#011 CAUSE OF DEATH - Two curious girls

podcast_19594_todesursache_the_pdcst_with_marcell_engel_episode_300048_011_causeofdeath_two_curious_girls_at_the_crimescene-1.mp3

#011 Cause of Death: Two curious girls at the crime sceneI am crazy about True Crime is that sick.

#011 Cause of Death: IN THE MIND OF THE PERPETRATOR.

#011 Cause of Death: True crime is becoming more and more ubiquitous. Crime scene cleaner Marcell Engel also experienced this during his work. He discovered two young girls hiding at the crime scene - a horse stable where a man had apparently been tortured to death.

#011 Cause of Death: Cause of Death. The podcast with crime scene cleaner Marcell Engel. 

#011 Cause of Death: My name is Marcell Engler and I work as a crime scene cleaner.It will happen every now and then in my podcast that we dive very deeply into what is happening. I will talk about it openly. By that I mean that liquids, such as, blood as an element will be the smallest problem. I am looking forward of taking you on a mind trip into my world as a crime scene cleaner. 

Cause of Death is one of the successful true crime scene podcasts in Germany and my experiences can be heard here now:

Cause of Death is one of the successful true crime scene podcasts in Germany and my experiences can be heard here now: Cause of Death. The Podcast with Marcell Engel.

Hello and welcome to a new episode of my podcast Cause of Death. It's great to have you back and today we're talking about True Crime. So, it's an extremely exciting topic and I'm sure you all know the podcast desire to kill. This successful podcast is more about the crime and such. And the question arises: why is that actually the case? Why are we all so interested knowing more about the incidents of real crime scenes or murders. Seeing them, feeling them, and internalizing them. And that's exactly what I want to tell you a story about today.

Hello and welcome to a new episode of my podcast Cause of Death. It's great to have you back and today we're talking about True Crime. So, it's an extremely exciting topic and I'm sure you all know the podcast desire to kill. This successful podcast is more about the crime and such. And the question arises: Cause of Death. The Podcast. The crime scene.

Hello and welcome to a new episode of my podcast Cause of Death. It's great to have you back and today we're talking about True Crime. So, it's an extremely exciting topic and I'm sure you all know the podcast desire to kill. This successful podcast is more about the crime and such. And the question arises: I was called to a horse stable. The location was in a rural area. I drove there on an asphalt road, which led to a dirt road where I found a horse paddock. And far away on the horizon you could see several buildings. I then turned off on this horse trail to arrive by my customer. Once I was on site, I was called to a horse stable. We knew very well, it's somehow a crime scene or a corpse finding to clean up in a horse stable. But other than that, there wasn't that much information at the time.

The assignment was somehow also downplayed. At least that’s how it felt. And we became more interested since we didn't get any specific answers to the questions we usually ask. Yes, the farm was very, very spacious and there were so many individual buildings, there was a huge indoor riding arena on the left side with a paddock in front, there was a big gate and the farm was made so noble. Beautiful paving stones, everything extremely well-kept. There were a few dogs and cats running around, as you would expect on a farm. And we had the task of cleaning up a corpse in, as I mentioned, a horse stable. And there was already the big question: how could someone die in a horse stud farm, except perhaps in an accident at work or in something else? The owner, who was a farmer and had assigned us for the job briefed us on site.

He had a very nice dialect and then explained to me in his dialect, which I didn't understand quite well, that this was indeed a murder case and whether we hadn't already read it. Then I said: No, you hadn't answered any questions. And he then told us: Yes, well, just go in. You will see, you will see. Well, well, it has to be like that. There was a wooden door, a huge one. Then it went into this horse stable, and it was hung up on a rail, so you could move it sideways to the right in order to go in there. You could look inside, but from this position you couldn't see anything. In the stable there were wooden structures on the left and right, each with typical metal crates and barriers in which the horses stood in. There wasn't that much light. So those were horse stalls. I then looked for the light switch and I could see it by a wooden beam, of which the cable was laid upwards. I pressed it and then a bunch of neon lights went on and suddenly it was really bright as day in there. And then you saw the extent and the crime scene as such. The very first thing I did was to look on the floor. And on the floor, you could see many pools of blood and they were distributed over several square meters. So, I was standing practically in front of a pool of blood and to the right of a horse stall was another bloodstain. And the bloodstains were each 50 by 50 centimeters, also had a certain height. The blood was thickened, jelly-like, and partially absorbed into these stones, into these spaces, into the joints. And I still thought to myself, but that's an unusually large amount. I could somehow not imagine at all, what has happened now. And in the course of this further inspection, you could see that there were bars and there was a chain, a chain with really big metal links that ended on a meat hook. There was blood on this meat hook and there were also recognizable tissue remnants on the meat hook. At first, I thought it was clothing. But yes, when we grabbed it with the glove, it was clear and obvious that it was a piece of a skin flap. So that's really the epidermis. I would say that it was like a piece of a belt and that it was attached to this butcher's hook. Then I thought: oops, what's that? Well, I've never seen it in that form before.

He had a very nice dialect and then explained to me in his dialect, which I didn't understand quite well, that this was indeed a murder case and whether we hadn't already read it. Then I said: Cause of Death. The Podcast. The victim.

And then I was able to see a bit of dirt and dust on this wood, which was light-colored spruce wood. You could clearly see that there were blood splatters everywhere and they weren't far from this beam with the chain and the butcher hook. What I did back then: The first thing I did was googled. I wanted to know what happened there? The farmer did not give me any information before. The client, that was the farmer's wife, as far as I knew at the time, had kept quiet. So, we first googled and then read in the press: Murder, in the horse stable. Entrepreneurs tortured and shot. That explained a bit of the whole crime scene picture. So, these pools of blood were probably individual torture places. Because if you looked closely, I then looked at these sites or these traces more closely and knelt down, then you could still recognize the fingerprints of a person who held on to the floor and the wood. And really, you could also see that in the wood, where it was still quite fresh and smooth, the fingernails were really dug into the wood. You could see all this on the basis of the traces of blood. So, he must also have bled heavily on the hand, clearly and explicitly. You could also see it on the chain, in the meat hook, and the wall behind it. And I have often seen this on walls as a portrait of victims who were shot or who committed suicide.

And then I was able to see a bit of dirt and dust on this wood, which was light-colored spruce wood. You could clearly see that there were blood splatters everywhere and they weren't far from this beam with the chain and the butcher hook. What I did back then: So, if a firearm is used and tissue is penetrated and bursts open towards the back, then there is a very clear image on the opposite object, for example on a wall. You might compare that a little bit with seeing everything in red and then seeing it all in connection with blood. As if a balloon filled with water has splashed open on the floor and all these blood splashes are then distributed on the surfaces as a testimony of the event. And then in the course of what we could read on Google and what we saw in person, we were actually able to explain the entire incident to ourselves. So, the man was probably tortured for several hours in this horse stable by the mafia. He was tortured, he was tortured with a knife, with a gun, and in the end, he died of his bad injuries.

And then I was able to see a bit of dirt and dust on this wood, which was light-colored spruce wood. You could clearly see that there were blood splatters everywhere and they weren't far from this beam with the chain and the butcher hook. What I did back then: But this image has gone further. The blood was strongly dried up in some places, mainly where the ground had strongly soaked it up. It withdraws the liquid of the blood then it penetrates deeply into the building material. The smell was extremely difficult to describe and it was such a mix of horse stable, farm and rusty metal. The rusty metal is due to the blood loss which is ferrous and has a sweet typical smell of metal. You could sense that clearly in the air.

And then, of course, the horses and horse stalls, which were probably all emptied in the course of the crime scene and the corpse find. It was the kripo (police) on site that started the investigation and the horses that were otherwise in all the stalls were probably taken out. And what we didn't know at the time: through the use of the firearm, a horse was probably also injured. The horse has also bled heavily in the stall and this pool of blood in conjunction with the horse manure, of course, then additionally contributed to this whole odor picture.

And then, of course, the horses and horse stalls, which were probably all emptied in the course of the crime scene and the corpse find. It was the kripo (police) on site that started the investigation and the horses that were otherwise in all the stalls were probably taken out. And what we didn't know at the time: And I have to say, I've never had a crime scene cleaning in connection with horse manure before. So, at first, I didn't even know how we were going to deal with it exactly. I'm not a farmer, I'm a special cleaner, and nevertheless, of course, it's not rocket science, you have to be able to do it. But what do we do with this huge accumulation of biomass? So that was not quite clear. But for us, of course, the situation first had to be cleared up for the customer. And accordingly, we fetched large garbage bags and shoveled this horse manure, which was soaked with blood, into these garbage bags. And while we were talking about this murder case while we were cleaning, I suddenly heard a crack above us. Such a cracking and creaking and well, you always have a certain background noise, but that was unusual. And as I heard it, I looked up and then it rustled.

I first thought it was a cat or something. But no, it was different. There were two girls up in the attic. And they must have been hiding there the whole time, watching us clean the crime scene. And following our theories about the crime scene. That means, we have been telling each other the whole time how it probably went for the deceased, the victim of this murder, based on this trail and the chain, and the remains of tissue on the meat hook. How he must have suffered and how we saw these scratch marks, these fingernail marks in the wood, and we still thought: well, maybe he was really tortured, interrogated or whatever. Because this torture lasted for several hours, that was later determined at the autopsy, that he was probably tortured in the most barbaric way and suffered. We work with special means. You also need personal protection. But actually, when we clean a crime scene, we don't really like having onlookers around. It's not a cheerful coffee party either. So, when we talk among ourselves, that's part of the process. We're in the most horrific events and scenarios sometimes. And yes, it doesn't always work out that you can just displace it. And then it's just that you have to talk to each other to process these events. You don't want to hurt the reverence of the deceased under any circumstances, you just try to deal with it yourself in some way. You could say yes, it doesn't matter, it's just a job. No, it's not like that. And accordingly, we always try to explain the events to each other a little using this explanation to help us process and also realize those crimes. So, this is how we process this whole thing. The girls found it very exciting. They came down and said it was really exciting to listen to and that they saw him being taken away and they asked lots and lots of questions about how often we do this and how long I've been doing it and so on. And I saw this fascination True Crime in their eyes. And the fascination is, of course, also always present in me to a certain extent. I mean, at that moment I was a bit of the final part of a very realistic murder.

I first thought it was a cat or something. But no, it was different. There were two girls up in the attic. And they must have been hiding there the whole time, watching us clean the crime scene. And following our theories about the crime scene. That means, we have been telling each other the whole time how it probably went for the deceased, the victim of this murder, based on this trail and the chain, and the remains of tissue on the meat hook. How he must have suffered and how we saw these scratch marks, these fingernail marks in the wood, and we still thought: So, what you see at the crime scene or in an exciting true crime novel has been a part of my life at that moment. And of course, we immerse ourselves in it a lot and make a lot of assumptions, perhaps make up a lot more pictures in our mind and a lot more stories about it than actually perhaps even happened, because we weren't there.

But despite all this, it also always serves our own form of natural voyeurism. So, in the first moment since the girls have asked so much, I found it a bit strange at first. I even found it a bit freaky because of the way they asked and the fascination with which they asked the questions. I gave them answers and they drilled deeper and deeper into the subject. That means: cheekiness wins, just ask, otherwise you won't get an answer. At least that's how it felt. At the end of the day, I thought: well, the girls are right. Who does not ask, gets no answer. And I actually found it quite natural at the end, because we move every day in this world of crime scene cleaning and we are part of the associated acts and the things that we all see in the media. We are the final authority that removes those incidents. And I probably would have asked in their place as well. The reason I've been doing my job for so long is because it always fascinates me to experience true crime up close. And on the way home I had to think about these two girls the whole time.

But despite all this, it also always serves our own form of natural voyeurism. So, in the first moment since the girls have asked so much, I found it a bit strange at first. I even found it a bit freaky because of the way they asked and the fascination with which they asked the questions. I gave them answers and they drilled deeper and deeper into the subject. That means: Life Impact.

Yes, and I asked myself the question: is this true crime hype normal? Is it normal to find these thoughts of a murder or such a terrible incident so fascinating? Or is it a little freaky? And especially crime scenes and everything that revolves around them can be associated with an abnormality and with a very high disgust factor. When I had to think about it over and over again, I actually made up my mind that it was absolutely fine. I mean, to a certain extent, I think, including myself, we all always have the need to look into a locked door wanting to know what is behind it or what the neighbor might be doing? We also like to talk about other people and that doesn't have to be derogatory. Why is life and especially death and true crime so interesting? Because we are always looking for the "why". And I think, especially with True Crime, you always want to know: who is the perpetrator? Why did it happen? And above all: how did it happen, this abnormality? I think it is fascinating what we humans are able to do. So, this really inconceivable scenario. And then over and over again with the fascination that so many things sometimes overflow into each other and result in extremely exciting True Crime stories in life. And that’s why I would say: True Crime is one thing in our lives that is very much justified, that is very much okay to find fascinating because it just serves a facet of our possibilities, of our thoughts that want to have some form of stimulation.

And I personally experience it every day and can say at this point: I am very happy that I can share these stories with you and bring you a little bit into my world of daily crime scene cleaning and True Crime. True Crime must of course have its limits, mainly all people who are for example investigating, cleaning crime scenes or even providing assistance. And that has to be respected just as much in an accident as in an investigation, a violent crime or a murder case. There are simply certain limits that must not be crossed, and in my opinion shouldn’t be documented in form of photography or videos either. There is an end to everything even in the true crime scene area. So, it was absolutely okay that the girls asked me. It was good that we talked about it. They got all the questions answered. Until then it was okay. I told them at some point that there will be limits. Don't take photos, don't post anything and so on and so on.

And I personally experience it every day and can say at this point: With that in mind, I would like to say goodbye to you and I would be very, very happy if you will be part of a new episode of my podcast Cause of Death the next time. Feel free to subscribe to my podcast Cause of Death on Apple, Spotify and other portals. And yes, I would be happy if you continue to be with us. There are still many exciting stories to tell. Take care, your Marcell.

And I personally experience it every day and can say at this point: That's it for the new episode of Cause of Death. The podcast with Marcell Engel, head of his own special unit and crime scene cleaner at more than 12,000 locations around the world. What can Marcell clean-up for you? At any time. Worldwide. Get in touch or just click through to www.MarcellEngel.com. Empathic. Profound. Honest. Cause of death is guaranteed not to leave you indifferent.

And I personally experience it every day and can say at this point: Be part of it! I am happy.

And I personally experience it every day and can say at this point: Subscribe to the season and you won't be late for any episode.