America's Most Shocking Cases - Unthinkable

[bunniefuu]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Next, I'll take you outside my own morgue

for an inside look at America's most shocking cases.

NARRATOR A five-day-old infant found dead

has everyone crying m*rder.

There was a lot of blood on the face itself.

There was no other doubt in my mind

that the baby had been k*lled.

NARRATOR But it's the autopsy that cracks the case wide open.

A five-day-old baby does not deserve this.

NARRATOR And then a medical examiner

is floored when he discovers what k*lled a famous writer.

Certainly nobody suspected what turned

out to be the ultimate cause.

[INTRO MUSIC PLAYING]

As a mother and a forensic pathologist,

some of the hardest investigations for me

are the homicides that involve children.

And in this next case, it's a five-day-old infant that dies

under suspicious circumstances.

And not surprisingly, it's the autopsy that

holds the key to everything.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR -year-old Amber Taylor has just given

birth to a beautiful baby girl.

But what should be the happiest time in her life

will soon become her worst nightmare.

It's AM and amber is wide awake, stricken with panic.

Her five-day-old infant, Tamara, lying inches away

in the same bed is unresponsive.

She wasn't breathing, and it was just like a shock.

I didn't know exactly what to do, like, scream or what.

NARRATOR Amber frantically calls .

Paramedics arrive within minutes, an attempt

to revive the newborn.

But it's too late.

Five-day-old Tamara Taylor is dead.

My world ended.

It was like the Kn*fe through the heart.

NARRATOR Detective Teri Fuller soon

arrives at the trailer home and is immediately disturbed

by its filthy condition.

Dishes piled up, cobwebs, and clutter.

But it's the sight of the baby that

stops him dead in his tracks.

The baby was laying in bed on the pillow, on its back,

face up, and there was a lot of blood on the face itself.

The nose, eyes, eye lids, around the forehead, blood

pulled in the eye.

As soon as I saw the baby, there was no other doubt in my mind

that the baby had been k*lled.

I've been in law enforcement for years.

But to see the baby in that condition,

you get angry, wondering how anybody could have done

this to a five-day-old baby.

NARRATOR Detective Fuller also has

a strong suspicion about who could have k*lled her.

It was the mother.

She was the one that was sleeping with her.

She was the one that was in bed with her all night.

Nobody else was there.

And the type of injuries I saw at that time,

all in a pattern of somebody's fingernails

being put over the baby with-- with it being here, here, here.

So there was no other doubt in my mind, she was my suspect.

NARRATOR And his suspicion only deepens when

he sits down to talk to her.

So I go in the living room and confront the mother and notice

she's got fingernails.

NARRATOR And there's another disturbing trait.

Surprisingly, the mother is just as passive as she can be.

That confused me because I've interviewed a lot of people,

and there was something wrong.

NARRATOR But a strong hunch is not enough to arrest

Amber for m*rder.

We're going to have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt,

that she intentionally and willingly k*lled that baby.

NARRATOR Crime scene investigators

photograph the scene and scour the home

for any potential evidence.

I told him immediately, go and start taking pictures.

Take as many pictures as you can.

Take pictures of the baby, of the bed, of the room,

inside the whole house.

Take pictures of the outside of the house,

the whole surroundings, and definitely get

good photographs of the child.

NARRATOR Detective Fuller then brings Amber down

to the station for questioning.

So I said, the baby has injuries on its face.

So those injuries had to get there somehow.

And I ask her, OK, in your opinion, what do

you think happened to the baby?

And she has no idea.

[CRYING]

NARRATOR The only thing Amber remembers is that the baby

seemed a bit congested.

She also recalls taking a prescribed painkiller

right before bed to ease the lingering pain from delivery.

I was making sure she was sleep
[ … ]

before I would go to sleep because I know,

as soon as I take the pill, I was out.

NARRATOR The next thing she remembers

is waking to find Tamara dead beside her.

So she said she didn't hear the baby breathing.

She rolled over and found the baby in the condition

that it was in.

And I keep saying to him, I didn't

do that, I didn't do that.

It's like a broken record.

I just feel like I have to keep saying

it, saying it, and saying it.

Maybe.

They were just grilling me, grilling, grilling, grilling.

And I don't even know what was going on,

but I felt like I had did something wrong.

You know she's--

adamantly said, I didn't have anything to do with it.

NARRATOR But Detective Fuller isn't buying it.

I told her, it's pretty cut and dry.

I've been doing this a long time.

And I've seen a lot of crime scenes,

and I've seen a lot of wounds, and whatnot.

And these wounds are definitely consistent

with your fingernails.

So I thought, OK, I'm going to take your fingernails.

And we're going to have them check for blood or tissue.

NARRATOR Detective Fuller photographs and clips

her fingernails, then sends them to the lab,

confident that the forensics investigator

will find evidence linking amber to her daughter's death.

In my mind, the fingernails we're

going to get to forensics.

They would have called me back and say, get a warrant.

NARRATOR But it will take four days to get the lab results.

Until then, he has no choice but to let her go.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

That evening at home, Amber watches

the local news with horror.

One of the news stations came on TV,

and they were like, -year-old mother accused of m*rder.

Then they said, blunt force trauma to the head.

At this point, instead of just the police against you,

it's everybody.

NARRATOR And that includes members

of her immediate family.

My own father went to my job.

And when I go in, they were like, oh, your dad just left.

And he asked us, why did you k*ll your baby?

I mean, you always know of, "innocent until proven guilty",

but at this rate it was like I was guilty, guilty, guilty.

Amber is suspected of foul play.

And until we have the answer, she's always

going to be under suspicion.

But you may not be able to tell foul play occurred

until you do that autopsy.

NARRATOR While the lab is processing

Amber's fingernail swaps, Tamara's tiny body arrives

at the Bailey County Morgue.

Dr. Joseph Prahlow is the forensic pathologist

entrusted to answer the pressing question on everyone's mind.

Did amber k*ll her baby?

We don't want to ever miss a homicide,

because that would prevent justice from being served.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR With utmost delicacy, Dr. Prahlow starts

unzipping the tiny body bag.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The next thing I did was then to examine the injuries

on this baby very closely.

The most striking feature was that there

was a decent amount of dried blood on the baby's face.

I next washed the dried blood away from the wounds,

and I was able to actually get a really

good view of the injuries that we were dealing with.

The police were concerned that the mother's fingernails may

have produced these injuries.

I was convinced that it was her fingernails.

There was nothing else that could have made the injuries.

I told him I needed to know something soon as he

could, you know, get it to me.

NARRATOR But as Dr. Prahlow scrutinizes the baby's wounds,

he makes an unexpected discovery.

Many of them had kind of a v-shaped pattern or a w-

or m-shaped pattern to them.

NARRATOR It's a pattern that Dr. Prahlow recognizes

from previous autopsies.

It was at that moment that I realized

that the wounds on the face were not caused by fingernails.

NARRATOR In fact, he now believes

that the bloody injuries were inflicted by something

far more disturbing.

When I realized this, I then kind

of had to step back and think about it,

and I called the police.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR Dr. Joseph Prahlow has just

made a surprising discovery in the death

of five-day-old Tamara Taylor.

The lacerations on the infant's face
[ … ]

were not caused by the mother's fingernails.

These were absolutely, without a doubt, caused

by a rat biting the body.

It is so hideous to think that rats att*cked this baby.

I've never had a case, personally, where

the baby was k*lled by the rat.

But I know it occurs.

It's in the literature.

There are cases of this.

They have very sharp incisors, and they

actually can cut the skin.

They can puncture vessels, and they

can cause enough blood loss through their bites

to truly k*ll an infant.

[TELEPHONE RINGS]

NARRATOR Detective Fuller is completely floored by the news.

This child was bitten numerous times by this rat.

Horrible bites.

Not just nicks, they were horrible bites.

You really get angry that the baby

went through this much pain.

A five-day-old baby does not deserve this.

NARRATOR And the horror of these specific injuries

raises a whole new suspicion.

Criminal neglect.

Why didn't she wake up?

If she had nothing to do with it,

why didn't she wake up when the baby was crying?

I mean, did the mom go out that night and leave the baby alone?

NARRATOR Detective Fuller immediately

heads to Amber's house for another round of questioning.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

But when he tells her what happened, she's in total shock.

To hear that your baby had bite

marks, to have a baby be tortured like that,

it just k*lled me.

NARRATOR Amber blames her inability

to respond on the pain medication she was taking.

I basically hated myself, because I thought maybe

if I could wake up out of the sleep

that I was in for taking this medicine,

that I could have stopped it.

NARRATOR Back at the morgue, Dr. Prahlow must

now answer some key questions.

Did the rat k*ll Tamara?

And if so, exactly how did she die?

His findings will be critical to determining

whether Amber will be charged with criminal neglect.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

As a first step, Dr. Prahlow must

consider the evidence he's gathered

in the external autopsy thus far.

When we see blood associated with the wound,

it means, more often than not, that that wound was bleeding.

NARRATOR And the wounds only bleed

when a person is still alive.

So in this case, the blood led me to think that they were

antemortem wounds, and that's just

a fancy way of saying that they occurred prior to death.

It was disturbing thinking that these may have been inflicted

during the life of this infant.

Rat bites could k*ll the infant in a relatively quick fashion,

and that would almost have to involve the baby bleeding

to death from these injuries.

So I needed to know, how much blood did this infant lose?

NARRATOR But to find out, Dr. Prahlow must look

for clues outside the body.

The clothing, and I think maybe

a blanket came with the body.

And there was blood on those items.

We then asked for the additional bedding that had not come in.

So there was a pillow involved, a sheet on the bed.

NARRATOR Next, he contacts the crime lab

and asks them to measure the amount of blood that

has soaked into these items.

The medical examiner's office is in the same building

as the crime lab, so there's a very good working relationship

between the forensic pathologists

and the crime lab personnel.

And it was very common for us to call the crime lab folks down

to take a look at a case or to take

things straight up from the morgue to the crime lab.

NARRATOR Their analysis yields a surprising result.

They were able to determine an estimate of about ccs,

milliliters of blood, that had soaked into the clothing

and bedding that was there.

So it was not a whole lot of blood that was lost.

NARRATOR In fact, the blood loss is so minute

that Doctor Prahlow now questions whether the rat bites

could have k*lled her at all.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

To be absolutely sure, he must turn his attention once again

to the newborn's wounds.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

And it isn't long before Dr. Prahlow

recognizes a pattern that wasn't obvious

when he first examined them.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It became readily apparent to me

that the reason these rodent bites
[ … ]

looked like antemortem injury was

because a majority of those bite marks on the infant's face

were on the right side.

So with the baby on her back and her head turned to the right,

the blood will begin to settle on the right side of her face

based on gravity.

So if injuries are made even after death,

they can have the appearance of antemortem injuries.

NARRATOR A phenomenon called lividity

caused the post-mortem wounds to appear

as if they were bleeding.

When death occurs, the heart stops and the blood

stops circulating.

And what will happen within a couple of hours in a dead body

is that the blood will begin to pool,

and then it will settle based on gravity.

And we call that livor mortis or lividity.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So the fact that lividity is forming in this area

will make those tissues very, very blood filled, if you will.

So if injuries are made even after death,

they can have the appearance of antemortem injuries.

NARRATOR For Dr. Prahlow, one thing is now clear.

The rat could not have k*lled Tamara

because the newborn was already dead when it att*cked her.

And Detective Fuller has a theory as to why.

Possibly some milk residue was still on the baby's mouth,

and possibly this rat walking around the bed,

walking around the baby, smelled the milk,

and that's what caused the rat to bite the baby.

NARRATOR Though disturbing, the finding

does provide a small comfort.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Finding that the baby was already

deceased at the time of the rat att*ck

eases a lot of pain and anger.

It's relief that the baby didn't go through any pain.

NARRATOR And suddenly, Amber's entire story

is seeming a lot more credible.

It clearly explains why the mother wasn't awakened

by any cries or screams.

NARRATOR But what it doesn't explain is how Tamara d*ed.

Now back at square one, Dr. Prahlow wonders

if he'll ever find an answer.

A vast majority of the infant autopsies

that we perform, the cause of death

remains to an extent a mystery.

In most instances, the babies are

dying from something that we call

sudden infant death syndrome.

NARRATOR Sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS,

is a conclusion that all medical examiners hoped to avoid.

SIDS is a totally unsatisfactory diagnosis

because it's basically saying, we

don't know why the child d*ed.

We've done exhaustive testing.

We've done an exhaustive scene investigation.

We've done a complete autopsy.

We've looked at the tissues.

We've done microscopic examination.

And after all of that is done, we still have a dead infant

with no good answer.

NARRATOR So Dr. Prahlow will now be on the hunt

for anything and everything.

In a baby this age, I will be concerned

about congenital problems, some underlying natural disease,

infectious disease, or something that's traumatic.

NARRATOR He starts his search with the infant's head.

But to do so, he must open the skull.

A newborn skull is comprised of four plates, which are not

entirely flush, leaving an opening

on the top of the baby's head called a soft spot or fontanel.

Rather than cut through the skull,

Dr. Prahlow uses a special technique called

peddling, in which each plate is pried

open to reveal the organ below.

With the brain finally exposed, Dr. Prahlow

scrutinizes it for any abnormality or possible trauma.

There is essentially no injury internally.

There were no skull fractures.

There were no facial bone fractures.

There was no bleeding around the brain.

There was no brain injury whatsoever.

NARRATOR Next, he examines the baby's internal organs.

There were no injuries of the internal organs.

Everything looked essentially normal.

NARRATOR That is until he gets to the lungs.

They should appear light pink with a spongy texture

when healthy.

The lungs had a firm consistency.

They were discolored, a little more dark than normal.

Something was going on in the lungs,

but I couldn't say for sure.

When you do an autopsy on infant, they have these--

the tiny lungs, and it's difficult with your naked eye

to really tell what's going on.

To really determine the cause, you have

to look under the microscope.

It's essential for an infant autopsy.

NARRATOR Dr. Prahlow carves tiny slivers of lung tissue
[ … ]

and sends them to the lab for processing.

When the samples finally return, he

wastes no time slipping the first one

under the magnification lens.

Slowly, an image comes into focus.

And in an instant, it spins the case in a whole new direction.

You don't take everything at face value.

Everything isn't necessarily what it seems to be.

Yes, this Doctor Prahlow.

Got to completely change your thinking about the whole thing.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I didn't know exactly what was going to happen.

I just prayed.

I know God will make a way, and I

know he doesn't put too much on a person that they can't bear.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR As Dr. Prahlow studies the microscopic slides

of Tamara Taylor's lung tissue, he spots

clear evidence of an infection.

And with this discovery, he finally knows exactly what

k*lled the five-day-old baby.

What I am seeing under the microscope

suggested to me that this is a herpes infection.

NARRATOR Infections from herpes are very common.

An estimated four out of five people

carry a form of the virus.

There are actually several different types

of herpes viruses.

There's herpes type , herpes type .

Herpes type is typically considered the virus

that results in fever blisters.

Herpes type is considered a sexually transmitted disease.

It typically occurs in the genitalia.

NARRATOR A herpes infection, for which there is no cure,

can cause recurrent painful blisters

around the genitals or mouth.

It's also contagious, generally spread

through skin to skin contact.

But in infant's, the infection almost always

comes from the mother.

I believe what happened was that, during passage

through the birth canal, this baby was

infected with the herpes virus from her mother.

Babies can be infected with the herpes virus

in a variety of different ways.

The baby can actually be infected in utero

and have all sorts of congenital problems related

to fetal infection of herpes.

There are different manifestations of what we

call neonatal herpes infection.

It can be limited to the central nervous system, the brain.

It can be just limited to the skin

where babies will have herpes blisters just on the skin.

It can be what we call a disseminated infection

where the herpes virus just goes throughout the body.

NARRATOR This form of the virus is called neonatal herpes

because it infects neonates, babies

within the first month of life.

They don't have a very good immune system at that age.

For an adult who has a active immune system,

herpes is not a big deal.

It doesn't affect us the way it affects neonates.

But almost universally with babies,

they have a hard time fighting off that herpes virus,

and % of them still die with treatment.

NARRATOR From the moment she was born,

Tamara Taylor faced daunting odds.

The herpes virus infected the lungs

and started reproducing in the lungs,

essentially taking over the lungs.

[CRYING]

During that time, the baby experienced increasing

difficulties with breathing, and then

ultimately succumbed to the overwhelming infection of

the herpes virus in her lungs.

This baby d*ed of herpes pneumonia.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR Doctor Prahlow's findings

now completely clear Amber of any wrongdoing

once and for all.

And when he calls Detective Fuller with the news,

the seasoned investigator is taken by surprise.

I mean, she was telling me the truth the whole time.

I didn't believe her.

I mean, there was no way in God's green earth

that I was believing her.

But she knew she was innocent.

She clearly knew she did not have anything to do with this.

NARRATOR Amber is relieved that Dr. Prahlow has finally

put a name to Tamara's k*ller.

But she's shocked by the revelation

that she'd contracted the herpes virus

and then unknowingly passed it on to her newborn child.

Man, that made it even worse because then it's me,

like, the whole time.

I want to die.

I go to the doctor regularly, so we had a full checkup,

everything, inside out blood tests,

and the only thing that come back is, your pregnant.

NARRATOR It might be hard to believe
[ … ]

that most people who have herpes are not aware of it.

They either fail to recognize their symptoms

or have no symptoms at all.

The problem is, when women first get infected, % of them

are asymptomatic.

And if they happen to be giving birth,

that's going to infect the baby.

And so the vast majority of those , to , babies

that are born each year with neonatal herpes, the mom

had no idea that they had herpes.

If a woman is known to have herpes,

they will tend not to have a vaginal birth.

They'll go to cesarean section to avoid neonatal herpes.

NARRATOR Looking back now, Tamara's symptoms of congestion

suddenly make complete sense.

I was here, and she would just-- like, she'd take

a breath and they be like,

[PUFFING SOUNDS]

And I was like, what?

You know, what is that?

And I didn't actually know.

So I was thinking, OK, since I was born with asthma,

I'm thinking maybe she has it so let me ask the doctors.

NARRATOR But according to Amber,

the hospital assured her that the newborn was fine.

I kept asking them the same thing,

and they still said it was normal for her

to breathe like that.

NARRATOR Whether or not a prompt diagnosis

would have saved Tamara's life remains uncertain.

But one thing is clear, the autopsy itself averted

another potential tragedy.

What's really scary about the whole thing

is that years and years ago, before there was

adequate forensics, police department would have gone

to a scene like this, found the baby in the condition it was

in, and the story behind it and with a mother with fingernails,

they would have locked her up right there with no ifs

and or buts about it.

If it wouldn't have been for the doctor going the extra mile,

she would've been tried and sent to prison.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The only way to recover from something like that

is to go day by day.

I have two kids, and they're wonderful,

and I see-- it's like, I see her in them, in both of them.

And they're old enough to know now.

And I already explained to them what happened.

They see her picture.

They were like, mom, we miss her.

We wish she was still here.

And I said, just know that you got an angel that's over you.

And they were like, mom, we're sorry that you

had to go through that.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR For Dr. Prahlow, it's a constant reminder

that every autopsy matters.

We as forensic pathologists often will say,

it would be a really bad thing if we missed a homicide.

But there's one thing worse than missing a homicide,

is to have a wrong opinion about what's going on,

and then as a result of that, someone who's innocent

is sent to prison.

I can't imagine what it would be like to have to experience

losing a child, not knowing why the child d*ed,

and everybody thinking you did something to it.

But at least the autopsy gave Amber

a chance to live the rest of her life

without the shadow of suspicion.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Sometimes, something seemingly inconsequential,

could lead directly to a person's death.

And more often than not, these unlikely suspects

would go undetected if it weren't for the autopsy.

And that's exactly what happened in the tragic and strange case

of famous author Sherwood Anderson.

NARRATOR At age , Sherwood Anderson's life is in shambles.

The famed writer believes that a trip to South America

will reverse his fortunes and revive his floundering career.

But a journey that begins with hope

is about to come to a bizarre and tragic end.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Famed writer Sherwood Anderson hasn't tasted success in years.

Desperate to save his reputation as one of America's

great literary figures, he and his wife,

Eleanor, embark on a trip to South America.

Anderson and his wife board their ship,

which is going to take them through the Panama Canal

and eventually to the Western coast of South America.

He was looking for a fresh start, a whole new place.

To him, America had soured.

NARRATOR years earlier, Sherwood Anderson

was one of the most famous writers in the world.

In , at age , he wrote the American classic Winesburg,

Ohio.

Something that we know now as the distinct th century

American style comes directly from Anderson,

in particular in his Winesburg, Ohio phase.

NARRATOR Throughout the s, he

was the toast of the literary world,
[ … ]

writing three bestsellers and influencing

a generation of young authors.

But by his career has hit rock bottom.

In the late s, Anderson had seen a series of his novels

roundly criticized.

He saw himself clearly as an aging

writer whose literary talent was diminished,

reputation tarnished.

He had been essentially turned on by so

many of his former proteges.

Hemingway was running around, essentially mocking him.

This was one of the great tragedies

of Sherwood Anderson's career.

NARRATOR And his personal life is no less turbulent.

After three failed marriages, Sherwood now struggles

with his fourth wife, Eleanor.

They seemed happy together, but Anderson

was a man that never was quite happy where he was

or what he was doing.

He's an incredibly restless individual.

He had a lot of things to be depressed about,

and that was when he was drinking a lot

and drinking heavily.

He didn't look well.

He was getting sort of flabby.

He looked tired.

And in , Sherwood Anderson had suffered

some flu and cold symptoms.

NARRATOR In fact, everything in Sherwood's life seems broken.

And he's eager to escape it all when he learns of one place

where his popularity is soaring, South America.

He had begun meeting a number of writers from South America,

and they encouraged him come to South America.

"We would love to host you.

We would love to feature your visit."

And so he decided that he would do that.

He wanted to find a new place.

He told people, I might stay for a few months.

I might never come back.

He was looking for a fresh start.

NARRATOR But Sherwood's desperate journey

to put the pieces of his life back together

begins with an omen of impending doom.

The day that he boarded the ship,

Anderson had begun to complain of some stomach

problems, some kind of pain that he was having.

He had no idea that it was going to develop into something

as severe as it would.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR Sherwood Anderson's trip to South America

gets off to a shaky start.

On his first day at sea, he suffers bouts of queasiness

and abdominal pain.

But on first blush, he assumes it's just the result

of a simple hangover.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

On the evening, prior to leaving for South America,

Sherwood and Eleanor were invited for cocktails

in Greenwich Village.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

And a lot of close friends were there

to say goodbye to Sherwood on this occasion.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

On that final night in New York,

Anderson was drinking his favorite drink, which

was a Martini with one olive.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

And he was consuming quite many of these drinks.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The tally varies, but probably six Martinis in a row.

NARRATOR But the hard drinking Anderson

is no stranger to hangovers, and when the symptoms don't clear

up by nightfall, his wife, Eleanor, offers up

another theory, food poisoning.

Prior to the departure on the trip,

they went to an Italian restaurant,

and Eleanor got violently ill.

I think it was something like food poisoning, probably.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR The couple also wonders

if a bout of the flu that Anderson suffered in the weeks

leading up to the trip could somehow be related.

People with flu are more prone to developing other infections.

In this case, if someone who had had the flu for several months

came in with abdominal pain, I would probably

start to think, first off, that this was some other infection.

NARRATOR On the third day of the voyage,

Eleanor finally convinces Anderson

to see the ship's doctor.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The doctor performs a thorough exam

but is baffled by the ongoing symptoms.

Ultimately, he attempts to treat Anderson with an enema

made from molasses and milk.

Enemas are used in situations of constipation,

and a wide variety of preparations

have been used for thousands of years.

The molasses in milk is interesting,

because sugar actually draws water into your intestine

and will cause you to have a bowel movement.
[ … ]

NARRATOR But regardless of what's

behind the strange symptoms, one thing soon becomes clear,

the -year-old's condition is growing

more severe by the hour.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Anderson was essentially bedridden.

He was wracked with this pretty severe intestinal pain.

Spent most of his time in his cabin.

In what may be the last thing he ever wrote in his diary,

he said, the water is very choppy,

and everything in the state room is flying back and forth.

And so, in this final diary entry,

we get the sense of things coming apart,

just disintegrating.

NARRATOR By the fifth day of the trip,

Anderson's condition has deteriorated

to a point where Eleanor now fears for her husband's life.

She arranges for the ship's captain to radiohead, to have

an ambulance meet them at the Port in Cristobal,

to transport him directly to a hospital.

NARRATOR On March th, , Sherwood Anderson

is carried off the ship and transported

to Colon Hospital in Panama.

He's in some intense pain.

They're giving him morphine at this point, which is doing

nothing for him, apparently.

I think the medical people at Colon were mystified.

NARRATOR Eleanor is helpless.

All she can do is watch as her husband

grows sicker and sicker.

Anderson becomes delirious, he falls into a coma,

his pulse is racing, and within an hour he's dead.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

He was pronounced dead at PM on March , .

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR From stomach pains to death in just eight days,

it's a tragic and baffling end for the once celebrated author.

And Eleanor is now desperate for answers.

They were in the dark as to the cause of death.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR Sherwood Anderson's body

is transferred across the Canal Zone

to the morgue at Gorgas Hospital.

Now it's up to Dr. B.H. Kean to figure

out what k*lled the writer.

He begins by reviewing the medical history.

Is it possible that food poisoning

or Anderson's heavy drinking could have played a role?

And what about the mysterious flu-like symptoms

he suffered in the weeks prior to his demise?

There are many things that could k*ll you in eight days.

Could it be pancreatitis, an inflammation of the pancreas?

Could it be some type of obstruction?

Does he have a tumor that caused a bowel obstruction?

Does he have a volvulus, the bowel turning on itself,

causing it to not get blood?

NARRATOR But despite a long list of potential culprits,

Doctor Kean knows where to start.

He cuts open the body and heads straight

for the source of all the problems, the abdominal cavity.

And it isn't long before he spots trouble.

Dr. Kean, as soon as he opens the abdomen,

he found peritonitis.

That's an infection in your abdominal cavity.

The majority of the abdominal cavity

was covered in a film of yellowish green pus.

Bacteria have somehow gotten out of his bowels

and set up shop in his abdominal cavity and caused an infection."], index ,…}

And that infection then got into his blood.

It got into his entire body and caused his death.

NARRATOR But the discovery of the deadly infection

is just the beginning.

And for Dr. B.H. Kean, things are about to get

a lot more bizarre.

You have this, kind of, strange twist,

but not in the way that everybody thought.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR When Dr. Kean opens Sherwood's abdominal cavity,

he immediately discovers the cause

of death, a massive bacterial infection, peritonitis.

Now it's time for Dr. Kean to figure out,

what caused this peritonitis?

Why did the bacteria leak out of his bowels?

Did he have a tumor that ruptured?

Did something cause a hole, or did

the bowel just not have the integrity

to hold the bacteria in?

So now it's important for him to go through that bowel

and figure out what was wrong that caused

that bacteria to leak out.

NARRATOR He begins his search for any abnormality

in the abdominal organs, starting with the gallbladder.

When he looked at the gallbladder,

it appeared smooth and totally normal,

no signs of inflammation there.

So at that point, he could really rule out

perforation of the gallbladder.

NARRATOR Next up, the pancreas.

The pancreas also appeared completely normal.

NARRATOR And he can find nothing wrong with the appendix
[ … ]

or the small intestines either.

Dr. Kean is starting to run out of possible culprits.

The last organ on his list, the colon.

So as Dr. Kean started his examination of the colon,

he starts to see these outpouchings.

And what he found was a particularly large amount

of pus in that whole area.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR Amongst this pus, Dr. Kean finally hits paydirt.

A tiny hole in one of the outpockets of the colon.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

This is clearly what allowed bacteria

to leak into the abdominal cavity,

ultimately triggering a deadly infection.

But Dr. Kean is astonished by what he finds next.

As he's moving through the tissue,

he's finally able to locate a small object,

which he is able to grasp and pull out intact,

a inch toothpick.

NARRATOR A toothpick.

It's a staggering find.

But how on earth could a fully intact

toothpick have made its way into Sherwood Anderson's colon?

Mr. Anderson's unfortunate toothpick was inadvertently

swallowed, and made its way down his esophagus into his stomach."], index ,…}

It then navigated a few meters of his small intestine.

It then managed to make its way down

to the left side of his colon, where the toothpick eventually

perforated the wall of the colon, probably only

or centimeters from the anus where it would

have been expelled naturally.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

And this may seem really odd.

But honestly, it's not that rare.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Swallowing objects is a common problem.

Foreign body ingestion.

Most of the time it passes straight through

and doesn't cause any problems.

But about % of the time, it can perforate.

But your chances of it perforating

is much higher if it's long and thin, like a toothpick.

But what I think is really unusual

is that there are some studies that show only %

of the time, when they've swallowed

a toothpick, that they even remember swallowing it.

They have no idea they've swallowed a toothpick.

This is why my husband refuses to eat anything

with a toothpick in it.

Have you ever seen was a club sandwich with a toothpick

just getting lost in that sandwich?

They can be dangerous.

People swallow those toothpicks and they

end up perforating your bowel.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR Dr. Kean can now close the autopsy file

on one of the most unlikely deaths he has ever seen.

You know what's great about having a toothpick

perforating the colon?

There is no question what the cause of death

is, what the mechanism of death is.

You have the evidence, the toothpick

going through the bowel.

You see it with your own eyes.

Those kind of cases are great.

NARRATOR But Dr. Kean still has one last question.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

At the time that the autopsy is completed,

he knows it's a toothpick, and he

knows that it's the culprit in having caused

this horrible condition, terrible pain,

and ultimately, Anderson's death.

But you don't know where it came from, you say.

What's actually really great about Dr. Kean is,

he kind of wondered, how in the world could

he had swallowed a toothpick?

And one of his fellow physicians actually suggested,

"I bet he likes Martinis."

[MUSIC PLAYING]

And so, when Dr. Kean visits Eleanor Anderson immediately

after the autopsy, he says, "By the way, Mrs. Anderson,

did your husband enjoy Martinis?"

And she said, "Oh, yes, he liked them very dry

and always with an olive."

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It seems most plausible that what must have happened

is that, on that final night in New York before he left

on his voyage, he literally threw back

a Martini with an olive, as was his favorite,

and seems to have ingested the olive and

inch toothpick entirely whole.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR And so in the end, Sherwood's

favorite drink ends up k*lling him, though in the most

unlikely way imaginable.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

You have this kind of strange twist

that it was related to his drinking, but not in the way

that everybody thought.

It was not so much the overindulgence of alcohol,
[ … ]

rather just a simple swallowing of a toothpick.

NARRATOR And the fatal result of this seemingly random act

supports his theory that Sherwood himself details

in one of his final writings, an essay entitled,

Chance Rules Us All.

Yes, interestingly enough, he wrote it just two

or three weeks before he d*ed.

And he said it was sometimes just a seemingly insignificant

happening that can have a real shaping, transformative effect

on life thereafter.

Because fate rules us all.

I think it's clear that alcohol played a major role

in Sherwood Anderson's death.

If he wasn't drinking so heavily,

he probably wouldn't have swallowed

that toothpick in the first place and d*ed when he did.

If there's a lesson to be learned from this case,

it's never take anything for granted,

no matter how large or small.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MALE SPEAKER Atlas.