Barbara Butcher spent more than twenty years as a death investigator with the NYPD. Over the span of her accomplished career, she has used her strength, her smarts, and her compassion to bring answers and comfort to so many families and friends after the loss of their loved ones. Now viewers have the opportunity to learn about some of the cases Butcher worked on that never made it to the front pages in her new show, The Death Investigator with Barbara Butcher.
Buy What the Dead KnowI had the privilege to spend some time talking with her while we were both in Denver for CrimeCon.
Barbara, thank you for sitting down with me today.
Barbara Butcher: Thank you.
Part of the reason that I wanted to sit down and talk with you is not just because of the premiere of your new show, The Death Investigator with Barbara Butcher, that’s premiering on Oxygen, but because of the fact I myself had a chance to do the Citizens’ Academy in my town last year.
Barbara Butcher: Oh wonderful
And one of the most fascinating parts to me was visiting the Orange County Coroner’s Office, and they are a training center for coroners around the county. And I think what really stood out to me is in their training rooms, which have different scenarios set up, how many things people don’t realize that as an investigator, you have to look at whenever you enter any kind of space.
Barbara Butcher: Absolutely!
Walking into the scenario rooms, where suddenly we’re not seeing it like it is on TV and here we have an autopsy table. But you’re walking in thinking, “Why are the leaves off that plant? There’s a knife on the floor. What are all these things?” Could you talk a little bit about what it took for you to really train your eye in that space? Because I don’t know how y’all do it, but I love that you do.
Barbara Butcher: It didn’t take much time for me to realize that the best thing I could do is take my hands off my ears and put them over my mouth. Right? Just listen and observe. So as soon as I step to the threshold of an apartment or a home where someone’s dead, or even in the woods in Central Park, the first thing I do is take in the totality of the scene. I let it wash over me, so I get a feeling for the person and their life. Because how you live often decides or determines how you die.
Just coming into a scene, and if it’s very peaceful, I can feel that right away. But I recall a scene where an elderly woman was laying in her bed and next to her were cardiac medications on the night table. And she looked very peaceful. Everything was lovely, except that her underwear drawer was open and tossed. Now, elderly woman have a tendency, I think, as an elderly woman, not yet, but I’m going to be, that’s where you keep things like your Social Security checks, right? You hide things.
You hide things like jewelry, little things that you don’t want other people to find.
Barbara Butcher: Exactly, and why was that tossed? And why are, you know, who’s looking at her underwear? I mean, it was weird. And then, when we get closer in on the body, because first, I take in the scene, yep, and I zoom in on the body, and I noticed that the bed covers are a little tousled as if she’s been rolling back and forth. Maybe she had a restless sleep.
No.
First, I open her eyes, eyelids, and I see petechial hemorrhages. I see those tiny pinpoints of blood that happen when you’re strangled. And when you’re strangled, the blood in your head can build up and up and burst through the more membranous portions of the body. Like the eyeballs, the eyelids, and inside the mouth. So, I see that. And then I see something even more determinative if you like, and that is that under the lip, there’s that little web, the frenula. It was abraded. So someone had their hand over her mouth, and she turned her head back and forth to try and get air and it abraded that little web of tissue. I know this is a homicide right now.
No matter how peaceful she looks, I don’t care how many cardiac meds she had; at 84, she was murdered. For what, we don’t know yet. Probably nothing. Because I’ve seen a case where they get away with eight dollars. Yeah I’ve got one where there’s two women killed, a mother and a daughter, and he stole eight dollars.
So, it’s the totality of the scene. It’s the impressions. And then, it’s the little things that jump out at me. A spot of blood on the floor. A plant with the leaves knocked off. Or something knocked over, her water glass at the nightstand. So, those things tell me a story. And dead people do tell tales, you just have to listen. And I’m a very good listener.
Looking at these little things, how important is it for a death investigator to really check their biases when they walk into a space?
Barbara Butcher: Oh absolutely! The dispatcher used to call me and say, “Barbara, you got a homicide in the 3-2 Precinct.”
I’d say, “Who says?”
“Well, the police say.”
No, no, no, it’s not a homicide until I say it’s a homicide. The body belongs to me. The scene belongs to the police. That’s my body, and that body is what makes it a scene.
So I don’t go in there thinking this is a homicide. I’ve had plenty of cases where they called it a homicide and I got there and I’ve said “Now, come on, this is an accident. The guy was drunk. He fell down the stairs. Hit his head on the point of that little coupling there, where the walls meet.” Don’t ever tell me in advance what a case is. I’ll walk in, open to everything, listening, watching, hearing. And I will make the determination based on one thing: the science, not my prejudices. And not a police officer’s interpretation. Mine.
So you have a master’s in public health. An MPH. How did you decide that this is the field that you wanted to work in? Was it a linear path, or was it more of, well, this seems interesting?
Barbara Butcher: You know, it was a very strange path. I worked as a PA in surgery for a couple years and then out in California in preventive medicine, and that seems very apt, doesn’t it? New York City in the South Bronx, I’m a surgeon. Out in California, I’m a health advisor.
That that master’s degree came when I was a hospital administrator, I even promoted up. I was bored to tears. So let me do my master’s, and see if I can find another way to be happy.
And so I did that. And it was right in the middle of the AIDS epidemic, which was horrifying. Horrifying. So after that, I was still bored. I needed action. I went to a career counseling service. And they said, “You should be, after many, many tests, a coroner or a poultry veterinarian.” I said, “Why poultry?”
And they said, “With chickens, you won’t get attached to them. They have beady little eyes, and you get attached to your patients when they don’t get better. It hurts you. If you had puppies and kittens, it would hurt you, so chickens. Who cares?”
I said, “I think I’ll take the dead people.” Thinking that’ll be easy, I can’t get too attached. I forgot about the families of the victims. That’s where the emotional connection comes in. You care about your victim. You’ve seen their home. You’ve seen their family. You know their life. And so it was a soul-crushing job in so many ways. But it was a privilege, an absolute privilege, to be able to do something to get justice for the victim and answers for the family. And I think in the show, you know, it’s not called Homicide. It’s not called Suicide. It’s called The Death Investigator because it’s open. Everything is open.
I am investigating everything: natural deaths, suicides, homicides, accidents. And it is a privilege. And to even once in a while be able to prevent a death.
I did a case once where a new building was going up, and they were installing kitchens and everything. And we came in and someone came in and found one of the workers dead on the kitchen floor. Why? Young guy. No accident. No trauma. And when I went in, I examined him carefully. I saw nothing. But then on his hand, I saw the little tiniest like a burn, and it had a ferning pattern. It kind of branched out. A-ha! Electrocution. He had installed the dishwasher with the wrong polarity, and so when he turned it on to test it and was touching the other part of it, he was electrocuted. And if we hadn’t found him and hadn’t determined that right then and there, imagine how many people could have been killed when they turned on their dishwasher.
Right? A simple household task that nobody thinks of as a way to kill you.
Barbara Butcher: So I had that privilege of maybe preventing some deaths. The death investigator investigates. We’re not there to prove a point. We’re there to learn and then to share that knowledge. And that’s what I love to do with the audience. I want to share with them, and this is such a valuable platform, my knowledge. What forensics mean. What the body tells us. And to show them the people, the victims and their families. Every single victim, every single person on this Earth, is a universe.
Absolutely.
Barbara Butcher: Friends, family, work, home, everything, and that universe can collapse at the deaths of the people in the center of it. So I will show, and do show in these cases, how it affects me, and the detectives that I worked with on these cases. Some of these guys, you know, they tear up. And then so do I. Because we’re back at a scene that was horrible and all those feelings come flooding back at you.
I had the privilege to watch the first episode of the series. And to watch you and that detective reconnect, like you start with a formal greeting, but you can tell immediately that you’re old friends and you embrace in this hug and say, “What has it been, 25 years since we’ve been back here?” Because when you work, and I refer to it as working in the trenches with people, it is a bond, because only you and those folks are the ones that really understand what that case meant, what these folks mean, and getting to the heart of it.
The first case that you cover is so gut-wrenching and so terrible. And no spoilers, but some of the ideas between what was personal and what was just business for the perpetrators of these crimes, it was just absolutely terrible. What led you to choose the cases that you’ve chosen for this first season?
Barbara Butcher: You know, when we first started out, I thought, let’s do homicides in New York. We started doing them at picking cases, and I was, like, “Oh, I did that one for another show, and this has been done to death, and that one too” because they were very famous cases.
So, in talking to the producers, we decided let’s go to the people who were not famous. They were no one to the general public, but yet something big happened. Yes, some big, horrible homicide. A home invasion. A sexual crime. And these people deserve just as much publicity, if you will, and publicity is the wrong word, but they deserve to be known. They deserve to have people understand what happened to them. Their universe was shattered.
So I used to get so angry back in the day. I remember an entire family killed. Kids. Parents. I was beyond horrified. It didn’t show up in the newspapers in New York. It didn’t. This was 1994. And then, not long after, a young man who was the son of a very wealthy and well-known executive, he was murdered. And that was horrible too, he was a good man, and it was all over the newspapers. So why? Power and money, did that make a difference? Does that make a difference in the suffering? Does that make a difference in the world of evil? No, it’s all evil, and these people deserve to be known. Their stories need to be told, and that’s the privilege to me of this show. The family is there. The family of the victims, you learn about who they were, what their lives were like. So, my investigating their death is also a way of revealing that life.
I love that.
So you’ve spent over 20 years in this part of your career, a different career than you expected it to be. But you were one of the first women to last in this role in an old boys’ club, a man’s world in these professions. So, can you talk a little bit about how that has shaped you, not only as an investigator, but as a person as well?
Barbara Butcher: I started out in 1992 and it was most definitely a man’s world. I was the second woman hired, but the first to last more than three months. The first woman, she left. She was done. I don’t know if it was the gruesomeness of the cases or the guys harassing her. Who knows? But when I came in, the guys, they tried to shock me all the time, show me horrible things. They showed me a case down in the autopsy room, multiple stab wounds, and the knife was still in there, and they’re like, “Look Barbara. Look at that, huh? Must have been a slow, nasty death.”
And I said, “Yeah, I wonder if the perpetrator was right-handed, because look, all the stab wounds are on the left.”
I’m not gonna let you scare me. Not gonna happen. I was always a strong woman, always, but it made me tougher. So, the first time I went out and did a homicide on my own, I show up at the door, lead detective’s out there, he says, “Yeah, honey, how can I help you?”
I said, “Oh, I’m Barbara Butcher. I’m from the Medical Examiner’s office. I’m here to examine the body.”
He said, “Don’t worry, honey, Crime Scene will take care of it.”
I said, “No, no, this is my job.”
He’s like, “Oh, come on. All right.”
And I was like, wow, this is something. So the second time, about three months later. “How can I help you, Miss?”
I said, “Well, I’ll tell you what. I don’t think you can help me, but I can help you because I’m going to go in there, I’m going to investigate that body. I’m going to examine it. I’m going to tell you how he died, when he died, and maybe even who did it. And then, when you’re in court, testifying on this case, and the judge says, “Well, detectives, how do you know all these things?” Tell them Barbara Butcher told me.” Well, that cemented my relationship with NYPD.
They said, “She’s eccentric. She’s tough. She’s crazy. So, she’s one of us.”
Perfect
And my dad was an NYPD officer, so I knew the language of the police department. I know the ethics, I know their attitudes. So yeah, I fit right in after that. Nobody is going to stop me from doing my mission. Man, woman or child, not going to happen.
You’ve talked already quite a bit about the sensitivity, the feelings you get when you come into a space. And how can you not, right? So what do you do to walk that fine line in being empathetic and compassionate in these spaces, but also not letting that overwhelm you so that you can be the best investigator you need to be in those spaces?
Barbara Butcher: Detachment. Detachment is the answer. When I walk in, if I see a bloody scene with children dead, I’m overwhelmed with horror, grief, sadness, even terror. And that washes over me. And then I slam that iron door down. Fully detached.
If I get emotional, if I’m upset about the victims, I can’t do my work. And I’m no good to the victims. I shut it down, and then I become a forensic scientist. I am there to examine things, pieces, findings on this body. I’m there to interpret them. I’m there to interpret the scene, look at blood spatter, medications, drugs, whatever it is. And then, when the family comes in, I have to talk to them. And so, I have to drop the detachment, just halfway. Because sometimes, I’m talking to a family, I want to cry.
Sure
Barbara Butcher: When I have to tell someone your grandson was killed, I, I want to cry, but I can’t. I’m there to give them answers, and in some respects, comfort them. If they say, “Did he suffer?” Do I ever lie and say no? No. Because then everything else I say is suspect. I never lie, ever.
So I will tell them the truth. There was about a minute when he could feel the stab wounds, and no doubt he went into a shock state because it was very fast, multiple wounds, and yes there was some fear, there was some pain, but it was over in less than a minute. And then they can accept that. Not knowing is so much more frightening than knowing the truth, because you imagine the most horrible things.
You paint the picture.
Barbara Butcher: Exactly! Yes!
Back early on when I was in training, I was watching the autopsy of an 8-year-old girl who’d been smothered and raped and tossed in a garbage pile. And I was startled. I was shocked. And I asked the forensic pathologist, Jackie Lee was her name, never forget her. I said, “How do you stand doing this every day, day after day?”
She said, “Barbara, listen to me carefully: when you leave this place every day, surround yourself with beauty, nature, animals, love, art, music, everything that’s beautiful in this world, because that’s the only way you can counteract the deaths and destruction you’re going to see every day.
Now did I listen to her right away? No, no. That’s some hippie trippie bullshit. I said no, no, no, I’m, you know, I’m a tough girl. I can take it. And of course I was wrong. My relationships were getting all screwed up because I was silent, because I couldn’t speak about what I had seen. And then eventually I got myself a little scrappy house up in the Catskill Mountains, and I got a puppy, and he wasn’t so much a puppy, more a little pain in the ass, but I loved him.
That’s the same with my dog.
Barbara Butcher: So I had the dog, cats, a partner and nature. And I started doing little creative things to counterbalance. And now my life, I’m so grateful that after all those years of all that death, now I get to do something creative. This show has been a gift to me personally because I can teach something, show something, and share my knowledge and my feelings. I love that thing about it being The Death Investigator with Barbara Butcher. That’s me!
Where’s that officer from the first time you showed up to a scene?
Barbara Butcher: Right? Exactly! You know, and who the hell am I? Just some girl from Brooklyn. Yeah, but look, the privilege I’ve gotten to do that job. And then to have this show as a platform to show the audience what it’s really like out there. And we’re out there. We’re in the street. You’re gonna like it!
I think they are too. After the first episode, I am ready to see the rest! And I love that you are all not only talking about your process, but you’re involving these detectives, involving the families. Because I think that’s something we don’t always see, but it’s getting better. Like you said, everyone’s name deserves to be remembered. Everyone’s universe deserves to be explored. And not just when you are the wealthy. I’m excited for you to bring this to the audience.
Barbara Butcher: Thank you so much, Darcy.
Thank you so much. I really appreciated this time.
The Death Investigator with Barbara Butcher premieres Saturday, September 27th at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on Oxygen.
