“Doctor Death” forensic pathologist shows the worst possibilities how people can die

Roger Byard – whose colleagues call him “Doctor Death” – examined some of the most traumatic deaths in Australia.

He also examined some of the strangest.

The forensic pathologist told the latest episode of Gary Jubelin's I catch murderer The podcast on his baptism of fire in the profession and to investigate the infamous “body in Barrel” Snowtown murders in his first week.

“One night I became the boss of Major Crime … and I was so green,” he said. “I didn't know that it was pretty serious when the head of the great crime calls her.”

The Snowtown murders were a number of murders committed by John Justin Bunting, Robert Joe Wagner and James Spyridon Vlassakis between August 1992 and May 1999 in and around Adelaide. A fourth person, Mark Haydon, was condemned to dispose of the body. The process was one of the longest and best known in Australian legal history, whereby Byard's forensic evidence contributed to the convictions.

But while Snowtown may have been one of the most famous cases on which Byard worked, it was not the most bizarre.

“I collected animal deaths,” he said to Jubelin.

“Deaths by dogs, snakes, sharks, roosters, mackerel.”

You read that correctly. Mackerel.

“In the Darwin port, a guy and sharks were nearby, so that this 25 kilograms jumped out of the water and hit it from the side wash,” he recalled.

“Wrong place, wrong time,” he continued.

But what about the rooster?

“It was a little old lady in the back that collected eggs,” he explains.

“I understand, roosters are evil creatures. It went for her and she had varicose veins and it only checked her leg.”

Byard explains that a number of deaths come to him on his desk, where people with varicose veins experience a little trauma and died in the end.

“A case was a scratch of the cat,” he said. “People Don't Realize, and this is the Reason that I actually publicize this Stuff, it's not Because it's bizarre and Weird, it's to Let People know that if you get varicose vein and you get a small hole, you need and put you over it and elevate and you'll survive. [people] Tends to panic and bleed in panic – completely unnecessary deaths. “

“But yes,” adds Byard, “never trust a rooster.”

And while the foreign elements of Byard's task could possibly be headlines, there is a darker trauma that is lingering.

“Nobody talks about post -traumatic stress with forensic pathologists, and yet we are in scenes every year every year,” he said sadly.

“We see dismembered bodies, unsuccessful bodies. We see children who are raised to death, vehicle accidents, terrible scenes. And we don't just have to immerse yourself in them, we have to describe them in detail, they understand, then we have to present them to a jury and sometimes attack our credibility while we do it.”

He explained that his trauma has always built up in which he worked, also his understanding that he will not always find the answers.

“When I started, I thought I would find the causes of all these deaths-I was Gung-Ho,” he said.

“And when I kept getting into my career, I realized that I would not find answers all the time. And I will have to sit down with families and say: 'I have no idea.

“And even most of the time they only want to meet the person between the time when the baby saw it last and when they saw their baby in the funeral home.”