Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
Inside NYC’s Most Disturbing Crimes | Medical Examiner Confessions
24 Apr 2025
Barbara Butcher shares her most insane experiences working as a death investigator.Barbara's Book:https://a.co/d/co7vPSnFollow me on all socials!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattcoxtruecrimeDo you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7Send me an email here: [email protected] you want a custom "con man" painting to shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to my Patreon: https: //www.patreon.com/insidetruecrimeDo you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopartListen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCFBent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TMIt's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5GDevil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3KBailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WXIf you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69Cashapp: $coxcon69 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
New York City had 24 homicides a year. 2,400 homicides a year. Now if you get 400, it's a big deal. So I'd see two or three a day. How long had you been in the medical examiner's office when 9-11 happened?
11 years, I guess. That was absolutely overwhelming. It ruined everything. It ruined my job. It ruined my mind. It ruined America's sense of safety and imperiality in the world. 2004, they had this tsunami that kills 238,000 people. What do you do with 238,000 people? Well, for the most part, you put them in trenches, mass graves. He went into one of those hot sheet motels.
you know, $30 an hour cash to the desk clerk. The woman he was with, she brought some heroin for them so they could party a little, you know. When I came there, he was overdosed, obviously. She was long gone. She's in the wind. And sure enough, he had a very high level of heroin in his system. So we wrote it off as an accidental overdose. About two months later...
The sex worker comes into the local precinct and she's found God and says, look, I want to tell you something. That guy over there in the castle motel, I gave him a hot shot. I shot him up on purpose to rob him. He's really rich and I got all the money out of his wallet.
Hey, this is Matt Cox and I am here with Barbara Butcher. She is a former medical examiner or I'm sure she'll correct me on exactly what her title is. And she is also the author of What the Dead Know.
and uh which is a memoir and it's uh it's super interesting i've watched several interviews on her and we're gonna we're gonna talk about um some of the crimes that she has investigated and her life so check out the video what was what was the exact title it was you were the head uh
Well, I retired as the chief of staff at the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner. For the first 11 years of my career, I was a medical legal death investigator. And that is the person who actually, opposed to what you see on TV, goes to the scene of a death and investigates it.
You know, you see on television, they have an ME that goes and stops an autopsy right in the middle, puts a knife down, runs out, sticks her finger in a bullet wound and says, yes, that's a 45 caliber, Matt. Yeah. It's not true. I know. I saw one of the videos you were mocking CSI. Yeah.
Which is, you know, it's always funny. I'll get into these conversations with people and they'll say, well, you know, like if they have your picture of you in the bank, weren't you worried that they would connect it with? I was like, it's not CSI. They're not running it through the system and finding out he's got 14 IDs in three states. And I'm like, none of that's connected.
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