This case was discussed on Crime & Justice with Ashleigh Banfield on HLN last night. Here's the link to the transcript:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1805/01/ptab.01.html
In a pond, the body of 41-year-old Elizabeth Perrault, who had not been seen for six months, but the way she was seen in the pond is nothing short of chilling, like a scene from a horror movie.
Elizabeth was found frozen into a 500-pound block of ice. And it`s not exactly the alcohol treatment center that her boyfriend had insisted she checked into. He told police two women just showed up one day and whisked her away, all the way back in November. And when police went to check out that apartment where Elizabeth had just stopped paying the rent, that story got a little harder to believe, because officers found out, one thing in that apartment. It was empty except for one thing.
By the way, that apartment her neighbors had seen her boyfriend moving things out of, had a giant blood stain on the carpet. And then there were the charges that he put on her card, that certainly not helping his case either. But so far no one has been arrested for Elizabeth`s murder. That 500-pound block of ice is out of the water and melting slowly, to preserve the evidence, and Elizabeth`s body.
To say they`re calling her frigid death highly suspicious is an understatement. We are going to get to the bottom of that. I want to bring in my panel, Jon Justice, co-host of Justice and Drew on KTLK/AM, 11:30 also certified death investigator and professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University, Joseph Scott Morgan is with me. And Defense Attorney, Rachel Kugel, is here as well. Jon Justice, let me go to you first. Where are they in these investigation? Is that block of ice melted yet?
JON JUSTICE, HOST JUSTICE AND DREW KTLK: Not as of yet. They are letting it melt slowly, because they want to make sure that the body is preserved as best as possible, given the very morbid and difficult conditions that it was found in.
BANFIELD: So, tell me the story. Who found this body in a frozen pond in a block of ice and how was it found?
JUSTICE: Well, my understanding was, it was a passerby. We`ve had an unseasonably -- we`ve had an unseasonably long winter here with a lot of really cold temps for a long, long time. The snow just melted about four days ago, finally. And I believe a passerby came across the body that was in this pond, if you will, about five miles north of where her home was, and it probably happened right when things were starting to defrost in the area.
[18:05:00] BANFIELD: It`s a horrible thought, but at the same time, it`s kind of a boon for the investigators, because I would assume that if miss Perrault`s body has been frozen in that block of ice since perhaps November, which was the last time anyone saw her and the last rent payment she made, that could hold a lot of clues still. The forensics may still be there. She may not have decomposed. Are they saying anything about this?
JUSTICE: No. My understanding is, they say the body is not in great condition. There is a certain level of decomposition, more indicative that perhaps -- and this is pure speculation on my part -- she is been there for quite a long period of time. Maybe closer to when she originally went missing, you know, back in February.
So again, they`re taking this very slowly and given the fact that they found this blood stain in the apartment, which I believe they found using a spray. So it allegedly may have been cleaned up, maybe it wasn`t visible to the eye until they put the spray down, may be a big indication as to where they`re heading in this investigation.
BANFIELD: Yes. That is usually luminal, if we all watch our forensic files correctly, and that is always more curious situation when someone`s tried to remove a blood stain. So, listen, Jon, I have a holdout questions about this boyfriend, who was seen moving all these things out. But I want to pause there for only a minute, because Joseph Scott Morgan, I think you can weigh in on the fact that this body has been encased in the block of ice, 500-pound block of ice. And you heard John say missing since February. That is when the report was made.
But the last time she was seen was with the boyfriend and that was in November. November 1st was the last rent payment, so, she could have been missing since then. Tell me a little bit about what the forensics teamed would be doing at this point with the evidence they now have?
JOSEPH SCOTT MORGAN, PROFESSOR OF FORENSIC, JACKSONVILLE STATE UNIVERSITY: Well, thanks for having me, Ashleigh. The idea is that, they`re taking their time thawing this block of ice, because every -- literally every drop of water that comes off that big drop has the potential to contain some type of trace evidence. It would not surprise me at all that they have a catch basin that they`re collecting this water in as it slowly drips away, being melted away.
Now, what is interesting, you had mentioned -- that the body may be already in a state of decomposition. This is actually kind of interesting as well. Because we apply a timeline to the level of decomposition relative to the environment in which the body is found. At that moment in time, when she did go into this frozen condition, decomposition pause. At that moment time and that is a marker in time that we can go back and kind of trace this timeline that has been created.
You had mentioned, she had last been seen in November, and not reported until February. Of course they found her when the spring thaw came. So there`s any number -- what I`m going to be really interested in, Ashleigh, is to find out exactly what type of injuries she has sustained. We`ve got a large amount of blood that apparently has been cleaned up at the scene, or maybe an attempt was made.
BANFIELD: Yes. Actually that is -- now that you mention that, how can you tell, if injuries she sustained might have been part of the killing, or might have come from the block of ice? I mean, who knows if she was alive or dead when she was somehow put into the water, fell into the water, thrown into the water. Do you know what I mean? If she was unconscious and she went into the water and then ice blocks started to work around her, could that not compromise the forensics as well?
MORGAN: Yes, I think probably one of the first things that the medical examiner is going to do, they are going to want to check her lungs as well, as her inner ear to see if potentially this was a drowning of some kind. We`re dealing with water here. Or that leads us -- that leads us to the point where if it`s not a case of drowning, she was dead prior to going in there and the water is merely being used as a way to conceal the body as opposed to a burial.
BANFIELD: Yes.
MORGAN: And that is quite fascinating as well.
BANFIELD: You heard Jon say that they`re thawing now and I don`t know how long the thawing has been gone -- I hate to speak in these morbid terms, but it is critical --
MORGAN: No, it can take some time.
BANFIELD: You know, and here`s the question, Joe. If there`s a thaw going on, is that also washing away a lot of the forensic evidence?
MORGAN: Well, I think that it`s important to understand that they`re taking care with this. I`ve worked a couple of these cases over my career. And it does take some time. Just the dynamics of it, because this is --
BANFIELD: Hey, I mean, before she was found. Like, look, there might had been some thawing going on before that passerby. It might have been a fisherman in a shallow pond, before the discovery, there may have been some melt and there may had been some evidence that was compromised or lost.
MORGAN: Yes. You`re absolutely right. In the environment in which she is found, this could have already escaped away.
[18:10:04] This is going to be particulate evidence. However, they`re talking about a 500-pound of block of ice. This young lady, when she was last seen, I`ve heard one report that she weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of approximately 85 pounds. So the large, the totality of this thing is going to be ice and frozen water, as opposed to her body mass. I would imagine a good deal of evidence is still going to be trapped therein.
BANFIELD: God, and she was only 85 pounds, she would have been so tiny and just -- so vulnerable, it would seem. Jon, let me come back to you with some of the details. And Rachel, I`m getting to you about the boyfriend thing. So, Jon fills in the details of the story of the boyfriend, I want you to weigh in on why we`re not naming the boyfriend, because he hasn`t been charged. So, Jon, what`s the story of the boyfriend?
JUSTICE: Well, the boyfriend said that they had gotten a new home and he was seen moving stuff out of the apartment and his story keeps changing. He also apparently said, he used her EBT card once, but he used it multiple times.
BANFIELD: Is that the food stamps? Is that a food stamp card, EBT card?
JUSTICE: Yes, an EBT card.
BANFIELD: And you are saying that he admitted to using it once, but gosh, darn it, you can track those things and they found it was used a couple of times.
JUSTICE: Multiple times, and to what the investigators were saying, with her being 85 pounds, there were witnesses -- in some other reporting saying, that she didn`t look well and on her Facebook page last June, it was indicated that she was receiving chemotherapy. So, there are passage to the story about her well-being, prior to her going missing. Obviously the boyfriend is incredibly a suspect in this, but there`s some other factors here that may have -- maybe be involved in just how her overall health was doing prior to her disappearing.
BANFIELD: So there`s also word that this boyfriend -- again, we`re not naming him, because he is not been charged with anything at this point. And I say it at this point, because it sounds to me, Rachel and you`re coming up soon, that there`s a lot of interesting information that might give him probable cause, but really quickly Jon, he was talking on Facebook about their relationship. What was the story there?
JUSTICE: Right. Well, basically he was chatting with people on Facebook about how they had broken up. So, he was having discussions and being very open about them breaking up. And so, you know, read into that as you will, but he was, you know, obviously saying they were no longer together and maybe that led him to removing stuff from the apartment after, you know, she had gone missing. Obviously it`s pure speculation at this point, but --
BANFIELD: Well, that doesn`t make any sense yet. He is telling people she is fine, she went to rehab, and there`s this odd stain on the floor, Rachel.
JUSTICE: Right.
BANFIELD: And then there`s this unusual behavior of a boyfriend who`s telling police one thing, but they`re discovering electronically that he might have used the card more times than he admitted to. How does that not amount to a probable cause? And I will put you one more, why can`t you arrest him for the food stamp fraud and keep him?
RACHEL KUGEL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: So you can, but I think here`s why they`re not at this point, because I think, the theft on the EBT card is relatively minor in the grand scheme of crimes you can charges somewhat. And certainly, if we`re starting to talked about, you know, levels of a homicide. I think the reason they`re not charging him, is once you charge someone with a crime, all kinds of rights attach.
And it might stop someone from talking. It might stop someone from posting things on Facebook. It might make someone get an attorney. And I think that, you know, if I had to make a guess here, I`d say the reason they`re not charging him with the more minor offense, is because they`re waiting to see if there`s something more sinister at hand.
BANFIELD: It`s a bizarre story, and a remarkable story. And you so rarely hear about a body being found in that condition. I get these sort of horror movie images, you know, of a woman frozen in ice. And God bless the person who found her, and I hope that person is getting help, because that is not a scene the she would easily forget or easily get over. Jon Justice, thank you.
