Interviewer (John) (5:55)

Well, Nicole, I really appreciate you sitting down with me. I know you've got a lot going on this weekend. Right before we started rolling, you had mentioned that last year was your first crime con. So I'm curious, you know, is there anything that you're looking forward to this year?

Nicole Angemi (6:11)

Well, we have our podcast live. I think there's kind of a back and forth when you don't know anything. It's a lot of nerves. But then now we know what to expect, kind of. So that is stressing me out now because I think last year when I did my lecture, I had no idea how many people were going to be in the audience. I didn't know if it was going to be 10 people were going to show up or whatever. And I just go out on stage and saw that There was like 500 people and I didn't have time to freak out about it because I was there. So now if I get anywhere near the amount that I had last year, it just. Now I'm anxious about that. So we're just looking forward to meeting new people that we could have on our show as well as just learn different things about our whole world of death here. I'm looking forward to just going to some of the lectures as an attendee. The Chris Hansen one. I've loved him forever. My daughter and I used to watch To Catch a Predator when she was a teenager. So yeah, and then like obviously our things as well, just meeting some of our, our fans, which is weird to say, but people that listen to our podcast and.

Interviewer (John) (7:19)

Yeah, that's awesome. Why don't we start by just having you introduce yourself, however you like to kind of refer to yourself, you know, by title or profession.

Nicole Angemi (7:27)

Okay. So my name's Nicole Angemi. I'm a pathologist assistant as well as a cytotechnologist. I'll start off by saying that I started college because I was a single mom. I was a teenager and I had a 4 year old kid already. So I had her early in high school and I had to go to college because I had to get health insurance. So I started school to become a nurse. I quickly realized that I loved science. I had never, I never knew about biology and chemistry and stuff because I dropped out of high school. So I didn't know about that whole world. And I fell in love with the microscope. And that's what cytotechnology is, looking at cells under the microscope. And then after that I started figuring out that there were other parts to this pathology lab that I was working in. I always tell this story about the one day that I walked, there was like a lot of commotion going on at the hospital because people were saying that the leg refrigerator was broken. And I just was like, what do you mean leg refrigerator? Like, I had no idea what was happening on the other side of the wall where I was sitting every day for years. And I walked over there and it was just like this, like, sensory overload of smells and visions and just seeing this refrigerator that looked like one you see in a pizza shop that has soda in it. And there was just amputated legs wrapped up in biohazard bags in there. And, like, it was so gross, but so, like, cool at the same time. And then I found that whole other world that was surgical pathology. So I would just walk over there every day, like on my lunch break and be like, what's going on over here, guys? And it would be like someone had a colon out or a placenta or just like, really, really interesting stuff. And then I was like, no, I want to work over here. Like, I don't like my job anymore. It's kind of boring. So I went back to school to become a pathologist assistant. So I had to get a master's and go to Drexel. But it was cool because I was able to just walk from my job, like, back and forth all day. Another part of that job, too, is autopsy, which is my favorite part of it. So we deal with surgical pathologies, living people. So anytime you have cancer or you get something cut out off of your body, they send it to surgical pathology and then autopsy. We're determining the cause of death for patients, usually that die in the hospital. But we also have training in forensics as well, because we can technically work at a medical examiner's office too.

Interviewer (John) (9:48)

So obviously you've been in your field now for like 20 plus years, I believe.

Nicole Angemi (9:52)

Yeah, I started working in the hospital in 1999, in the lab.

Interviewer (John) (9:57)

So at this point, like, in your career, like, what does a typical day to day look like for you?

Nicole Angemi (10:02)

So when I was working full time in the hospital, for example, my main job was to be in charge of autopsy. So I would do all of the autopsies that came through the hospital. So we were at an academic center. So we used to try, like, if a patient died, we would try to ask the family member if we could do an autopsy. Because we. The. The only way for medical students and residents to learn is by actually doing it, not looking at it on a screen. So we had a significant volume. We had a couple a week. So that would be my job when we had autopsies. And then in between, I would go upstairs and work in surgical pathology and dissect organs that would come from the surgeries. And there's just so many. It's Just like an all day thing. But in surgical pathology, it's a really, like, weird job. It's kind of a desk job, but like you're sitting at a station that has ventilation and you have a cutting board like you would have in your kitchen and knives and you're cutting meat with just body parts. But we're looking for cancer, we're looking for infection. We're looking to make sure that the surgeon rightfully took out the correct organ and proved that, because we're making slides for the pathologist to look at under the microscope. So we're just like recognizing disease, making sure they got all of the cancer out, like, things like that. So it's really cool. And then with autopsy, it's the same. It's a little bit different than a medical examiner's autopsy because we're not looking for. I mean, we're always looking to make sure that there wasn't a mistake by one of the physicians or there wasn't any kind of trauma to the body. But it's just a little bit of a different thing that we're looking for.

Interviewer (John) (11:43)

So based on the nature of your work, have you ever been called as like an expert to testify for like a case at all?

Nicole Angemi (11:49)

No, we don't have to. And I would never want to. I would. I. It's just not in my personality style. I went to court a couple times with the medical examiner when they were testifying, and when I saw what the opposite lawyer did to them, I was like, no, no thanks. Because the lawyer on the other side was really just saying really wrong things and things that would have just made me so mad. I would have wanted to jump over and like, punch the guy. You have to be a certain kind of person and be able to keep your cool in a situation like that. And in general, pathologists assistants wouldn't do. Wouldn't ever have to testify that that would be something the doctor would have to do.

Maggie Freeling (12:31)

We'll be right back after a quick break.

Nicole Angemi (12:36)

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Nicole Angemi (13:02)

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Interviewer (John) (13:05)

Excludes Massachusetts.

Ashley Flowers (13:06)

Hi, everyone. I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of Crime Junkie, the Go to Crime podcast for the biggest cases and the stories you won't hear anywhere else. So whether on your commute, studying, or while you work, let us keep you company. With new episodes every Monday, it is truly a crime junkie's dream. So join me, my best friend Brit, and our entire crime junkie community right now by catching up on hundreds of episodes and by listening to a new case every Monday on Crime Junkie, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Maggie Freeling (13:37)

And we're back.

Interviewer (John) (13:39)

So, obviously, over the last number of years, you've developed a pretty sizable following just on social media. When you started, you know, being active on socials, was there anybody else in your profession who was doing. Doing that, or were you kind of like the first?

Nicole Angemi (13:53)

No, I was probably one of the first in just the field of medicine in general. How it went down was, you know, when I graduated school and I was doing autopsies by myself, it just was like. I can't describe, like, it was like being on a drug or something. It just was like I couldn't get enough of it and enough of the information and. And just being at work every day. I had one pathologist that I worked with that was equally as eager as I was, and we would talk about cases, and everybody else was just kind of like. Like, not as interested.

Interviewer (John) (14:25)

Yeah. Yeah.

Nicole Angemi (14:26)

And I'm like, no, this is so cool. Like, other people need to know about this. So I started a blog, and then I would go home and write all about every single thing that I saw that day. Like, what did I find in an autopsy now? Like, look up more stuff just to see, like, what risk factors were and things like that. It was just a blog, though. Like, nobody found it. And I just was like, I don't know how to get people to find this. And my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, he had Instagram and he was doing his photography thing, and he had a decent following. And he said to me, like, why don't you take those pictures and make what you write, like, a little bit smaller and put it on Instagram? And I didn't even have Instagram. I didn't have Instagram. I didn't have Facebook. Like, I, like, I'm kind of like, was anti social media, actually. So I didn't know what to do. And then Maria was. My daughter was 18. So she showed me, oh, you got to do this, and put these hashtags and all that stuff. That's how I got on there.

Interviewer (John) (15:24)

That's awesome.

Nicole Angemi (15:25)

Yeah.

Interviewer (John) (15:26)

And it's obviously grown significantly since then. You know, what does that make you think? Now or how does that make you feel?

Nicole Angemi (15:31)

Well, it blew up very quickly because back then, Instagram was. When you open the app, it would be, like, insta. Like, the most instant photo that someone posted, and if you had any interest, you could just search by the hashtag and things would. It. It just worked a lot differently back then. That was 13 years ago now. I got a following, like, very, very quickly. And then people started seeing it and writing articles, and then, like, Alice Cooper gave me a shout out, which was insane. And bam. Marguera and like, all these, like, big accounts. Like, one day I would just wake up and I had, like, 50,000 more followers. It was so insane.

Interviewer (John) (16:12)

So obviously, you know, outside of just, you know, the social aspect of it, you have more recently started a podcast, Mother Knows Death. So I also want to, you know, talk with you for a few minutes about that.

Nicole Angemi (16:23)

Sure. So I started my website, which is called the Gross Room. I called it the Gross Room because that's actually the name of the room I told you that we were working in with the organs. It's really called that in the hospital. And the word gross isn't because it's covered in blood and, you know, the phone has blood handprints on it. It's because gross means, like, in medicine, means, like looking at something with your naked eye. When that happened, I needed help to take care of the actual website. So my daughter that I was talking about earlier is now 30. So I said to her a couple years ago, I need you to quit your job and, like, help me do this, because there's momentum here, and I think that we could do this. So she runs the website. She also just, like, helps me with life because I'm a mess. I'm just, like, all over the place. And she has a notebook and writes lists and does a schedule for me and stuff like that. She. She, like, actually mothers me. So as we were doing the website, she was like, you need to start doing a podcast. This is. This is good. And let's do it together. And basically, our podcast is just us having, like, conversations about things that we have conversations about every day anyway, just because this is our world. But we're like. We're like news junkies, right? So it's just like every single day. Can you believe this happened? Did you hear about this freak accident? Did it happen? Did you hear about this Princess Kate has cancer stuff? And we're like, yeah, we could talk about all that stuff because that's our world. So we do the most recent news stories every single week. Relating to celebrity stuff, of course. And then we do like accidents and then we do true crime and we do medical stuff and funeral stuff. Just like anything that's in this weird world of pathology and death.

Interviewer (John) (18:12)

Are there like specific types of cases that you most enjoy talking about?

Nicole Angemi (18:16)

Yeah, I mean, the big thing with our show is that it's not. We try not to make it serious that people will be upset or scared when they stop listening to our show. We try to laugh a lot through it, which is a weird thing because our subject matter is so sensitive. So we try to bring awareness to things for sure. And then also we just like really ridiculous stories that are just funny. Like we do the true crime ones. We love obviously, like the funny ones with the dumb criminals and things like that. But like last week there was a really terrible school shooting. I don't like to, we talked a little bit about it, but I don't like to harp on it too much. Cause it's just scary and depressing and we like to keep it like a little lighter.

Interviewer (John) (19:03)

Yeah, I mean it seems like that's a, it's a bit of a niche angle compared to most true crime. You know, content that's out there. True crime shows. Do you ever fear like running out of headlines or running out of stuff to talk about?

Nicole Angemi (19:14)

Never. Never. We cut like anywhere from 15 to 20 stories every week that we post. We do a post on our website actually, that's like, hey, we didn't cover this, but you guys might be interested in these stories. Unless we were just getting paid enough to make it a full time job, we could literally do it every single day. There's just never ending material. And that's what's awesome about this field. Because every single week, and it's even when you're working in the hospital or doing autopsy or, or even just looking at the news stories, every single week, you're just like, wow, I never thought that would happen. I never heard of that. And it's just, it's endless. It's just endless.

Interviewer (John) (19:52)

So I mean, based on your experience and you know, the number of years that you've been in your profession, I mean, do you feel like there's any misconceptions about autopsies or pathology that you, you know, kind of see day to day or that, you know, you know, fears people may have about it?

Nicole Angemi (20:05)

Yeah, I think, I mean, obviously how it's portrayed on tv and to some extent I'm guilty of it as well because I make it just look like the coolest thing ever. But I mean, it's a job.

Interviewer (John) (20:17)

Yeah.

Nicole Angemi (20:18)

And with that comes working at a hospital is a corporation and you know, you having to deal with that, which was really the hardest part of the job. I love my profession so much, but just having to deal with that, you know, people being your boss. Like for example, when I left my last job, the head of the whole entire laboratory was an MBA or master's of business. Like never worked a day in a lab. And you're like, how are you telling us how to run this? You have no idea what, you know, all they care about is money.

Interviewer (John) (20:49)

Yeah. The business side of it. Yeah.

Nicole Angemi (20:51)

So that was, that was difficult. And of course, just what this is. One thing that I always learned talking to families when I was doing autopsy is that there's unrealistic expectations of what people think that we can find. And I'd see this talking to people all the time. If someone dies of a natural death, they always think that there's more to it, like, no, they had to have been murdered or you know, and a lot of times you're just like, no. It's a, it's a conversation I have with people a lot. They'll send me this autopsy report and to me when I just read it, it's like absolutely clear. But people have a hard time accepting death. So that's why I like to educate about it because I think the more that you know about it, the less you think that something shady is going on, you know?

Interviewer (John) (21:35)

Yeah. How do you feel about death? Like, are you personally afraid to die? Like has that kind of shaped or morphed how you thought about death?

Nicole Angemi (21:42)

I'm not afraid to die. I know what's happening and it's happening to every single person in my life, especially like people I love, like my children, like every person needs to know that that's going to happen. So I try to do the most with what time, short time I have here. And I see that because there's so many times that I've done autopsies on young, young people my age, like 40s, 50s, 60s, like you don't know when it's going to happen. Nobody knows when it's going to happen unless you know you're terminal. And they're like, you have a week, you know. But for the most part it's especially going to the medical examiner's office. That was a huge eyes opening thing because every single person there didn't know that they were going to be dead that day. You hear about it on the news, but it's a Lot different to actually see it and see people like, for example, just like in the clothes, they woke up in the morning and they put on those socks and shoes, and that's what they looked in the mirror and thought, oh, this looks good. And then they didn't know that they were going to be in an office with someone cutting their clothes off later that day. So I just try to make an impact in life the best that I can, you know, with educating people and trying to put my mark on this small portion of the world and life and everything like that.

Maggie Freeling (23:05)

Back after a short break.

Interviewer (John) (23:11)

Hey, listeners, if you have a tip or theories about a case you want to share or a case of interest you'd like to recommend to us, then we want to hear from you. Email us casesenderfoot tv DM us on Instagram avweekly or give us a call at 770-545-6411. You can also join the conversation on our discord at Discord GG upandvanished. Now back to the show. You know, you bring up kind of an interesting aspect there about just like, the humanity of what you do. Like, so as you're, you know, doing your job, you know, working your career day to day, you know, how do you think about the people who you're, you know, performing an autopsy on? Like, you know, what goes through your head at that moment?

Nicole Angemi (24:01)

It's. It's interesting because I do think about them being alive sometimes, especially because I get information. Sometimes I actually talk to, like, the wife or the husband before you do it, and sometimes they want to cry to you, so you hear a little bit too much. And, like, I try to always keep, like, disconnected in a way, especially because, like, I have little kids. So, I mean, I was pregnant, working, and then had people having miscarriages and babies dying and things, and I feel like I wouldn't really be able to perform my job great if I was, like, crying about it, you know, the way that I look at it is, like, I work in pathology. I'm not the most cuddly person. But the way that I could help that mom is to find out what happened because that will give her answers and maybe some closure and maybe prevent this from happening again or something like that. I always look at it like that, like I'm in control of this and I could do the best that I can do to give the family answers.

Interviewer (John) (25:00)

Yeah, yeah. It's like the. Almost the greatest form of comfort that you can give them is maybe not necessarily a shoulder to cry on, but Answers for all the questions that they may have about what happened to their loved one.

Nicole Angemi (25:10)

Yeah, exactly.

Interviewer (John) (25:12)

You know, you talked a little bit earlier about how a lot of times, you know, families aren't okay with just the idea of, you know, their loved one died from natural causes, but they want maybe, like, a different type of an answer. Are there ways where, like, the work that you do, pathology and crime do cross paths? I mean, obviously, we're here at CrimeCon. You've got a, you know, a huge following of people who love true crime, but, you know, they're also following you for more, like the medical type of information. So where do you see those two things kind of crossing paths?

Nicole Angemi (25:43)

This is a good question, because this is the lecture that I just did with Cheryl McCollum. It's like, okay, well, what happens? Because crimes get against people all the time, right? But what happens when a person doesn't die? Right? Well, they go to the hospital. So that's your outcome if you. If you're a victim of homicide or attempted homicide, it's like you're either leaving in the morgue or you're leaving and going home because you recovered. So that aspect of it is a big part of surgical pathology because people get shot and they survive. And we get the colon that got shot or the liver, anything like that. We get gunshot wounds all the time. And other weird. I mean, sometimes we just get, like, a bloody knife in a container, and it's like, oh, this was embedded in this guy's chest when he came in. So we do work along with forensics oftentimes. And forensics isn't just true crime. It's. It's accidents, which is the second leading cause of death or manner of death, you would say. Um, so we get lots of, you know, amputations. A person got hit by a train. And we're really involved in the forensic investigation because of how we're describing what this limb looks like, that was this person alive when they were hit. We could tell that by looking at an amputation and things like that. So we have a relationship with the medical examiner's office in surgical pathology, because there's other times where they might get a body and say, hey, this person got shot and the colon went to your lab. Like, we need to come pick it up. So we're really, like, intertwined with the whole world. It's pretty cool.

Interviewer (John) (27:21)

So what's next for you? I mean, obviously you've, you know, been on socials. You've, you know, put out your blog. You've also written A book which we unfortunately didn't get to talk much about. And now you have the podcast. Like what. What else can can listeners be on the lookout for?

Nicole Angemi (27:35)

Well, I have a book and I'm writing a new book, which I'm announcing at CrimeCon. I haven't. I was gonna do it at the lecture, but why not do it now? So I have a celebrity death book that's gonna be coming out by CrimeCon of 2027, so that'll be something to look out for. And it's. It's gonna be awesome, I think.

Interviewer (John) (27:51)

Well, thank you, Nicole. I really appreciate you sitting down.

Nicole Angemi (27:54)

Thanks for having me.

Maggie Freeling (28:02)

After hearing Nicole's interview, it really hit home for me that she's not just teaching people about our bodies, kind of for this shock factor, but also making death less scary, showing that it's normal and natural. And I appreciate Nicole for taking a step back and talking about recognizing each body she gets as a human being, looking at the clothes they put on that day, not knowing they would wind up on her table. Even though she has to do her job, she can still see the humanity in all of us. If you don't already, you can follow Nicole on Instagram, you can check out their show, Mother Knows Death wherever you're listening, and you can find her best selling book, Nicole and Jemmy's Anatomy, A Catalog of Familiar, Rare and Unusual Pathologies at Amazon or any other online retailer. Y', all, thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of up and Vanish Weekly. Be sure to tune in next week as we can dig into another new case. Until next time.

Payne Lindsay (29:22)

Up and Vanish Weekly is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with Odyssey. Your hosts are Maggie Freeling and myself, Payne Lindsay. The show is written by Maggie Freeling, myself and John Street. Executive producer. Producers are Donald Albright and myself. Lead producer is John Street. Additional production by Meredith Steadman and Mike Rooney. Research for the series by Jamie Albright, Celicia Stanton and Carolyn Tallmadge. Edit and mix by Dylan Harrington and Sean Nurney. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Artwork by Byron McCoy. Original music by Makeup and Vanity set. Special thanks to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at uta, Beck Media and Marketing and the Nord Group. For more podcasts like up and Vanish Weekly, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app or visit us@Tenderfoot TV. Thanks for listening.

Jamie (30:28)

Hi, I'm Jamie, host of Murderish, the podcast on Murderish. I give you a 3D look at ripping murder cases. Just the facts, no banter. By the end of Each episode, you'll know who was involved, details of the crime, and what went down at trial. Also featured on murderish is my own personal story about the time a man followed me home at night and I found him in my bedroom. Listening to this podcast doesn't make you a murderer. It just means you're murder. Ish. Listen to murderish on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you you get your podcasts.

Annie Elise (31:03)

Listen if you love true crime but you find yourself wanting more than just the surface, like those little details you normally end up googling the angles that don't make the headlines, then you should check out Seriously with Annie Elise. Annie covers everything from big updates and cases you've been following, like the Idaho Four now that the gag order's been lifted, to deep dives into cases you might not have even heard heard of yet. She unpacks the timelines, the connections, the wait, what moments, and even dives into topics like cults and breaking news, including the recent Tennessee Quadruple homicide where a baby was found abandoned on a stranger's lawn. With over a million weekly downloads across 11 countries, Annie has a way of telling these stories like a friend who's already gone down every rabbit hole so you can just hit play and follow along. So if you've been looking for someone to talk true crime with and a community just as into it as you are, this is where you need to be. New episodes of Seriously drop every Monday and Thursday. Wherever you get your podcasts.