WEBVTT
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Hi guys. I'm Courtney and I'm Lisa, and welcome to
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the next chapter in the Book of the Dead, brought
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to you by Darkcast Network Indie Podcasts with a Twist.
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Hello, Hello, welcome to the next chapter of the Book
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of the Dead. Back with me today is Vic Ferrari.
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I had such a good time talking to him, and
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I know you guys are really enjoyed hearing his stories.
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So he is back for more, and this time we're
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going to get a little bit more into the nitty gritty.
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So Vic, thank you so much for joining me again.
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It's really exciting to have you back.
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Oh Courtney, thank you so much for having me back.
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I really appreciate it.
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So I know last time we talked is definitely a
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little bit more lighthearted, more the craziness that comes with
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being a detective. But what I really want to know
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is what were some dark moments being a detective? How
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did even as like a rookie cop, you know, what
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did that look like? How did they prepare you for homicides?
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I should hope they're not just going to throw you
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into a homicide investigation. Go here, you go have fun.
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You know, how did they prap you for that. What
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was that like?
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So it starts to the police Academy and it's not
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so much homicide, it's death. And you know, when you
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signed up for this, you're gonna you're gonna see it
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and you're going to be around it. So probably about
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a month or two into the police Academy, the NYPD's
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Police Academy, my class was twelve hundred recruits, which is
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a mid size recruit. A small police academy class is
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five hundred. Sometimes they go as big as twenty five hundred,
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and you're broken down into classrooms or companies of thirty.
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So one day, our company instructor tells us, all right,
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tomorrow we're going to go to Bellevue. We're going to
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go to the Morgue. And he's just telling us what
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we're going to see and what we're going to be
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prepared to see. But nothing could prepare you for it.
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So it was like a class trip. We're in all
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little police academy uniforms and we walked down to Bellevue,
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which Bellevue is a tremendous medical center. They also have
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an insane asylum there. That's a story for another day.
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But so they take us to the morte and it
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was like something out of silence of the land. We
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get into like this freight elevator at like thirty of
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us and it's big. Well, maybe went in groups of
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fifteen each, I don't remember, but we go into the
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basement and I remember the second you got off. In
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that basement you could smell debt. It was like unmistakable.
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It was mixed with like in bombing fluid or chemicals.
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And it was cold. I remember like we were wearing
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jackets and it still was cold. Now, I was expecting
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from what I saw on television, like an episode of Quincy,
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where there would be one body laying on a slab
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with a guy with a tape recorder and a guy
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in a lab coat. It was nothing like that. It
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was more like an eight bay Jiffy loop and there
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was like eight slabs. There was eight bodies and they
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were cutting and I had never seen anything like it
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before in my life. And between each slab was a
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produce scale. So remember when you were a kid, your
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mother go to the market, there'd be a produce scale
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and you put a head of lettuce in there and
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you'd weigh it. They were pulling organs out of people
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weighing it and then writing shit down. And I remember
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them taking a brain out of a guy, putting it
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in the scale and whatever it was two point three pounds,
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and them laughing about it because the guy had a
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small brain. And what I found amazing was some of
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the tools they used at the margue. So if you've
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ever been to like a minor key or a Midas
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where you need your muffler cutout or the muffler pipe,
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it's called a wizard tool. And what they do is
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they saw the back of your skull and then they
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grab it and it's like a movie. They pull your
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face over to the side and they cracked. They separate
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your head and they just reach out there and pop
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your brain out. And when they cut you open in
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the front, they sew you up with it actually looked
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like a rubber cord. It was. It was the grossest
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thing that I ever seen in my life. I remember
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some of the autopsy's there. There was a young man
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who had been shot multiple times and theme is standing
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there and he's got this tool. It looked like a
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forcips and he's reaching into each hole in this guy
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and he's digging around. He's pulling out a slug and
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he's dropping the slug on the table and it's like
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dank dankdink. Hanging over his shoulder is this gnarly detective
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who's eating an egg McMuffin and drinking a cup of coffee,
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and he's asking the meme, so what do you think?
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And the emme turned around and goes suspicious suicide and
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everybody started laughing because the guy was shot like forty times.
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So I quickly realized that there's humor with death. But
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I also realized that that it was at that point
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in my training in the police academy, this was about
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to get real. And the the first time I saw
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a dead body outside of the Morgan again, I saw
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like eight autopsies going on at once. Was I was
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a rookie cop and I was standing out on foot
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and the sergeant said, come on, kid, you got a
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safeguard A doa And I was like, huh. So in
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the NYPD, when someone dies in their home or in
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a house or in a dwelling, be it a suspicious
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death or not a suspicious death? The police come, they
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start a preliminary investigation, They ask questions. The detectives come
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they ask more questions, they go through medications pills, they'll
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call the doctors names who are on the pills and
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speak to them. Then what happens is the detectives leave
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and the body isn't going anywhere until the medical examiner
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comes and makes the call on it. So what happens
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is there's only one medical examiner working in a burrow.
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So in a place like the Bronx of Brooklyn on
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a Friday night with his multiple homicides suspicious deaths, you're
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gonna be there for a while. So the medical examiner'll
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come four or five, six hours later, he'll come in
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and he'll say, he'll look around, he'll ask questions, he'll
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go suspicious death. This body's going to the morgue. He's
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gonna get on the phone and the morgue wagon's going
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to show up. If it's not a suspicious death, he's
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gonna say, okay, he's going to tell the family, pull
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your funeral home, make your arrangements. But the cop has
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to stay there in that apartment or wherever until that
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body leaves. Called sitting on a doa. So, as a
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rookie cop, my first time sitting on a doa is
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My sergeant brings me into an apartment and there's a
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dead guy. And the guy died. He was probably middle aged,
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early fifties. He died over a coffee table. He was
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kind of hanging off the side of a coffee table
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and rigamortis had set in, which means your body starts
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to get stiff. And next to his hand on the
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floor was a pistol. But he wasn't shot. So what
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is this He died, there's no so they thinking maybe
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he did me. It was a small cowber round. Maybe
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we can't see the hole right that the detectives are
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moving them a crime scene, and the detectives are moving
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them around, right, they leave, but they leave me in
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the apartment with this guy while they're going to go
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canvass the neighborhood and ask questions. Well, it was a
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suspicious death, and I'm going to tell you how he
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got killed. The guy a couple of hours earlier or
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the day before, was sitting on the sidewalk fixing his car.
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He was fixing his door. The door didn't line up
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and he got into an argument with the neighbor. They
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had a beef over something. The neighbor grabbed the guy's
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head took the car door and slammed his head in
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the car door several times, the doorjam and banged it.
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Guy sustained a massive head injury. The guy was able
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to get up, get into his apartment, retrieve a pistol.
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He was going to go back downstairs and resolve this
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in street court, where he died of a massive hemorrhage
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and fell over the coffee table and dropped the gun.
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So when the detectives went downstairs and started asking questions,
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what happened to Julio, Well, he had a fight with
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wan and one basically used his head as a door
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jam and slammed his head in the door a couple
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of times. They asked one, Yeah, we got it. We're
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fighting over a girl or whatever it was. That guy
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was charged with manslaughter or whatever he was charged. I
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was a kid, I was a rookie. I really had
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not All I did was sit in the apartment and
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watch a dead body until the medical examiner it came.
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But as a young cop you do that a lot
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because you're expendable, so they throw you into these things.
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And what's nasty about responding to das, especially in residence
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when people die the family members get involved. This belonged
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to me. That belonged to me. So you're actually a
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referee in those situations. And you have to search a
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dead body. NYPD procedure is you got to go through
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their pockets, make sure to their wallet. If they're wearing jewelry, yeah,
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to take that off, you have to voucher it. You
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have to put it in a security envelope. Now, the
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old timers aren't going to touch a dead body. That's
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what the kids are for. And I can remember going
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in my first couple of days with an old time
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who would throw me a set of gloves and go
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there you go, kid, And I've had it. So would
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people die and they're in an apartment or a house
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for a couple of days, the gases in your stomach
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start to swell, you start to bloat, and if you
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touch that body or stop moving it around, it pops
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and all the fluid zoos out of it. So what
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you gotta do is, like I remember, there was there
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was an overweight woman one time that died in her bed.
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The old timer told me we threw the comforter over
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and we rocked her and then we got the hell
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out of there and she just basically popped and then
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I had to put gloves on, and oh, it's like
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something out of a friggin horror movie. It's that's something
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I did not miss about police work. So one doay
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I had. I had just got into the precinct out
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of field training. I'm like, great, I'm not gonna to
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get as many days because I was come at you
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fast and furious, especially if you work in a precinct
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with there's a lot of old people. They're just dropping
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down in their apartment and you know, the neighbor smells
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something coming out of missus rosen Schwartz's apartment and we
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haven't seen her in a while, and then you got
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to break down the door and you know, find these
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poor people. So I was working at midnight and I
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was given the assignment go to this apartment. There's another
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rookie cop that's safeguard in the d away from the
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four to twelve. You're just gonna relieve him and wait
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for the medical examine. I was like, okay, I go
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up to the apartment. This rookie cop can't wait to
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get away from it. It's like all right, and he leaves,
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just leaves me up there. It's an older black gentleman.
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He died in his apartment. He was in the hallway.
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He died between rooms. Look like a heart attack. And
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whenever I was on Ada, I don't know, maybe it's me.
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I used to just kind of like walk around the
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rooms and just try to get an idea of how
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this person lived and what they were like. And I'd
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look photos and stuff that were I wouldn't touch anything,
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but if there was something on the mantel and the
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guy looked like a decent guy, I could tell he
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was a bus driver. So I'm up there about a
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half hour. There's a knock on the door. I think
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it's the medical examiner. It's another old black gentleman. And
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he goes, that's my brother. Can I come in? I said,
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oh no, yeah, yeah, come on, and everything's taken care of.
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We're just waiting for the medical examiner. Just don't touch anything.
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Goes no, no, no, he goes. You know, he goes, and
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the guy is telling me, he goes. You know. My
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brother and I we grew up in North Carolina. We
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came up here in the nineteen fifties for a better life,
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and we both became bus drivers, they never married. One
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brother lived upstairs, one brother lived downstairs, and he's just
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telling me about his brother's life. Next thing I know,
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this guy goes into the fridge, comes out with two
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beers and he opens him and he hands me one. Now,
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I'm a rookie cop on probation. I'm not allowed to drink.
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And I goes, sir, I'm not allowed to drink. He goes, son,
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I'm not drinking alone tonight. So what am I gonna do?
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Tell this guy? No. Me and this old guy are
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cracking beers right with his dead brother in the hallway,
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and he's just telling me about their lives. And it
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was fascinating. So about three four beers in there is
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a knock on the door. In comes the medical examiner.
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He's eating a slice of pizza, drinking of coffee, his
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pants are untopped, fucking slop, and he comes in. He