an innocent person doesn’t get accused. You mentioned that line on the kid, that folks thought was trauma. I mean, we see that in pediatric cases, a little melanin spots in the small of the back that somebody thinks is a bruise, when in actuality, a darker pigment in kids, it’s a common finding, just to have a patch of dark skin right there in the small of the back. And to be able to educate that new cop or that new lawyer that it’s actually the opposite of most popular entertainment where, how many shows have you watched where it looked like a natural death, but really grandpa was murdered? Well, in most of our cases, those that come to us initially suspicious end up being something quite innocent. But there’s a saying in forensics that’s meant to be figurative, not literal, “It’s a homicide till proven otherwise.”

Dr. Greg Davis:

That was never meant to be taken literally. All that means is okay, grandma had cancer and heart disease and she looks like she’s peaceful in her bed. But as a scene investigator, I’m still going to talk to the family. I’m still going to take some pictures. I’m going to roll her over to make sure there’s no holes back there. That’s happened before, knife wound. And just to make sure we dot those Is and cross those Ts, because once the scene is cleaned up, it’s gone. But I think that quote, “This is where death is gratified to help the living” comes back again and again to what we’ve been talking about the whole time, which is it’s not about the autopsy. The autopsy is a means to an end. It’s a tool. It’s a lab test. It’s what you do with that information for public health, for criminal justice, for the civil world, that’s where it really counts.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And I mean, for those of you that have kids who are on swing sets and you see that the swing set is put in concrete so it doesn’t tip over, you can thank a forensic pathologist in Rhode Island in the ’60s for that who noticed a lot of head injuries in kids from swing sets. Modified body armor over the last 20 years with our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere, it was medical examiners at Dover, Delaware at the Armed Forces Medical Examiner’s office who saw injury patterns and informed their superiors and manufacturers of body armor to modify to prevent certain types of injuries. Car seats for kids, the Back to Sleep Campaign, all of these are societal and other issues that have come out of doing a good forensic pathology exam and a good death investigation to help the living.

David Lyons:

And so it means a lot more than walking in that room and writing a report. And that’s pretty groovy. That’s pretty good. Well, I’ll tell you, before we head out, I know that you do a podcast of your own. And if you can tell us what the podcast is and where people can find it, and we’ll put links in our show notes to direct people to it, because I know that as long as I’ve known you, this has been an eyeopening, fascinating conversation this morning. I learned more than I ever did. And I’m sure that people are going to have an interest in what you got to say on the medical field as a whole. So what is the name of the podcast and how can we find it?

Dr. Greg Davis:

Well, thank you for bringing that up. It’s called Dr. Greg Davis on Medicine. It’s on WUKY, which is an NPR affiliate radio station here at the University of Kentucky. Been doing it for about 15 years or so. Started out, I’ve always been a big fan of public radio, since I was in college. I was volunteering 15 or so years ago during a pledge drive, answering phones, taking money, taking pledges. And the news director came in and said, “Aren’t you a physician?” And I got really frightened for a second thinking I was going to have to resuscitate somebody. And she said, “No, we just need a medical reporter.” So it evolved into this weekly broadcast and podcasts that I’ll send you the link to.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And the thing I love about it is anything to do with medicine, health, wellness, everything from facets of the COVID-19 pandemic, to why doctors in the United Kingdom, male physicians don’t wear neck ties anymore, because they are called fomites. They can drag germs from person to person. How often do we launder our neck ties? So it’s the reason you see a lot of male physicians who choose to wear neck ties, either wearing a bow tie or doing that military tuck of putting the tie in between their second and third button so that it doesn’t, as they’re leaning over the patient in the hospital bed, the tie doesn’t drag a germ from one patient to another. I’ve interviewed my wife, who’s a registered dietician, about nutrition and dietetics. Just anything that has to do with health. And so I’ve had full artistic license to engage in that.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And it’s been a real eye opener. I’ve met so many wonderful folks from UK and around the world. A surgeon in Germany who plays piano for his patients, because he’s a firm believer in the healing power of music. Interviewed someone from Japan about shinrin-yoku, which is forest bathing, how getting out into nature can help us feel better about life. So I would love if folks gave a listen. And I’m always open to suggestions for topics, too.

David Lyons:

Oh, I’m sure they will. I know we will be.

Wendy Lyons:

Very neat. I’m sitting here, as germy as I get, I work with children for a living and way before COVID was even a thing, I always, David will tell, we go into restaurants and I’m getting extra napkins to pick up salt shakers with and ketchup, because I refuse to touch bottles. And I’ve always been this way. And as you’re talking about the neck ties, I’m thinking, “Oh, my gosh, that’s right, because you don’t wash neckties.” I never thought! I mean, a female, you don’t wear neck ties. And I’m just sitting here thinking, “Wow, somebody else who’s like me who doesn’t like germs and doesn’t want to touch stuff.” So I can’t wait to give it a listen and share with our listeners who are looking for a good podcast that’s not always crime related.

David Lyons:

A funny story on the tie before we close out too, is that’s one thing I learned in the unit, is that when you go enter a scene with advanced decomp, leave your tie in the car. The rest of the stuff you’re going to throw in the laundry. But that tie will hold onto that for a while. That was just stupid. That sounds dumb. But people who know, know, is that you don’t take those into [inaudible 00:17:50], because-

Dr. Greg Davis:

Those cases are hard enough without accidentally dragging a tie through them. If I can tell a story on myself…

David Lyons:

Yes, please.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Brand new detective in Louisville, 30, 35 years ago. Now I think he’s retired. I think he ended up being Associate Chief or something like that in the Louisville Police Department. But I think it was his first homicide and it was a decomp case. And I’d been doing autopsies for maybe all of two months. And so being the wanna be Papa Bear that I am, I introduced myself to him and told him, “We’re not macho here. If you feel sick or anything like that, sit down. Nobody’s going to make fun of you.” And lo and behold, when we opened the body, I was hit square in the face with some of the decomposition gases that can be quite pungent, as you know, and I turned, yanked my mask down and got sick into a trash can that was right next to the autopsy table.

Dr. Greg Davis:

And this detective, without even cracking up laughing or cracking a smile, came over, put his arms around my shoulders and says, “It’s okay, doc, none of us is macho here and we’re not going to make fun of you.” I loved that guy after that. And we sort of bonded over that experience together.

Wendy Lyons:

The teacher became the student that day, didn’t he?

Dr. Greg Davis:

Oh, absolutely. And Wendy, that’s one of the greatest things about this. I mean, one of the reasons I love being in an academic environment as well is you don’t know the background of that third-year or fourth-year medical student. For all you know, they may have life experience that’s going to really flesh out a case for you. Or something as mundane as, “Hey, Dr. Davis, did you mean to dictate right? I think that was on his left.” So again, having multiple people around and checks and balances and perspectives is always helpful.

David Lyons:

Your good teamwork, low dose of humility and life goes along pretty well.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Amen.

David Lyons:

Works good. Well, Greg, thanks a bunch. Thanks for hosting us here in the facility. I mean, have-podcast-will-travel kind of thing. We were glad to come out. Maybe down the road, like we said, we do have the Murder Police Podcast studio and Nick Vegas in Jessamine County out at the farm. And maybe we can come out there and do some more, because there’s going to be some other topics we’d like to scratch with you specific to this kind of work. But thanks a whole bunch.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Oh, it’s been my pleasure and honor, David and Wendy. Anytime and I would love to come to the studio sometime and talk more anytime.

David Lyons:

Oh, and you have to visit the miniature horses. We call them therapy animals for Bill Brislin, but that’s a whole different story.

Wendy Lyons:

Oh, [inaudible 00:20:34] leave Bill alone.

David Lyons:

But thank you again.

Wendy Lyons:

Yes. Thank you for taking time out of your very busy day to talk to us. And now that we’re off the air, I’m going to pick your brain a little bit. But thank you, Greg, so, so much. David will attest, when I first met you, I’ve been saying for years, “I’m going to get him alone and ask a bunch of questions.” I’ve been saying that for years now. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And again, listeners, please look at our notes to get Greg’s podcast. Give it a listen. Share it with others. And with that, thank you, Greg.

Dr. Greg Davis:

Thank you, Wendy. Thank you, David.

David Lyons:

The Murder Police Podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded and edited by David Lyons. The Murder Police Podcast can be found on your favorite Apple or Android podcast platform as well as at murderpolicepodcast.com, which is our website. And it has show notes for imagery and audio and video files related to the cases you’re going to hear. We are also on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and YouTube, which has closed caption available for those that are hearing impaired. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us a five star review on Apple Podcast or wherever you download your podcast from. Subscribe in order play podcasts and set your play to automatically download new episodes, so you get the new ones as soon as they drop. And please, tell your friends.

David Lyons:

Lock it down, Judy.