Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: A Tale of Two Sisters - No Good Deed

Summary

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Crime Stories with Nancy Grace: Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: A Tale of Two Sisters – No Good Deed

iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline | March 15, 2026

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode, hosted by forensic death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan and collaborator Dave, explores the heartbreaking murder of Karen Paez by her own sister, Deborah Patton, in Florida. Through expert forensic analysis and empathetic storytelling, Morgan and Dave unravel the deeply troubled sibling dynamics, the crime’s discovery, and the meticulous forensic process, all against the backdrop of Karen’s lovingly tended garden—her sanctuary and, tragically, her grave.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Victim and Her World [02:21–08:32]

• Karen Paez: A 72-year-old Florida resident described as kind, meticulous, and deeply dedicated to her family and garden.
• Lifestyle: Karen cared for her ailing parents until their deaths, managed her home and finances diligently, and found solace in gardening.
• Community View: Neighbors knew her for her friendliness and constant presence outdoors; alarm was raised when she was suddenly absent.

Quote:

“Karen spent a lot of time tending to her garden. But what people didn’t realize is that Karen would wind up buried in it as well.” — Joseph Scott Morgan [03:12]

Family Dynamics and Motive [04:38–09:42]

• Deborah Patton: Karen’s sister, 67, who had lived in Louisiana for decades with little contact or support for the family.
• Contrasts: While Karen sacrificed for the family, Deborah avoided responsibilities, only returning to live with Karen after their parents died.
• Strain: Deborah brought conflict; neighbors heard arguments and noticed Karen accommodating Deborah, even constructing her a luxury chef’s kitchen while Karen made do with a garage kitchenette.

Insight:

“These are sisters who really are close in age... but their adult lives, total opposites... [Deborah] wanted what Karen had. Deborah had nothing. No money, no nothing.” — Dave [07:04]

Discovery of the Crime [06:16–12:04]

• Karen Disappears: Friends and neighbors’ welfare check brings police to Karen’s home.
• Suspicious Behavior: Deborah offers inconsistent, evasive answers to police; Karen’s car, phone, and wallet are still at the house.
• Evidence: Police notice freshly disturbed ground in the backyard—indicative of a shallow, hastily dug grave.

Quote:

“That hole in and of itself is accusatory... You are such a loser. Because the sister would not have done this. She probably would have gotten stakes, kite string—she would have carefully measured it... but what it comes down to with this is, this is pure horror.” — Joseph Scott Morgan [23:03]

Forensic Process & Crime Scene Investigation [16:12–27:54]

• Burial: Karen’s remains found in a two-foot-deep hole, wrapped in black trash bags, secured with bungee cords and duct tape.
• Forensic Approach: Experts discuss why law enforcement must secure a warrant, excavate carefully, and transport remains undisturbed to preserve evidence like fingerprints and DNA on the bags, tape, and bungees.

Quote:

“You have to be able to restrain yourself... anything you do out there. It’s like, if you just kind of blast through this thing, there’s no confirmatory thing here going on... You have got to maintain control.” — Joseph Scott Morgan [41:03]

• Behavioral Analysis: Morgan theorizes that keeping the body so close may reflect the perpetrator’s need for continued “control” over the victim and the secret.

Quote:

“I think it has something to do with a potential perpetrator wanting to have constant control and watch care over what they've done.” — Joseph Scott Morgan [16:25]

Building the Case [38:39–49:46]

• Community Evidence: A neighbor’s surveillance camera (operated by an off-duty sheriff’s deputy) captures the last sighting of Karen, Deborah discarding trash bags, and carrying a shovel.

• Forensics: Latex gloves with Deborah’s DNA found in the grave; surveillance footage provides critical corroboration.

• Missing Weapon: The murder weapon (a firearm used for a single gunshot wound to Karen’s chest) was never recovered.

• Physical Evidence: Karen was still wearing a necklace labeled “Karen”—no attempt to obscure her identity.

Quote:

“You can learn a lot about a person that perpetrates a homicide by the way they treat remains. This seems to be rather frenzied, I would think maybe spontaneous. It happened in the flash...” — Joseph Scott Morgan [47:28]

Legal Outcome & Aftermath [49:49–52:50]

• Deborah’s Trial: The legal process was delayed when Deborah was found incompetent; after treatment in a mental institution, she was ruled fit to stand trial and convicted of second-degree murder.
• Jury Reaction: Deliberation was brief—less than an hour.
• Other Evidence: Police found a note describing plans to kill her ex-husband and herself.
• Deborah’s Demeanor: Smiled and laughed in court, and insisted she was “blameless.”

Quote:

“Deborah Patton is a glaring example of pure unadulterated evil.” — Joseph Scott Morgan [53:28]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the tragedy of caring for others:
  “For those few precious moments, she might be able to go out there and retrieve some bit of sanity, some bit of solemnity, some bit of peace… But after her sister shows up, it was anything but magical. Because when the sister showed up, hell followed with her.” — Joseph Scott Morgan [12:04]

• Forensic patience:
  “You really, as an investigator, have to adjust your lens... it’s real easy to take a bulldozer approach when you should be doing surgery...” — Joseph Scott Morgan [34:51]

• On forensic evidence handling:
  “You do not, under any circumstances, want to crack this bag open... you never know what latent prints might've been preserved...” — Joseph Scott Morgan [41:03]

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Important Timestamps

• [02:21] — Morgan sets the scene: Karen’s love of gardening and background
• [04:38] — Dave details family dynamics and Karen’s life sacrifices
• [06:16] — Discovery of disturbed earth in Karen’s yard and police involvement
• [12:04] — Discussion of caretaking's emotional toll and sibling resentment
• [16:12] — Forensic behavioral analysis: why perpetrators sometimes keep bodies close
• [20:22] — How law enforcement examines suspicious ground for buried remains
• [27:54] — Why police must wait for a warrant and preserve the crime scene meticulously
• [38:39] — The forensic importance of subtle evidence in shallow clandestine graves
• [41:03] — Critical best practices for excavating and preserving evidence from a gravesite
• [46:35] — Details of Karen’s care for Deborah and the tragic contrast in their lives
• [47:28] — How handling of remains reflects perpetrator personality or emotional state
• [49:49] — Overview of trial, evidence, and Deborah’s conviction
• [52:50] — Deborah’s statements and courtroom demeanor

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Summary

Through forensic rigor and deep empathy, Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan explores the devastating murder of Karen Paez—a dedicated daughter, neighbor, and sister—buried in her own garden by the sister she cared for. The episode reveals the psychological and investigative complexities of familial homicide, the painstaking work of forensic teams, and the grim reality of betrayal within families. It stands as a heartbreaking reminder of both the importance of meticulous police work and the profound emotional depths in true crime stories.

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Transcript

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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[Dave]

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[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Scott Morgan the best gardener that I have ever known, hands down, is my mama. She can make things grow where other people other people would pale. It's amazing what she can do in a garden. And her gardens are lovely. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you're. You know, when you go into her backyard, it looks like Versailles or anything, all right? But it's amazing what she can do just with a clipping. For instance, I gave her, I don't know, I guess as a gift, I gave her this, like, specialized fern many years ago. And just out of the clippings that she saved from this thing, she has got baskets to this day that she gives away of these things. And you could say that about a lot of her. Let's just say flora. But today we're going to talk about another beautiful garden. A garden that was tended to with loving care by a lady who spent, it would seem, most of her time in it. And of course, it's. It's in Florida, so kind of year round. Her name was Karen. Karen spent a lot of time tending to her garden. But what people didn't realize is that Karen would wind up buried in it as well. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags Dave. I don't know that I've ever asked you this question. Do you have a green thumb?

[Dave]

Oh, you know, Joe, asking me a question like that, you ought to know better. I'm not the gardener. I'm the guy that tips the gardener.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Today with this case, this lady, she seems as though that she spent the majority of her time outside just working in the yard. And, you know, back to my mother, it's very therapeutic for people. You can get lost out there.

[Dave]

And that's what Karen Paez did. She worked in the yard. Not just the flowers, but the yard. I mean, the grass, the, you know, the edging. Every aspect of the gar of her yard was important to her. And living in Florida, she spent a lot of time working in the yard. But let me give you a little background on Karen Jo. Because Karen Paeis was known by neighbors as very friendly, loving, just a wonderful, nice person. They knew her as the person working in the yard. When they didn't see her in the yard for a couple of days and couldn't get her on the phone, they knew something was wrong. So they called their friends, called police to do a welfare check. Hey, man, just go check on our friend. Now, when police show up, I'm going to give you the backstory in just a minute, okay? Because there's so much. There is so much more to this. The friends didn't just make one phone call, okay? But to cut to the nitty gritty police show up to do a welfare check. Karen is not in the house. They can't find her. And her sister, Deborah Patton, who lives with Karen, they live in this house together in Florida. And she's giving answers, Joe, to the questions police are asking. And they're not right. They're not writing. And the police know she's lying. They know that. That the person talking to them is lying to them. And so they started looking around, and one thing leads to another, and they notice that there's, like a hole that's been dug in the backyard. You know how when you dig a hole and you put the dirt back in, it never levels out, you know?

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yep.

[Dave]

So while one of the deputies is standing there, you know, watching, they went ahead and got a warrant to do a search and to make sure nothing else could go on. And sure enough, Karen Paez was found buried in the backyard in about a two foot hole. And her sister was arrested. Karen Patton was arrested and charged. Now, by the way, I was looking at their ages, Joe. 72 years old, 67 at the time. They're not twins, the girls, the sisters were born 13 months apart. So kind of keep that in mind. These are. These are sisters who really are close in age, were raised very close in age, but their adult lives, total opposites, Joe. And I mean total opposites. So if you can imagine where Karen Pae stayed, near the family home, she cared for her adult parents as they got older. Karen maintained a career on her own. She saved money. She was known as a penny pincher. Okay, she. She was very concerned about financial stability, and she took care of her parents as they slipped into Alzheimer's, dementia and Alzheimer's. And she was there caring for their parents. While Deborah Patton, meanwhile, had married and was gone. She was living in Louisiana with her husband for 28 years, never came back to help care for the elder adult parents. That was Karen's job. But once the parents died, Deborah shows up and moves in with Karen. Now, I mentioned Karen Paez has taken care of this house. She took care of the parents. Everything is owned by her. She owns this. Deborah shows up having done nothing and moves in. Neighbors are like, you know, Deborah's not really nice to you. They heard arguments. They knew Deborah just pushed Karen every which way. Joe, to give you an example, I mentioned Karen stays home to take care of mom and dad as they go through. I don't know how many of y' all understand how bad Alzheimer's is.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Oh, boy.

[Dave]

It's really, really rough on my hat's off to you, if you've cared for an adult, it's just rough. But Karen stayed, took care of both mom and dad. Deborah didn't have anything to do with him. She shows up after they're gone and. And she's left her husband of 28 years, Deborah has, and moves in with Karen. They don't get along. Now, when I say they don't get along, Joe, I'm thinking, if Karen has been living in this community her whole adult life and taking care of the house and the family and all that, and then somebody else, that new person coming into the mix is the one causing the problems, not the person that's been there the whole time. So when I say they didn't get along, I'm thinking, no, Deborah did not get along with Karen. She wanted what Karen had. Deborah had nothing. No money, no nothing. Her. She never kept a job for very long, did not proceed very long. She couldn't, you know, so here's Karen, who has taken care of everything, had her own career and took care of mom and dad. Now she owns her own house. She proud of her yard. And here comes her sister with nothing. Deborah has nothing. But Karen puts her up.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Well, you know, this dynamic started. You know, it's amazing as a death investigator, when I always tell. I always tell students, I've given interviews where they say, well, what. What's the most interesting, interesting thing about being a death investigator, aside from being around the dead? And this is going to be real. This is going to sound really, really creepy, but I'm going to go ahead and. Go ahead and say it. What's really cool about it is that you literally get to peek into people's closets. And if you want a good story, suddenly because of the. The intimate access that you have behind the scenes, kind of seeing the way things develop in that world. You have this narrative that's laid out, you know, and suddenly in many times, it'll burst on the scene. You'll have this kind of moment of clarity when you're working a case and you begin to understand interpersonal dynamics. And let me tell you something. When you're dealing with. With sick parents, when you're dealing with the death of a parent, there is nothing like this, the stimulus that. That is interjected into the relationship between siblings. Because if there is something ugly there, it's going to pop up. But, you know, I submit to you that this ugliness has it. It far. It extends way, way back into the past. It wasn't just the moment she shows up on the doorstep Here. And there's probably been ongoing tension over the years. There's probably been resentment, you know, from the perspective of this sister that just, you know, kind of floats in from Louisiana. Incredible jealousy. You know, parents always preferred you over me. All the while, you know, she's not doing anything to lift her finger to help. And you're right, it's a. There, there are people, Dave. I don't see how they keep from cracking under the burden. And if you've got two parents that

[Dave]

are

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

affected by any kind of dementia, it is exhausting. I don't see how people do it. And you're having to bear that burden day in and day out, shifting from one side to the other to try to keep control over it, try to manage it. Just the finances alone, I can see why she would retreat to a garden, Dave, I really can. For those few precious moments, she might be able to go out there and retrieve some bit of sanity, some bit of solemnity, some bit of peace. Maybe hoping that she would walk back into that house where her parents had been in the state that they were in and something magical would have happened. But I gotta tell you, in the case of Karen, after her sister shows up, it was anything but magical. Because when the sister showed up, hell followed with her.

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[Dave]

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[Joseph Scott Morgan]

But that's weird.

[Dave]

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[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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[Joseph Scott Morgan]

It amazes me, brother Dave, that we've had this conversation before about deposited remains. The dynamic that interests me the most from a forensic, well, it's behavioral and it's also forensics as well. It's kind of this interesting blend because I could, I could sit there and look at a depressed area in the ground, do, do a retrieval of remains, an excavation, if you will, of remains. But I always, always think, why do people, why do people take not just bodies but evidence and hang on to them in their, in their environment? And that's always been a very fascinating dynamic. I think it has something to do, I've always thought this, I think it has something to do with a potential perpetrator wanting to have constant control and watch care over what they've done. You know, isn't it interesting, Dave, how many cases that you and I have covered over the years now where you will have a perpetrator that will take a human remain, for instance, and just discard it like it's rubbish, you know, out in some horrible area. But yet we have these others that kind of latch on to these and literally hang on to them and continue to exist, perhaps in the same environment where just out your front door or your kitchen window, you pull the curtains aside and there's active decomposition going on in your backyard. Think about that just for a second. I Mean, that's a real. I think that there could be an academic study actually that could be applied to this. You begin to look at deposited remains and kind of the relationship between the perpetrators and remains and to see kind of how they, you know, how did all this come together? What was your rationale for hanging on?

[Dave]

I think I have a theory.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

What's that?

[Dave]

Pretty much same thing, what you were saying about control. I think that when you have somebody that commits a murder and they just discard the body to get away from it because they have no connection to is just an id, they don't have a connection to that person. They might even know the name, you know, they just, they did their thing, they killed them, whatever, and now I'm getting rid of the body. But when it comes to this type of a situation where a sister has killed a sister and put her remains in the backyard in a hole, two foot hole, and she's right there, I think it's because that way her body is there in the backyard. And in this case, I think Deborah had control over, you know, anybody that wants to see. She, she knows nobody's discovered the body yet. If nobody discovers the body, I'm free and clear, you know, in that way. And I think that's the case with others who keep somebody close to them where they can watch over the remains. Because it's like if somebody goes near it, I can go out there and I can get them looking someplace else. I control the remains, I can keep somebody from finding it. But if I'm, if I don't see them, if I bury it out in the middle of nowhere, I don't know, Hunter might fall over it or something. But Joe, Mike, question for you about this, okay. You get the cops in the backyard, they get a warrant, they see that there has been, there's disturbed ground in the backyard.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yep.

[Dave]

Not unique. And that is kind of unique when you have two elderly women at the time, both are 67 years old, you're not going to see them out there digging a hole for no reason. So there had to be a reason for it and they want to look. How do law enforcement, because they're going to be the first ones to look at something like this. How do they go about digging what they believe? You know, hey, we got to find out what's in this area here before we call. Because it could be nothing, you know, but do they have to like dig up and see if there's something in there? What, how does that start? Do I as a cop with a gun And a badge. Riding tickets. One minute. Am I in the backyard digging this with a tantra?

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Okay, excellent question. And let me break it down to you this way. I know people use, use motorized augers now to put in post dig, post holes with. Okay, but let's go back in time and think about a. And Lord knows I've had to use these over the years. I used to work on a fencing crew when I was in college. One of the toughest jobs I ever had. Think about an old post hole digger. You know, it's got the two, you know, it's got the two spoons. They look like gigantic spoons driving it into the round, into the ground. You're pinching it, bringing it out. So if you're, if you're trying to analyze this from forensic standpoint and you're looking at a defect in the ground, you look at, say, the space and think about kind of the cylindrical hole that you would generate with a post hole digger or even an auger. And you think, now if I'm going to search that area and I'm looking for somebody that is missing, what's the potential that they could be in a hole with a caliber the size of a coffee can? Probably, probably not much. Now, could you discard evidence in there? Yeah, yeah, you could put a weapon in there or you could just be planting trees for all I know. But if I see some kind of irregularity, and this is one of the things that in what's referred to as forensic taphonomy, which is a study of the ground, you look at the ground from the perspective of the potential of what you could harvest out of it from an evidentiary standpoint. And also, are the dimensions of this thing, are they very uniformed or are they irregular? Because when you start to look at uniformity, okay, and let's say you want to dig a hole. I keep using hole. Everybody thinks that it's, you know, you're talking about a circle, but let's just say you're, you're pulling the earth out of. Do you have definitive margins here where you can say, okay, yeah, gee whiz, that looks like a rectangle, it looks like a square, but you've kind of got this randomized thing. And here if you're using kind of like a spade, spade shaped shovel, this comes to a point at the bottom. You've got square bottom shovels, you got spade shaped shovels, and it's got these kind of curved edges around. Not a lot of care has been given to that. This is just one thing. That we look for. What is the potential? That first off, this was dug for some other purpose? Or does it have the potential, the dimensions here, for discarding human remains or covering up human remains? One of the things that's fascinating to me about this is that when you, when you think about the size and the only dimension that they are giving us, Dave, is two feet. Well, it's two feet, two feet wide, two feet long. Is it two feet deep? I'm going with two feet deep. Okay, so we don't really know what the outer perimeter is.2ft deep is insufficient to the task. I'll put it to you that way. And let me flip this around and let me throw this out to you, okay? That hole in and of itself is accusatory. It's accusatory to. Let's just say it's the sister and she's looking out the window at it. It's accusatory in the sense that Karen the gardener had a real sense of the yard, of the aesthetic. That hole screams at a potential perpetrator and says, even in digging a hole, you're insufficient in everything you've done in life. And this is a great example of it. You're talking about a two foot hole to get rid of your sister's body. You are such a loser. Because the sister would not have done this. You know what she would have done? She probably would have gotten stakes. And I mean that you can drive in the ground. She would have gotten kite string. She would have tied it off. She would have carefully measured it because of the aesthetic of it, because she saw beauty. But, you know, you have to plan beauty. And what it comes down to with this is this is pure horror. I think, Dave, that once they began to look at this, and I've actually had this happen, people think that you can take dirt and shovel it over human remains and you're not going to smell anything. That is not the case. That's one of the many reasons. There are other reasons, but in funerary practices in America and worldwide, you go deep. Okay? So in six feet is kind of, you know, it's kind of the standard measurement. Six feet deep. And then you cover it, right? You have to cover it and you're not going to have some kind of smell emanating. And I know people are saying, well, Morgan, what about embalmed bodies? We're not talking about embalmed bodies. We're just talking about. Because not everybody's embalmed. Embalming is one of those things that is. It's Very unique to western culture. There's a whole other world out there. There are people that, that bury non embalmed bodies.

[Dave]

You know, Andy Griffith wasn't involved.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah, yeah, there you go.

[Dave]

I mean, he died 7:30 that morning, 10:30 that morning. They were burying him.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, my wife and I are talking about, you know, into the ground. We're talking about natural burial here with no preservation. You know what, you know, what's kind of, what's the point? You know, I thought you would.

[Dave]

I always thought you would, like, dedicate your body to your students and let.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

That's not gonna happen.

[Dave]

Okay, let me go back to this real quick. Joe, you've got the two cops and they're looking for Karen. They talk to her sister and they know sister Deborah is lying to them, that she doesn't know where her sister is. Her sister's car is in the garage. Her sister's phone, her sister's wallet, it's all still here. Karen's stuff is here. And the woman who lives with her, her sister says, I don't know where she is. And the cops know she's lying. They see this disturbed ground in the backyard. They decide they being the police, they want to look at it. They get a warrant. Now do the police, do the officers do this on their own? Do they go out there and just, you know, with their hands start, you know, scrubbing away? Let's see what we got here. Because you're only going to be, you know, we know post fact, we know after the fact that it's only two feet deep. That's what we're told. But Karen's body was placed in trash bags in a black trash bag with bungee cords wrapped around it and duct tape. So if her body is placed in there, are the police going to be able to smell, you know, the body and realize we got something here we need to explore? Are they going to get on their hands and knees and start pulling dirt?

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

No.

[Dave]

Okay.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

No, I. If, if they were. If I were whispering in their ear, as an advisor, I'd say freeze. Okay. Because. Okay, so this is kind of interesting. I got. I got to. I got to tell you this. This is kind of cool. I'm so glad you brought this up. Does smell equal probable cause? Kind of fascinating, right? I mean, when you think. Yeah, because, you know, we think many times, if we see blood coming. Okay, let's just say we've got a closed door on a closet and we see blood coming out from beneath in a house, I would Think that if I'm a police officer and I'm clearing the house and I see what appears to be blood, right? I can't fall into that trap forensically. You're going to nail me. So if I look down and I see what appears to be blood coming from beneath the door, first off, I'm going to have my weapon out. And secondly, I'm going to carefully open the door and I see a body in there. After I check them to see if they have any vitals. I'm not pulling the body out, okay? I'm backing out. Because that's a matter of public safety with a body. Or let's just say we don't know it's a body yet. All we have is smell. We have a dimension, remember? We got to go back to the dimensional aspect of this. Could it contain a body? Yeah, potentially. If they smell it, which I submit to you that you could. Through trash bags. Just think about this. How many times have you ever walked to your garbage can outside, okay, and you've got your kitchen garbage bagged up, and you lift the lid on that puppy, and all of a sudden it's like, what was it, the Thriller song? The funk of 40,000 years rushes out, you know, and strikes you in the face. Yeah, dude. Yeah, it's foul. But here's a slippery slope because we know lawyers are watching everything we do, right? If I don't secure a warrant before I start moving earth on this thing, anything that I uncover relative to this has a potential of being thrown out. And it has gotten to the point now in the world that we exist in, that if you do not secure a warrant before you get your trowel out, you get your brushes out, you've literally got, you know, now they wear kind of like people that you've seen guys that do ceramic tiles, they're wearing those knee pads. Oh, yeah. You know, you've got all your equipment out. Before you do that, you better have a magistrate or judge sign off on this thing. Because here's the thing, just because it smells bad doesn't necessarily mean that there is something there. But what they found when they finally excavated the spot was quite shocking.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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[Joseph Scott Morgan]

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[Dave]

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[Dave]

And you know, interesting, as I was digging into this, digging, digging into the story and found out, you know, the neighbors called for the. Because they weren't getting responses on the phone, they weren't getting answers from Deborah Patton. And they called police to do the welfare check. And that's what led to the finding of the. The disturbed ground in the back leads to Karen being found in these garbage bags, black garbage bags with the bungee cords and duct tape. But I just to give you an idea when all of this is going on, you know, as they're working the investigation, neighbors are saying, hey, man, they didn't get along. Karen had been here for years. We've known her for a long time. And she told us if she ever went missing or die, that her sister probably did it because her sister said, had told her to her face. She's like, Karen is telling friends, Deborah said, she's gonna kill me. Deborah's got a gun. Deborah is gonna. And so as Police are getting this information, and they're looking at the lives of the sisters Karen, consistent with mom and dad their whole lives, you know, took care of them. And she owns this house. Deborah, in a 28 year marriage, couldn't keep a job and walks away from her husband in New Orleans or Louisiana. Pardon me, Louisiana. And comes to Florida to crash in her sister's house. You know something, Joe? To make her sister happy, Karen owned this home outright. It was her home. She built Deborah a luxury chef's kitchen inside that home. Just a beautiful. A gourmet kitchen. This is what Karen did for her sister, to make her sister happy. And Karen, who owns the home, she actually has a small little kitchenette type thing set up for herself in the garage. That's what Karen did. Bending over backwards to make Deborah happy. And eventually, you know, she. Karen ends up in the hole in the backyard. But as they. As they being the investigators, Joe. All right, we have found Karen's body in the backyard. What do we do now? We see that we have a body in. In the garbage bags.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yep.

[Dave]

And the bungee cords are wrapped around her body, and then the bags are secured with duct tape. So tell me about this. How are you going to unroll all. Are you going to take this whole thing out of the ground with dirt back to the lab?

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. I can't guarantee that they did that. This is one of the things that is really hard to get across to crime scene investigators. You do not, under any circumstances, want to crack this bag open. And here's the thing. You remember J.J. and Tyler, right?

[Dave]

Oh, goodness gracious. Yeah.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah, I had to bring that up. Right. So with jj, one of the problems I had with that case is that, you know, you remember he was cocooned in bags and he was buried adjacent to that empty pond.

[Dave]

Yes.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

And I remember the investigators. It seems like it was during the trial, and it was like one of these cringe moments for me. They said we opened the bag and could see his head or see his hair. And I'm thinking, why in the hell are you opening the bag? Yeah, why? I mean, you know that the subject that's inside the bag is deceased now. You know that something horrible has happened. Why are you going to risk everything by not taking the remains to a controlled environment? You have to be able to restrain yourself to the point because anything you do out there. It's like I was just saying a second about the. You know, I know it's not necessarily the same thing, but with the cigarette butt. Okay. If you just kind of blast through this thing, there's no confirmatory thing here going on. You know that You've got somebody that's deceased, for my money, okay? And how I would instruct people is, yeah, we. We can kind of palpate the outside of this bag very, very carefully. It feels like human form. I think we're going to go to the medical examiner's office and. Which they have there. The state of Florida is broken down into medical examiner districts, and they're pretty doggone good at what they do. They're used to this sort of thing. You roll in there with that bag, and you don't try to listen. You try to do everything you can to not brush away dirt. Period, End of paragraph. I don't care how dirty it is. I don't care if there are maggots crawling all over the place. You take everything to the lab, specifically the medical examiner's office, and you put it in that controlled environment. Because just by. Okay, just by splitting the bag open, let's say that there were points of contact there relative to Latent Prince. You say Morgan's been buried in the earth. It rains in Florida. I don't care, because you don't know what Leighton Prince might have been preserved on the outside. You don't know what's under. Under the surface. I mean, how many. Let me ask you this, my friends. How many times have you taken garbage bag? And I know you're thinking, I'm gonna pop it like this. I'm gonna get it open. Okay, guess what? You do that. You don't think about. You readjust your hands many times and put them on the inside of the bag. Well, that's a point of contact. And guess what else? If you like that one, I got another one for you. You leave behind latent prints, and particularly in this day and age, you leave behind DNA deposition as well, just by touching the inside. So if you're. If you're going to cowboy it up as an investigator and go in there and you begin to. At the scene, and you begin to manipulate the bag in some way. You know, you pull out your. Your buck knife that you got on the side or your Spyderco knife out of your pocket, you flick it open dramatically, and you begin to slice open the bag like you're in some episode of some ridiculous television show. Well, it's not controlled. You have got to remain maintain control. And that's why it's. You cannot go into this haphazardly. You don't want to cut through the Tape. You don't want to dislodge any of the bungee cords. And sometimes, you know, bungee cords fail. They come unattached. Lord knows I've had. I've had them pop me in the face when I'm trying to tie things down in my truck. No pain like it in the world.

[Dave]

My brother lost an eye to bungee cord. Yep, sure did, Lord. Yeah. Just on that.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah. They're so dangerous, man. And, and, and they're un. There's. They're not predictable.

[Dave]

Right.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Don't touch them. Don't touch them in any way again until you get back to the controlled area. Now, I am sure that the authorities down in Florida, they do enough of these. They would have. They're not in some rural location.

[Dave]

This is just outside of Tampa Bay.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah, I have. I would bet money on these people that they took due care with this. And we're trying to be very, very careful because there's all kinds of things you can get off of plastic bags. And at this point, all, you know, after you've served a warrant on this property, all you know is that you've got a body that's wrapped in a bag. You haven't hooked anybody up on charges yet. So you have to collect. You're trying to buy. Build a case, build it out. But, Dave, I got to tell you, when they finally got those bags off of this poor woman's body, who, by the way, I haven't said this. You know, she was a retired engineer for Verizon.

[Dave]

I know.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

All right? And she's not. She's nobody's fool. No, that's the thing.

[Dave]

She was such a nice. She's nice, brilliant, took care of herself, took care of her parents, took care of her money. And then here comes her 13 month old. You know, the difference in age. Thirteen. And Deborah was 13 months older than Karen. Karen was professional and was just wonderful. Everybody loved her. And then ne' er do. Well, Deborah shows up and it all goes to hell in a handbasket.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

You're right, Dave, it does. It goes downhill really quickly when this. I don't know. I don't know how to put it. This human leech shows up. Because that's kind of the way it feels at this point in time. You know when you can tell that. I think anytime. You can learn a lot about

[Dave]

a

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

person that perpetrates a homicide by the way they treat remains. This seems to be rather frenzied, I would think maybe spontaneous. It happened in the flash for not, you know, when she. When she was killed. Karen still had a necklace around her neck with the name Karen on it. So in the course of this crime and the cocooning of her body, there was no effort to try to take eyes off of who this was, because, granted, listen, I know that many people think that when you see a necklace that says Karen on it, that's a positive id. I don't trust things like that. I have to have it scientifically verified because too many times I've personally been burned. There are other people that have been burned. And you have to take due care with all of this. That's very important. And in this particular case, when they finally got Karen's body out of this, these bags, got the tape detached. Dave. She sustained a single GSW to the chest. And, you know, just think about this woman, this lovely woman that has. And she shot like an animal, and then her remains are treated like she's an animal and buried literally adjacent to this place that she loves. I guess that, you know, there's nothing ironic about it, but you have to look at it and you think, you know, all of this love and care that she's put into this home she's created, the care that she gave to her parents, the beautiful garden that she had, she worked in daily, she worked toward retirement. I salute anybody that gets to retirement. God bless everybody out there. You know, what a labor this is, and to have it all just taken from her in a. In a flash because somebody is jealous of her, somebody has got issues with her that cannot live their own life on their own. Dave, I'm.

[Dave]

You know, you. You actually laid it all out perfectly.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Joe.

[Dave]

And I did look at something on this, because they never, they being investigators, never found the murder weapon. They were never able to determine, you know, what gun was used, what type of gun. But I'm gonna read you something here. While the specific murder weapon was not explicitly identified, evidence included DNA from Deborah Patton on blood covered latex gloves found with the body, and surveillance footage showing Deborah Patton with a shovel. Now, this surveillance footage was from a next door neighbor. Joe, we should all have this type of individual as our next door neighbor. I made a note when I sent this because the surveillance video from the neighbor was a Hillsborough county deputy who has this surveillance video showing the victim Karen, entering her home on May 24, 2021. Last time she is seen alive. The video also depicts Deborah Patton throwing several large trash bags into the garbage and shows Deborah Patton walking with a shovel after everything was said and done. Joe, Deborah Patton is charged with murder, but the reason it took so long and the reason we're talking about this today, because this just got adjudicated, it's gone on this long because they, you cannot, you cannot try somebody who is incompetent stand trial. And over the years, Deborah Patton was deemed incompetent to stand trial. She remained in the state mental hospital for treatment for a couple of years. It wasn't until February last year that a judge ruled Deborah Patton competent to stand trial. And when she finally went to trial last month, the jury did not have to deliberate long, I think it was an hour. And they judged her guilty of second degree murder of her own little sister. Little sister who took care of her when she had nothing, fed her when she had no food, gave her a place to stay when she had nowhere to stay. Joe. And by the way, you know what police found? They found a note written by Deborah Patton describing how she was going to kill her ex husband in Louisiana. How she was going to drive there and kill him. Then she was going to kill herself after she took everybody out.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

But yeah, you know Dave, what, what was really horrific about this, I think during the period of time, first off she, she stated to the court that, that she was blameless here. Yeah, blameless, Completely blameless. If that's not bad enough, she smiled and laughed during this period of time in court saying that she's not blameless. And she offered up some kind of half hearted prayer that was directed toward the judge. Talked about how the world is populated with evil people, this sort of thing. Well, on that count she's right. Because I gotta tell you, at the end of the day, Deborah Patton is a glaring example of pure unadulterated evil. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Bags.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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