Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Smelly Dirt, Maggots, Shallow Grave - The Death of Kada Scott

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace
Series: Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan
Episode: Smelly Dirt, Maggots, Shallow Grave – The Death of Kada Scott
Air Date: November 2, 2025
Host(s): Joseph Scott Morgan (forensic expert, college professor), Dave Mack (crime analyst)

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Episode Overview

This episode examines the tragic case of Kada Scott, a 23-year-old Penn State graduate and former cheerleader who disappeared after starting her new job at an assisted living facility. Through forensic analysis and investigative reporting, hosts Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack detail the timeline of her disappearance, the subsequent investigation, and the disturbing discovery of her remains. The conversation explores themes of vulnerability, the technological aspects of modern investigations, and the chilling actions of the perpetrator(s).

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Victim Background & Setting

• Kada Scott was a bright, accomplished young woman, described as a former beauty queen and NCAA Division 1 cheerleader at Penn State.
• Recently employed at an assisted living home, working overnight shifts (10pm–6am), she was "not waiting for someone to roll out a red carpet… She’s getting after it" (Dave Mack, 04:08).
• The hosts reflect on the unique challenges and sense of purpose among young professionals in care work.

2. The Night of Disappearance: Timeline and Gaps

• Kada arrived for her shift and was seen around 10:15pm heading to the parking lot to meet someone with whom she'd been communicating via text and phone (08:54–09:52).
  • "She willingly left to meet someone in the parking lot... She was talking with someone she thought she knew." (Dave Mack, 09:52)
• Lack of CCTV at the facility hampered immediate investigation.
• At 10:24pm, Kada's phone "stopped all network contact"—a key indicator that something critical happened then (Dave Mack, 20:14).
• Investigators determined she was likely taken or harmed within minutes of leaving; her car remained in the lot.

3. Family Response & Initial Investigation

• Kada lived with her parents and sister; her failure to return triggered quick concern (16:06).
• The family was proactive in communicating with police and keeping the case alive in the media.
• Investigators relied on cell phone data and communications, working around the lack of surveillance footage.

4. Digital Evidence: Cell Phone Records & Vehicle Tracing

• At least 12 phone calls from a single number the night of her disappearance, plus mysterious “harassing” calls prior (18:55).
• Cellular and digital forensics allowed police to reconstruct her movements and, indirectly, those of suspects.
• A dark-colored vehicle was recorded across from the facility at 10:28pm; shortly thereafter, Kada’s phone was inoperative.

5. Suspect, Vehicles, and Destruction of Evidence

• Keon King, 21, already known for a prior kidnapping and assault, emerges as primary suspect (Dave Mack, 33:52).
• Suspect activity involved multiple cars—Toyota Camry, Hyundai (stolen, later burned and crushed).
  • "By the time police get there, not only is the car that burned up now, it’s already been trash compacted…" (Dave Mack, 31:12)
• The speed and thoroughness of evidence destruction (arson, compaction) suggested planning and evasion tactics.

6. Discovery of the Body: Forensic and Scene Details

• Anonymous tip directs police behind the abandoned Ada Lewis Middle School, near an active high school (38:47).
• Discovery under a piece of wood; "disturbed ground" led investigators to dig with their hands, immediately noting the odor and presence of maggots (41:30–42:17).
  • “As soon as they started clearing the dirt, they smelled. They had a smell. And there were maggots.” (Dave Mack, 42:01)
• Forensic entomology will be crucial in establishing the time of death due to maggot development and fly activity.

7. Cause and Manner of Death; Forensic Considerations

• Autopsy revealed Kada was shot in the head (45:09).
• Morgan describes possibilities: execution-style, forced kneeling, and discusses how maggot patterns point to injury sites and timeframes.
  • "Sometimes you can look at a body… a huge concentration of maggot activity… is an indication of an injury because the area is open, it’s warm, it’s wet." (Joseph Scott Morgan, 45:11)
• The site’s selection and actions to obscure the body indicated deliberation and possible accomplices.

8. Charging and Questions Remaining

• King charged with multiple felonies: kidnapping, arson, causing a catastrophe, and now homicide.
• "There's a real interesting one on there called causing a catastrophe, which I have never in my life heard this term before." (Morgan, 50:36)
• Questions remain:
  • Was Kada killed at the grave or elsewhere?
  • Were there accomplices?
  • What exactly transpired between her abduction and death?
• Pronouncement of death (official) on Oct 18 (body discovery); hosts clarify difference between “date of death” and “date of pronouncement” (51:29–54:00).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On working in care and youth:
  "Those are unique young people, I think. …When you come face to face with someone who needs your assistance just to go to the bathroom… there's that deeper human connection."
  (Joseph Scott Morgan, 06:01)

• On evidence destruction:
  "If there is evidence within that vehicle and they did not take time to collect it, guess what has to happen. This thing's going to have to be unspun in some way. Can you imagine the headache… to dismantle a compacted car…?"
  (Joseph Scott Morgan, 36:21)

• On maggot evidence and crime scenes:
  "It's kind of a fascinating thing. Sometimes you can look at a body, Dave, and where you will see a huge concentration of maggot activity. Many times that's an indication of an injury because the area is open. It's warm, it's wet."
  (Joseph Scott Morgan, 45:11)

• On anonymous tips:
  "Someone anonymously drops a dime."
  (Joseph Scott Morgan, 25:12)
  "You didn't do the job, man. Get back out there. And they did. That's how they found it..."
  (Dave Mack, 41:30)

• On hopes and unanswered questions:
  "I want to know who else perhaps had a hand in the destruction, the murder, of this beautiful child and robbed the world of someone that probably would have made it a lot brighter."
  (Joseph Scott Morgan, 54:57)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

| Topic/Event | Timestamp | |----------------------------------------------------|-------------| | Opening & Kada’s background | 00:36–06:01 | | Disappearance – timeline & initial response | 08:54–11:06 | | Family reaction & no surveillance footage | 15:33–18:55 | | Digital evidence: Phone records & suspect vehicles | 18:55–23:56 | | Suspect details & burned/compacted car | 31:12–37:31 | | Discovery at abandoned school; maggots/forensics | 41:30–45:11 | | Autopsy & manner of death | 45:09–50:45 | | Pronouncement vs. date of death, remaining unknowns| 51:29–54:57 |

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Conclusion

The episode offers a sobering look into a methodical, brutal crime, focusing both on the human impact and the intricacies of the forensic process. Hosts Morgan and Mack stress the importance of digital and physical evidence, community support, and the unsettling reality that predators often exploit moments of vulnerability. While an arrest has been made, the case leaves lingering questions about collaboration, motive, and justice for Kada Scott.

Final note (Joseph Scott Morgan, 54:57):
"I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Bags."

Transcript

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[Dave Mack]

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[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera.

[Dave Mack]

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[Joseph Scott Morgan]

With Joseph Scott Morgan. I think probably being a college professor, one of the most difficult things for a incoming student to determine kind of goes without saying is what am I going to major in? It's kind of interesting in the sense that many kids that arrive are 18 years old. There are very, very few of them, in my experience over 20 years now in academia that know what they want to do when they show up. Those that do know are the exception and not the norm. They come to a university because, because there's something that is attractive to them perhaps about the campus or the people they initially meet and engage with. There might be some things that they're interested in, then others show up because mom and dad said they had to and that they're going to this university. Well, for those that make it through the academic course, which are fewer than I think many people believe, the next big decision is what do I want to do with my life? You know, you've been prepared for four years now you're pushed out onto the stage. Do I try to go to graduate school or do I dip my toes into the water of the real world, not a protected, ivy covered environment. Today on Body Bags, we're going to talk about a young woman. A young woman who had made it through the rigor of an academic experience at Penn State University and was now starting her journey. She had been a beauty queen. She had been a cheerleader. She'd been present on Saturday nights in Happy Valley for whiteouts, one of the loudest places in the country. But nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared her for what waited just around the corner. And it was pure, unadulterated evil. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Bags. I can't help myself, Dave. Every time one of these kind of cases pops up involving a college kid, I always think of my own kids. And I mean my, my biological kids who have all attended college and of course the kids that are not my biological children, but the kids that are under my tutelage, if you will, that, you know, are out there. I still think about My kids that I educate, they're no longer kids that I started educating 21 years ago. I see them now with families and they're all to the winds all over the world and they still send me messages, you know, calling me Professor Morgan, you know, in these messages, just checking in with you, I saw you on television or wanting to tell you about my job. I want some advice and I'm willing to give, give those bits of advice.

[Dave Mack]

But Katie Scott, 23 years old, you mentioned this is a woman who got through college. She's a beauty queen. And you know what? She's not waiting on somebody to roll out the yellow cart or red carpet, you know, and hop down the yellow brick road. She's getting after it. She takes a job working in an assisted living home. She's working 10pm to 6am but, you.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Know, it's, it takes a certain kind of person to work in that environment and to get introduced to it. You know, when you're 23 and there's a lot of people out there that will identify with this. I know you do, Dave. The idea of stepping out on your own and the upside with working at night, and this is what I loved, is that the suits weren't around. I love that they were asleep at home in bed. You didn't have to deal with administrators, in my case, you didn't have to deal with political shenanigans that went on in the office, both the body politic within the structure of the office, nor any of the politicians that might come down, you know, from the county level to visit. I don't want to see those people. And, you know, so you could, you could really, really do good work at night. However, the price that you pay is that your world is completely different than everybody else's world. If you've got kids, you're. You're not going to see them. If you do, you're going to show up and you're not going to remember what you saw because you do have to plan and it's, it's a tough.

[Dave Mack]

Existence working at an assisted living facility from 10pm to 6am I think of Kate, of being in that environment, Joe, at 23 and a beautiful young woman and, you know, former cheerleader and all that. And she's doing this to get a start on her career and. Yeah, that's what I'm guessing.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah, yeah. As well as I. And you think about it and you think about the relationships that you develop with the infirm or those that are in need of your care. You know, that are in this environment, it tells you a lot about the person that would be willing, particularly a young person. You know, those are unique young people, I think. I mean, you can be jaded about it and say, well, they're in it for a check. But the thing about it is when you come face to face with someone who needs your assistance just to go to the bathroom, or maybe they need your help with medications, because they have to be given medications at certain prescribed times. And also there's that, I don't know, that deeper human connection where, like you had mentioned, they're all alone. That life that they had previously had is kind of vaporized. They live at a distance from family. And suddenly the person that is either working as a nurse, an LPN or RN or CNA that's in there, they become familial with, with them. And it might not be the worker that views them that way, but that person that's in this environment, they see this individual as their only connection. And it's within that connection. Dave, that. And in this environment, you had mentioned her talking to people or talking to someone. And Dave, the really chilling thing about it is she shows up for work and it's within a very, very short period of time after she has arrived at this facility, brother Dave, she just, poof, she is gone, man. She's in the wind. No one sees her leave. And I think the really terrifying part to this, when you're trying to work a case like a missing young woman, you're missing a big part, a big piece, because they didn't have functioning CCTV at this point. There was nothing, there was no videography that can kind of track this down. Anyone that's looking to perpetrate a crime nowadays, as you and I well know, because we cover this over and over and over again. It's amazing that the potential perpetrators will stick their chin this far out because you're always at risk of being videotaped at some point. I say videotaped, listen to me, that's aging me, but are dating me. You think about that. And there's always a potential. So you begin to suddenly develop this idea that whoever was involved perhaps was a very, very emboldened individual that was set on doing great harm. Dave.

[Dave Mack]

Well, Kada was saying to family and friends that she'd been getting what she deemed harassing phone calls, and they were kind of like drop phone out of state phones. There are programs that people use now to disguise the number they're calling from, or not even using the cell phone using a WI fi connection to disguise your phone and whatnot. And she was getting calls where she couldn't determine who it was that was calling her. And she, she deemed them as harassing. However, there was also mixed in there other calls, you know, and text messages that she was communicating with. And in one, as you mentioned, she gets to work at 10 o' clock at night, and we're talking 10:15, she's out in the parking lot and she is meeting somebody out there. Somebody did not come into the assisted living home and grab her, chloroform her and take her off.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Right.

[Dave Mack]

She willingly left to meet someone in the parking lot. And you mentioned no surveillance cameras. And that really is scary in this day and age, as cheap as they are. Please, for the love. If you have a business that has people on the inside you're supposed to protect, have cameras, you know, they're 50 bucks and you can do your whole building. But they didn't have any of that. So all we know is that she left and met somebody outside. We do know that she was communicating with some body. And let me know when you're here, let me know when you're on the way. And she went out and left. Now, we don't know if she got in the parking lot and this person snatched her. We don't know that. I have a feeling that might have happened. But she was talking with someone she thought she knew. She willingly walked out of the building. We do not know what happened after that as to how she was taken or left that facility. That facility. But her car was in the parking lot. And because the employees are kind of working their own, you have a hall or an area that you're working. You don't necessarily see people all the time. You know, you're, you're working and you can pass by and not know where they are.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Now, can I add one more thing to this about the nature of an assisted living center or a nursing home? You know, Dave, when she got there, that approximates what's referred to as. And I know you've heard this, because Lord knows and God bless you. I know you've had to spend more time in hospitals than you wish, but have you ever been in a facility where you hear the horrible words, it's shift change and at shift change. And all of my, all of our nursing friends that are, that are in the audience right now, all of our friends out there, God bless you. By the way, if you're a nurse or CNA or an lpn, that moment in that period is so frenetic because you're literally handing off patients now. I don't know necessarily the nature, but you have to take report and if there's a problem with somebody and generally there's more than one problem, somebody didn't get this or somebody didn't get that, or somebody's looking for them or they have asked for something special, special that needs to be attended to. You have to attend to it at that moment. And if you have contact with a resident, you have to chart it as well. So this time period is crucial. I think that this is really key in this particular investigation because the individuals that are working there with Keda, their eyes are not on the ball at that point in time. Their eyes are. Well, they're focused on their job, right? They're focused on their job. What they have to do. No one would be watching Kada. And I can tell you this, that night when she went to work, she thought that she would leave the next morning after her shift was over. As the sun is creeping up into the sky and maybe going to go home and get some well deserved rest, Ikeda would never sleep in her bed again.

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[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Most of us cannot even begin to fathom what it is like or what it would be like. I know I can't to have a child that goes missing. And I don't care how old the child is, it's still your baby. And if I'm not mistaken, Dave Kada was still living with her mother. Correct.

[Dave Mack]

And very close with both her parents and her younger sister.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah. And so she's got this family connection. And if, if she's not rolling back in the door at a prescribed time, I don't know about you. Let me put it to you this way. For all of those years, which was probably, I wouldn't say, I'd say probably close to a third of my time working in the field as a, as an investigator, I was on overnights. I didn't hang around the office. I didn't go out to get breakfast in the morning. You know what I did? I went, heated up my vehicle, got it between the ditches, and I headed home and I tried to crawl and sack as soon as I could. I'm not lingering anywhere. So when you begin, particularly if you're, if you're domiciled with somebody, you know their habits, you know that. Okay, we know how long it takes for her to leave work, get home. And maybe when she walks in in the morning, family's having coffee, mama might be making, making breakfast, I don't know. And she's going to get some chow and then turn in. But just sitting there, you know, and you're thinking, wait, she's supposed to be here now. Where in the heck is she? Why isn't she? And that's when the phone calls perhaps start. That's when you start to get into panic mode because she' good about talking to you. She's good about staying in contact. She's good about coming home because her parents wouldn't allow her to be there. If she's disrespecting the home, I can't imagine. And who wants to run the streets at 7 in the morning? Right?

[Dave Mack]

Right.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

And you're just dog tired for no one that has ever worked overnight. It's one of these things. It's soul sucking. It just sucks the life out of you. So you want to try to get some quality rest as best you can. But yeah, I would think that from jump street her family would have been really concerned. You don't hear about the families out there, Dave, that really put their shoulder to the stone. In spite or despite rather being just overwhelmed with grief and worry and anxiety, they just keep pressing forward. So when you get a family that buys in and not just buys in, but they are leading the charge. I hate to say refreshing because we're jaded, you and I, particularly me, you see this and you think, well, they're really wanting to do the right thing here. We just hope that everybody else that is going to be involved in an investigation is willing to get on at the same level. And there have been cases out there where families are quickly frustrated. But, but brother Dave, she, she wasn't.

[Dave Mack]

Turning up nowhere they started think that, you know, they didn't have surveillance video. You pointed that out, no cameras. But what they did have is something better. Almost in this day and age with most everybody having a cell phone, they have a means of tracking us even when we don't think they can. I want to back out right now. At 10:15 a co worker said they saw her, they saw Kada going towards the parking lot. Cell phone records show that Kada Scott received 12 phone calls from the same phone number between 9:25 and 10:12pm and a 43 second phone call that night that she went missing. At 10:09pm she made plans to meet up with somebody in a final text message between the two with the letters CM meaning call me when you're here. 10:15 Investigators say boom. The two of them are together near Katis Scott's place of employment. Based on cell phone data. 10:28pm A dark colored vehicle is seen pulling into the Albury Recreation center parking lot across the street from the abandoned ADA Lewis Middle School. I do want to add one thing, Joe.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah.

[Dave Mack]

That was at 10:28, four minutes earlier. At 10:24pm Police say Kate's cell phone stopped all network contact at 10:24pm 23 year old college graduate working on her phone 24. 7 and it stopped all network contact. 10:24pm we're talking 12 minutes after she's seen in the parking lot. It's done. She does and it does not reconnect. It's done. So 12 minutes after she is seen in the parking lot, that phone is done.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Well, I got.

[Dave Mack]

What does that tell you?

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah, well I got to tell you, you know, one of the things that we've learned, what case was it that was, this was such a. Well, it may have been the recent unpleasantness out in Idaho, but I think there was other cases, too, where individuals deactivate their phone or turn it off. But, you know, we've heard over and over again how they can track the phone. You know, we've heard this before, Dave. This, this almost sounds. And we don't have proof of this, at least I don't. And please feel free to, you know, to correct me. Dave, do you think this phone was destroyed? Do you think that it could be snapped in two, it could be crushed, it could be, you know, to the point where it's, it's unserviceable at this point in time, because suddenly it goes dead. Now, maybe there's, there's more to this than the police are actually letting on.

[Dave Mack]

Y. I was going to say that, Joe, because I, I don't know if it was broken, but they meant, they said it stopped making contact. And so you're right, they might have info they're just not letting out because they're going to need it.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah, I agree. Listen, look, in defense of the investigators, I don't want it. I don't. Because if, if this is going to be part of the investigation, I wish everybody would heed my words here relative to this, because I know people scream for information all the understand that you get caught up in cases, but sometimes, sometimes the police are not going to give us every last jot and tittle, if you will, relative to everything that we want to hear. They're going to release what they need or what they can get by with. Because if you're talking about a case, any case that's out there that might wind up being an actual homicide trial, you don't, you're not going to show your hand. I don't think any, any prosecutor or police department worth their salt is going to show their hand. And your, your need for, to feed yourself on more information does not supersede the needs of the state. You know, when you're working a case and certainly eventually maybe prosecuting a case. Dave.

[Dave Mack]

Well, you know, Joe, as this story was being played in the media again, I'm glad you pointed out how some people, how some people really do get into it. They know that they have to keep the story alive in the media because there's another one coming up. And in this particular case, they did a good job of keeping it in the forefront, but the police did a great job at. They started working this hard using every electronic thing possible, and they had at least A physical place to start at the assisted living center. They had cell phone communication, so they knew there were numbers tied together. There were. Even though they might have been using apps they thought were covered, you know, where you couldn't tell who they were and where they were. Well, believe me, they're. They know. Don't be an idiot, man. They know.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Oh, yeah.

[Dave Mack]

Just like if you think for a minute that you're not being listened to every time your phone is on.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah.

[Dave Mack]

It's got a microphone in it. Yeah. You're being recorded, friends. I promise you that.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

And you know, the benefit that they have here is, is the old, you know, the old fallback position relative to digital data. You've got triangulation that's going on too, right? Just. Just the GIS data that they can kind of plug in here and track the movement. You know, you had actually mentioned earlier that there was, you know, going to this abandoned site. God, that's really creepy, isn't it? Going to this abandoned site. That phone can be tracked to that location. The. The really terrifying part to this is that she kind of vanishes off of the face of the planet and she's nowhere to be seen. Days go by. We've got a week that goes by and no one knows anything. And then suddenly there's a break in a case and someone anonymously drops a dime.

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[Joseph Scott Morgan]

It's often been said about any investigation that time is in fact the coin of the realm. It is that thing, that element that we value the most in any investigation. Because with time we can set markers, markers moving down that linear track that leads us from the point of origin to the point of conclusion. And Dave, in this case we've got certain markers early on that we're very aware of relative to the, I don't know, digital breadcrumbs, if you don't mind me saying. And I think that it's key that we understand where these actually lead to. You made mention of her earlier and yes, and you know, everybody, everybody has value. But when, when you have a young woman who is, has a profile, she's profiled out as being beautiful, she's young, she's a college graduate. We know that she was, of, you know, of all things, an NCAA Division 1 cheerleader at arguably one of the, one of the most high profile universities in the nation. She's going to catch the eye of a few people. And you know, that's the double edged sword here, isn't it? You never know who's lurking out there, who's watching. And you think about her and you think, wow, if someone was going to target somebody and maybe kidnap them, she might be a primary target. Dave.

[Dave Mack]

Well, you know, Joe, from the very beginning, even though, you know, we mentioned that at 10:24 her phone stopped contacting with all networks, but you realize up until 1024 they knew exactly where it was and they were able to find out who else was in that area. You know, because every phone connects to a tower somewhere.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yep.

[Dave Mack]

And they do have a record of every phone connecting to that tower. So they could find out if Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack were there. We didn't, you know, we driving, driving through our phone connected to that tower, boom. At that particular time. And so they start looking, they're going, you know, that's, that is a really big get when you think about it. And then you realize, wait a minute, this phone number contacted Kada several other times in the last few days. Okay, now we got our suspect number one, somebody that's been in contact with her is in contact with her at 10:24pm and her phone stops connecting. And this person's phone is still connecting. So at 10:28pm they're able to get video camera angles from different residents and businesses to find a dark colored vehicle is seen pulling into the Aubrey Recreation center parking lot across the street from the abandoned Ada Lewis Middle School, which, by the way, it's been abandoned for. Since 2008. So we're talking about a school that has just been sitting there falling into disrepair, but it actually butts up to a school, a high school that is currently active. So you've got this. You got a lot of activity around an abandoned building, but they at least know where to start looking for people and things. And sure enough, officials find. They start finding things in the parking lot. They find another car, they find a Toyota Camry, they start looking for. Then they find this Hyundai that was reported stolen. Now it's three days later from her disappearance and it's on fire. By the time police get there, not only is the car that burned up now, it's already been trash compacted before they even get to it.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

This is mind, mind boggling that it happened that quickly with this automobile. I was shocked. I got it, you know, because it's like when I'm going over the story, initially I'm thinking, oh, they found a car and it was burning. And I'm thinking, first off, if I'm going to start a fire, car is not my. It's not my first choice. I'm not going to bring weenies to a car fire.

[Dave Mack]

Right.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

You know, it's not, it's not like you're building a bonfire. All right, I got questions. You know, if you've got a car on fire, I want to know, well, what was the point of origin of the fire? Is this just as. Just at a baseline? Okay. I want to know if someone first off has stolen a vehicle. I want to know if somebody's trying to defraud based on insurance because they're trying to destroy something. Or even worse and more sinister, was this vehicle used in the commission of a crime and there was physical evidence within the vehicle. How do you get from the point where, okay, we find a vehicle on fire and we're going to take it and take it to, you know, the wrecking yard and we're going to Put it in the. You know, if you ever saw the movie Goldfinger where they take the car and they put it into the compactor and they crush it down, you know, and the thing is compacted to that point. Who does that in that short a period of time, Dave?

[Dave Mack]

Well, as we have found out.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Evil.

[Dave Mack]

Lurks among us and they do things that are shocking and that's all I can think of is that things that you and I can't even imagine happening because we're not coming at it from a criminal angle. We're coming from it from a totally different place. They're coming to it from. Think about it. They have kidnapped and obviously we're talking about it on body bags because Kada Scott vanishes from work. They track her and then keon King, a 21 year old man who by the way has already been in trouble with the law for strangling a woman and kidnapping her. And the only reason he got away with that is because she didn't show up in court. Oh, so they already have Keon King in their radar. They find his. They got him surrounded by a 99 Toyota Camry. They've got another vehicle. And then by being able to trace him, follow him, now you got a suspect. And boom. At 4am on October 6, they see a lighter colored vehicle moving closer to where the dark colored vehicle was parked. And a video shows two people going up to a dark colored vehicle in the parking lot and removing a heavy object consistent with the human body. From the passenger side, they are seen carrying the object towards the. By the way, you know, I'm talking about the school. Did I say that?

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yes. Yeah, okay.

[Dave Mack]

Yeah, because they're at Arbery, they're at the closed school. And like I said, there's businesses around. There are cameras around this area. Even though it's a school that's been abandoned.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah, but you've got a high school right there and you've got homes that are there. And this is, you know, again, let me just interject here, relative to this abandoned location, if you're going to perpetrate something so dark, you would think that you would want a location that is. And this gives you an idea about the focus of a perpetrator here. They're focused only on the abandoned building. Hey, this place is abandoned. We know that there's not going to be points of observation perhaps. We know that there's not going to be active cctv. That tells me that an individual would have prior knowledge of this location. It actually makes me think, is there anything else that's adjacent to this building. Is there anything inside of this abandoned building? Some evidence of other crimes? Wink, wink, nod, nod. You know, thinking about this, because this is a destination for someone that wants to do something that's very malevolent. But your focus is there. It's not on the functioning CCTV at the current high school and also the other associated businesses and homes around there. I go back and I think about this compacted car that has already been subjected to heat fire. Dave, that car, or what remained of it, just imagine the most hellish nightmare jigsaw puzzle that you can imagine. If there is evidence within that vehicle and they did not take time to collect it, guess what has to happen. This thing's going to have to be unspun in some way. Can you imagine the headache that that would be to go in and try to dismantle a compacted car to go in and see if you can find some remnant of perhaps biological material in there? Because as it turns out, Dave, as it turns out, this vehicle may have well have been a conveyance that this precious girl would have been in. We don't know what the status. We do know, and again, this is just me just kind of throwing this out there. We do know that her phone may have been destroyed. I don't know about you, but that's a signal to me that there is a willingness to do violence at that point in time. Anytime you destroy and listen. Phones to kids nowadays are so of the most value. They are the single most valuable thing that many of them possess, right? Both what they mean to them and also how much. How much these things cost, right? And so if you. How menacing is this? If you take a phone, throw it on the ground and stomp on it, or you crack it in half, or you take a hammer to it or something like this just to try to destroy the thing. That's menacing behavior. What could have happened in that car? Was there any biological data that was lost as a result of the fire or worse? Course, you know, it being compacted. Dave.

[Dave Mack]

It's so sad, Joe, that everything you just said is absolutely, positively true and is what is going to have to happen. They're going to have to find a way to find out about what. What DNA exists in that compacted car. Because you've got her leaving her place of business. We've got her there, but then you have her. Well, we see them, they being these unknown figures. Well, we know one of them is Keon King because they arrested him on kidnapping charges. They, you know, because he was with her. Her. Their phones were matched up. They were talking and texting. And the last time she was seen was, well, she's headed that way, and there he is. And so they start tracing Keon King. They start finding. Well, we got him tracking back and forth towards this old school. And they go to the school and they're looking in the parking lot. And that's when we first got the. The headline, hey, they found some of Kada Scott's belongings in the parking lot around the school at the. The closed ADA Lewis Middle School. And you mentioned a minute ago about dropping a dime. Now, they. Were they being police. A lot of the information we have now when we give you the timetable, they did not have that in real time. They have that now.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Right.

[Dave Mack]

They didn't have it then because all of this is put together after the fact. Police were blind going into this. They get a call and go there, and, oh, we found something. Then they get another call and, oh, we found something else. Then they get a very specific anonymous tip that sends them to an area behind the school. And in this particular case, I mentioned that this old abandoned school backs into a currently populated high school, but there's a lot of area between the two that is not used. You know, it's just trashy, jungled up stuff. There's nothing going on out there. It's not a place anybody would take a shortcut. But if you were going to get rid of a body, there you go.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah.

[Dave Mack]

And so this very specific anonymous tip, by the way, dropping a dime. It used to cost a dime to make a phone call before we had a phone in our pocket. There were these things if you were out driving around and needed to call somebody. There was this booth that was usually a glass box on the side of the road, and there was a phone in there, and you had to put change. A dime into it, and you could make a phone call.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Can I interject something? Right. I just had a memory. I got to tell you this. Before the day of cell phones, and I had a police radio with me everywhere I went. But you had to make landline calls back then. Dave, I'm revealing a deep, dark secret here. I used to have. Do you remember the purple and gold velvet crown royal bags? Do you remember those that the whiskey would come in? I had one of those bags, and it was packed to the top at all times with quarters. And I kept it underneath the seat of my car of the unit that I drove so that I would have access to. To go to a payphone to make a phone call. People cannot identify with that now, but, yeah, I use that term dropping a dime because that's an old euphemistic term relative to somebody rolled over on somebody here. And Dave, I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you, if we've got this guy in custody on kidnapping, who else is involved in this? Who would have knowledge of her body is there. And it was something really dark that was said. It was like she's there or like her remains are there or you didn't look hard enough. I'm not really sure what the phraseology was, but you need to go back out and look again.

[Dave Mack]

You didn't do the job, man. Get back out there. And they did. That's how they found it, because they're actually walking in an area. Okay. They still don't know they're in the exact area where. And the police are looking around. There's more than one, and there's a piece of wood. And when you find a piece of wood just kind of amongst dirt. Yeah, it feels different. And when you look around, you're going, hey, this is a softer spot than that is. And then they lift it up and go, well, here's some disturbed ground.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yep. Turned earth.

[Dave Mack]

They. They were surprised. They found. They started digging with their bare hands, Joe. And they said as soon as they started clearing the dirt, they smelled. They had a smell. And there were maggots. Now, what does the dirt with maggots and smell mean to you?

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Well, it means that you have. You have remains. Now, of course, that, you know, you're hoping against hope, if you're an investigator, that what you're about to uncover is not human remains. You hope that somebody took Fido out there, because the other thing that they may not have made note of at the time, you're also going to have flies. And those flies will be circling that area. Copious flies. Flies burrow. People don't realize that they will burrow to get down to a specific area. They will lay their eggs. And, you know, the. The fact that you have maggot development, by this time, you could have gone through a couple of early generations of flies. I think you would find maggot husk, which means that you would find maggot that had actually developed or were beginning to develop and they could shed husk. We don't really know about the timeline at this point. I'm waiting to hear more information from a perspective. It's key relative to forensic entomology because this is going to be key to talk about this at the scene. One of the things that we do is that we actually collect a variety of samples of maggot at the scene, and we put them into little glass jars and fill them with alcohol. And of course, that puts them. Well, it kills them, but it puts them in a static or in stasis so that. That we can hand these off to an entomologist and they can do an assessment on the development cycle of these maggots. And it gives you a specific time, you know, how long, because they have a formula they can work out and they can say this is how long it takes for a fly to lay an egg or the species of fly to lay an egg. And then this is how long you're going through the developmental cycle of these. Of these flies. If there are husk lying about which are shed, that outer hard shel. A hard shell, that's also a clue. You want to collect those. There may be maggots that are actually collected when you get back to. Back to the autopsy suite as well. And one of the interesting things, we don't really know clothing status, at least I don't at this point. But if there are any injuries, Dave, whatsoever. Okay, that's a big signal for the. For the fly.

[Dave Mack]

Okay, well, we know she was shot in the head.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah, we do. And that has just recently, in the last few days, they finally release her cause of death. So if you have a gunshot wound to the back of the head, that that area would be. It's kind of a fascinating thing. Sometimes you can look at a body, Dave, and where you will see a huge concentration of maggot activity. Many times that's an indication of an injury because the area is open. It's open, it's warm, it's wet. These flies will lay their eggs in the spot because their goal, the fly's goal is generationally to keep going. You know, they. All they do is fly about and make baby flies and they move on. And their life cycle is very short. So they do this continuation thing. That's why, you know, if you show up on a decomposing remain and it's covered in flies, and it can be an animal remain or it can be, you know, it can be the remains of a human. It's the same process. They, you know, or foodstuffs that are laid out, you know, so that can be a big tell there. And if there's. If, say, for instance, there are any orifices, I'm trying to be very delicate with this. Any orifices that are exposed, you will Find. You will find eggs there as well. And also maggot activity. I've had cases, Dave, and it is a lot of it is environmentally dependent upon how warm the area is. I've had people, Dave, I was just talking about this in class the other day. As a matter of fact, I've had. Had cases where within I think two to three hours, I actually had fly eggs in the eyes of the deceased within two to three hours of death. And yet people don't always close their eyes. And death, that's. That's a fallacy. And so you will. And the eyes are a particular interest to flies because it's wet and it's moist. They'll go into the nose, the nares and the mouth. Mouth that the mouth is open, those sorts of things. So anyway, yeah, that's going to be a big part to this. The other part though is that they have now released the cause of death. And I guess the big question here is a couple of things. First off, were there. Was she killed in the spot? Was this area dug out? Well, obviously it was if they were having to dig down and they took a board and placed it over the top. If she was killed in that spot, was there a pre dug hole? Okay, did that make her kneel? And I'm saying they, because at this time, I don't know if there's only just one person involved. Did they make her kneel in the hole and shoot her? Execute her? Was there a spent casing that was recovered at the scene that could be tied back? That's going to be a big tell about the weapon. Do they recover a weapon? And then also relationally, from a physical standpoint of firing a weapon, was the individual standing to her rear with her in a fully erect position and walked up behind her shot, or was she in a kneeling posture where they're firing down into the back of the head? Was the injury even to the back of the head or was it to the side of the head? Was it in the front of the head? I've had executions, Dave, that all planes of the head are used. It's not. You know, people say, this is interesting. People will say, well, it's a classic execution style killing. What do you mean by that? Classic? Classic in what? In the sense of you've been watching the Godfather or in the sense of you've worked so many death scenes that this is all you've ever seen? Because I got to tell you, I've had people that were executed by being shot in the forehead. I've had People that have been executed, shot in the temple. I've had people. I've actually had one case where an individual was forced to. To place their mouth on the muzzle of a weapon. That is very rare. You see that in movies, so we don't really know. But the, the relationship, the physical relationship between the end of that muzzle and wherever, Wherever the round wound up in this precious child's head is going to be key here because we'll know what kind of position she was in and those last moments of her life there in that dark, dirty area where, you know. And she. She's seemingly has exited her place of work under her own free will. We've got these messages. What kind of relationship preexisted with this person who has now been charged? Charged now at this point, not just with kidnapping, several other charges, including. They had a real interesting one on there called causing a catastrophe, which I have never in my life heard this term before. And I guess that has to do with fire sett.

[Dave Mack]

Well, they got arson in there too.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Yeah, and there's arson. So, yeah, they've really thrown the book at him and now he's staring down the barrel, no pun intended, of a homicide charge as well.

[Dave Mack]

Let me ask you something, Joe, because a concern of mine. She was kidnapped the night of October 4th. That's the night she left work. And police know things they're not telling us and they are saying she was kidnapped, so I'm gonna go with that. But she went to the parking lot. Maybe she was being threatened. Hey, if you don't come out here, we're gonna kill your parents. Yeah, I don't know. But she went to that parking lot under her own momentum, her own wheels. And anyway, they're. They're suggest their. Her date of death is listed as October 18th. That's the day her body was found. Yeah, but they believe she was killed shortly after she was kidnapped, October 4th.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

Thanks for asking. No, it's not. Thanks for asking this question and because right now I'm going to educate people on two terms. I'm so glad you set this up. And by the way, we did not plan this. I'm so glad you said this, because data death and data pronouncement are two completely different things. If you watch any kind of like medical procedural show on television, they'll say, when did you. You know, where the person says, we're calling it now, you know, like that the physician or whoever it is, they're running a code in some emergency fictional emergency room. Well, yeah, that is a time of pronouncement. And in many states, depending upon the state you're in, the coroner can actually pronounce or the medical examiner can actually pronounce. You show up, you've got a decomposing body, the coroner will write down a time of pronouncement. That is, that's an official designation. That's to go on the death certificate. Okay? So we're going to call it today's date at this time. That's different than the time of death. Time of death is actually a diagnosis, if you will, a post mortem diagnosis. And the best you can do is kind of ballpark, you know, so if you go back and remember when they think, when they think she actually died, time of death is a single digit date, Time of death and of course when she was pronounced is a double digit date. So you've got this time that has passed. But one is actually a biological finding that you're, you know, you're kind of taking a stab at the dark, in the dark. And this can be very confusing for people, and rightly it makes sense that it would be confusing, but they're completely two different things. I think what people are going to be asking is, was she dead? Was she dead on that same night or had she been spirited away somewhere? Because they've leaned into this kidnapping charge. Now kidnapping does not mean that you kidnapped an individual and sustained them for a long period of time. However, I think that investigators, and rightly so, should entertain the thought. They're going to try to understand this and see if they can assess. And forensics is going to be a big part of this. They're going to look at some forensic pathologists, they're going to look at an entomologist and they're going to say, based on your findings, do you think that there's a possibility she died relatively close to the last time she was seen alive? Because therein rests a big change in the narrative. And also one more thing that we have to remember in her case, we have to remember that though one person has been charged with multiple offenses, there are others that are involved in this case. Brother Dave and I are going to keep you up to speed on this case because just like you, we want to know, I want to know who else perhaps had a hand in the destruction, the murder of this beautiful child and robbed the world of someone that probably would have made it a lot brighter. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body bags.

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[Dave Mack]

Oh, thanks, mom.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

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