#012 CAUSE OF DEATH - Dead in the countryhouse

podcast_19594_causeofdeath_the_pdcst_with_marcell_engel_episode_306347_012_causeofdeath_the_dead_in_the_countryhouse-1.mp3

#012 Cause of Death: The dad men in the country houseMurder and manslaughter.

In this episode, it's not the corpse that makes your blood run cold. This time it's the living. The scene of the crime becomes a real challenge for crime scene cleaner Marcell Engel, and not only because the corpse has been lying in its bed for three months. In the end, the only question that remains is: What really counts in life?

In this episode, it's not the corpse that makes your blood run cold. This time it's the living. The scene of the crime becomes a real challenge for crime scene cleaner Marcell Engel, and not only because the corpse has been lying in its bed for three months. In the end, the only question that remains is: Cause of Death. The podcast with Marcell Engler.

In this episode, it's not the corpse that makes your blood run cold. This time it's the living. The scene of the crime becomes a real challenge for crime scene cleaner Marcell Engel, and not only because the corpse has been lying in its bed for three months. In the end, the only question that remains is: 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 to 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 listened to here now:

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

Cause of Death is one of the successful true crime scene podcasts in Germany and my experiences can be listened to here now: Hello, welcome to a new episode of my podcast Cause of Death. This is Marcell, your crime scene cleaner. Glad you're with me today. I brought a story about my surprise in how some people can be with each other. It's sometimes unbelievable how people treat each other. And yes, I will share an experience about that. I can still remember it very, very well. An order came in here at headquarters, and I picked up the phone myself. It was a lady who told me that her father had died. She also told me that she has two brothers and that they are now taking care of all the things that arise after the death of their father such as the funeral. She was hired by her brothers to take care of the funeral site cleaning. She could not give me much information about what had happened and also no relevant facts for me, like how long the corpse was laying there already and so on, in order to be able to plan the amount of work a bit. But despite all that, she told me that they used to get along very well with each other in earlier days. And yes, that the relationship has changed a bit. Because the two brothers have fallen in love again and found new partners. So, the family bond has changed, and it's not as harmonious as it used to be.

So, the siblings used to be very close with each other and got along well, and that was probably no longer quite the case. They told me, however, they all would like to be present at the site where the corpse was found. This is not at all unusual and I offered then, that I bring protective equipment for all of them, which helps to protect against disinfection measures, chemistry or strong odors. And that's when the first unusual thing occurred. She said: Well, the three protective outfits won’t be enough. She would need protection for a total of 14 people. 14 people is a very unusual number of people to be accompanying me on a corpse cleanup. I mean, not unusual for them to want to go in and look for documents and sort everything out, of course. But 14 people, that's extremely unusual. I've never experienced that before.

So, the siblings used to be very close with each other and got along well, and that was probably no longer quite the case. They told me, however, they all would like to be present at the site where the corpse was found. This is not at all unusual and I offered then, that I bring protective equipment for all of them, which helps to protect against disinfection measures, chemistry or strong odors. And that's when the first unusual thing occurred. She said: Cause of Death. The podcast. The crime scene.

So, the siblings used to be very close with each other and got along well, and that was probably no longer quite the case. They told me, however, they all would like to be present at the site where the corpse was found. This is not at all unusual and I offered then, that I bring protective equipment for all of them, which helps to protect against disinfection measures, chemistry or strong odors. And that's when the first unusual thing occurred. She said: We then arranged to meet and the assignment was located in a rural area. I left the highway and had to drive along country roads and typical rural areas. There was then a part through a small forest with curvy roads and a tree avenue. Two kilometers straight ahead you could see the next village and to the left and right were standing huge old trees. And after three quarters of an hour, I arrived on the scene. It was the entrance to a town or the beginning of a town. And there on the right was a large, typical farmhouse, painted white with a lime plaster and two floors. The first floor and second floor with a small balcony attached. Everything nicely decorated. And the next neighbor was 500 meters away, which I as a city dweller found very unusual. Well, then I thought to myself, what could have happened here since its pretty far outside the city. But the situation that awaited me on site was even more unusual than expected. There were three vehicles on site, one bus, and then all of a sudden eight people got out. And yes, I then greeted the client, who came up to me as I stopped on site, and the others more or less ignored me.

No, I would even put it this way: they were hostile towards me. Their looks could have killed, I think I would have fallen over. I'm actually not used to that, because we have quite a grateful job, so people are actually happy when we are on site and solve the problems of the remains of the corpse that are left after death. I found the situation odd, and we weren't even in the apartment yet. I wanted to explain a little bit how the first steps would be. So, I would go in there, get a picture and look at the place where the body was found, and then tell them how the work process should be organized. But then the first argument started already. This was the first argument in the sense that one brother then approached super upset: You're not going in there, and if you do, then I'm coming with you. I answered: That's no problem. You can do everything. And then the other brother also came up to me and that was so completely unusual, because I mean, the order was given. I would come to help but then this kind of behavior happens. I never experienced this. Well, okay, I covered it up with kindness. I just thought that if they are tense and the father has just died, then maybe the mourning process has turned into some kind of aggression, which I never experienced before and also find very unusual for such a case, but whatever.

So, I thought to myself: come on, stay friendly, everything's fine. And that they are pissed off at each other, in a way that neither greeted the other, but just like that: yes, we will go in there now and then split up. And that whole tone and mood, as I said, was terrible. But then I didn't let myself be deterred and asked for the key. I said you can come in with me. And when I opened the apartment door, I asked: do you know anything about it? And that was the brother who must have taken care of the issue with the funeral director. And the funeral director had probably told him that the corpse had been lying in bed on the first floor for a certain period of time or a longer period of time. Well, then I opened up and the man to whom I gave the protective clothing which was the brother, was right behind me. And then a cloud of that very familiar sweetish corpse odor hit me. I still thought: well, it's summer, but it's also a rough smell. So that's a thing. I will probably have a lot of work to do with the odor issue.

So that was to be expected and then somehow, I always classify it a bit. And maggots have crawled around everywhere. Meaning, the floor was tiled white, and you could really see the maggots crawling very clearly everywhere at the edged areas. And yes, I went with him to the first floor, up the stairs, which then led to another long corridor. And this hallway was tiled and in front of the room you could already see the brownish corpse liquid on the floor, which had penetrated under the door gap and had already run 40 to 50 centimeters into the hallway. Then I thought to myself: well, let's see what's in store for you. The corpse was supposed to have been lying in bed. That's how I remembered it. But it's unusual that the liquid from the corpse just runs out to the front. And that’s unusual with such an absorbent element like a carpet. The brother then went back downstairs and I just heard more or less a kind of whistle, as if he had whistled for a dog, and so he probably asked all his relatives, which were probably eight people from his side to come into the house and just split up and look for documents, as I assumed, and other things and valuables.

So that was to be expected and then somehow, I always classify it a bit. And maggots have crawled around everywhere. Meaning, the floor was tiled white, and you could really see the maggots crawling very clearly everywhere at the edged areas. And yes, I went with him to the first floor, up the stairs, which then led to another long corridor. And this hallway was tiled and in front of the room you could already see the brownish corpse liquid on the floor, which had penetrated under the door gap and had already run 40 to 50 centimeters into the hallway. Then I thought to myself: I focused on the discovery of the body, because basically it's none of my business what the people are doing among themselves. For me, the focus is really always on the technical side, on working through the things I'm told. And that was very important and relevant to me. And since I already suspected an unusual amount of work there, I opened the door and found myself in a 35-square-meter bedroom.

All the walls around were completely covered with typical country style furniture with sliding doors, but very chic. And the walls were made of wood with mirror doors, partially decorated and a double bed stood in the room. And when I saw the bed, the sheets were lying underneath it and they were already open and one of them, which was lying on the floor, was really soaked in brown liquid. And accordingly, I had thought to myself: okay, the corpse was probably lying on the bed and was covered. And on the mattress, itself was lying a really thick down pillow, still filled at the edges. And there was such a deep lying trace of the head and in the pillow itself one could recognize scalp remains, to which still hair tufts stuck. And these were gray, about 15- to 20-centimeter-long hairs, which then went over into the mattress.

It was a white bed sheet and there you could see quite clearly that the corpse was lying neatly and clean on the bed, with the arms on the back. So, this whole brown corpse-liquid has really shown itself like a trace or like a drawing on the bed sheet, and on the bed sheet itself was this corpse-liquid. It was like a thick glop. It was mixed with maggots, with hundreds of individual maggots that were moving. And it looked really disgusting, because this whole corpse mush has moved onto the mattress. I just thought: wow, that's going to be a real job. And I have to say that when a mattress gets soaked up with corpse fluid, then of course it's going to be a difficult job when you're alone on site at a place where a corpse is found, because you have to get it down somehow. I have very large foils or very large bags for this, in which I can pack such things. But I still have to get it down somehow. And you can perhaps imagine it like this: so, if you were to jump into the water with full clothing, with a winter jacket and pants, then everything is incredibly full of water and is an insane weight. And I'm certainly not the weakest, but sometimes you can no longer lift up the body alone and certainly not when you really have to drag it through the house and down the stairs.

And accordingly, I thought it might be a good idea if you just asked one of the people. There were two young men there, whom I had seen before at the greeting. And then I thought to myself: you'd have to ask one of the men if he would just help out for a moment. I then went out of the bedroom and opened the door and unfortunately witnessed a very extreme argument. There was shouting among themselves downstairs in the kitchen and in the hallway and I could identify the voices. It was these three siblings who really yelled at each other with accusations, he would have stolen from the father while he was alive. And he then said that he had always loved his father more than anyone else. And that's why he was actually the one who should get more inheritance. And then his wife confirmed this and then the wife of the other brother immediately intervened and so on. And I didn't know what to do, because a) I had to get some more material down anyway and b) I had to solve the problem with the mattress and I cleared my throat but it didn't help.

Then I just got louder and I mean I am not shy and I talk to people. But I just wanted to give them the chance to calm down a bit, because I mean, to argue among themselves so extremely while a stranger is on site is kind of strange. So, that's not my world and accordingly I thought, give them somehow the opportunity to get out of this. But it got much worse, because when I was at the stairs and called out to them, the first vase flew towards the bottom of the stairs. So, I could see from the very top how a vase shattered and I was so hopeful that maybe it was an accident and somehow the thing fell down. But no, that really came from this escalation of the argument. At the time, I thought to myself, "Now they're going completely crazy. There's going to be murder, manslaughter, and in the worst-case scenario, we're going to need reinforcements from headquarters because we need more crime scene cleaners. No. It was really, really bad. It escalated without end and I was still thinking: what are you going to do now? And then I went down to the people and said: watch out, do me a favor, basically, I just want to do my job in peace. What they have among themselves is none of my business, nor do I want to show myself to be partisan in any way. But I have now heard a lot about this dispute here and I would just like us all together to calmly go through with this thing and you can sort it out later. So, the children of the three siblings were still the most reasonable and showed a bit of understanding, tried to influence their parents and the disputants. But that went more fairly than badly and I can't even describe how extremely difficult this atmosphere was. Nonetheless, I still had a body to clean, so I went back up and asked one of the young men if he could maybe help me get rid of this mattress. And then I focused on that technical stuff again. And that was really necessary, because now apart from the fact that I had this corpse mush on the mattress, just as I feared, of course this whole floor area was completely soaked by the liquid. And then I asked the boy, "Tell me, what did Grandpa look like when he was alive? And he said: He was extremely corpulent. And I said, "Well, that explains a bit of the massive loss of fluids, of course. As I said, high summer. And then, step by step, I made a plan for how I would continue to work.

So, I packed up the mattress together with the young man, managed to get it down and got into the next escalation stage of this dispute among the siblings and then I saw how they attacked each other again and again and in a way that I don't think you would normally even treat your enemy. And I mean, they were siblings and you don't necessarily have to understand each other among siblings, although it would be a nice thought, of course, if that worked, because it is family. But yes, often actually the biggest disputes arise among family. The sister and the spouses also really heated things up even more. Of course, everyone wanted to represent the point of view of their partner, the brothers and the mother. And I really didn't want to interfere. But these hostilities became worse and worse. So, what they threw at each other was really verbally extreme: You bitch, you asshole. And words were spoken, and always under the aspect that the father had died and perhaps a mourning process should actually have taken place, and the words love, love, love, love were spoken again and again. So, everyone claimed that he loved the father more than the other, and everyone talked a lot about what he had done for the father during his lifetime and how much more he was entitled to get inheritance. I then went back to the room where the body was found and had to lift the floor out. The floor was really soaked with liquid, and I had removed the bedspread, mattress and sheets in the meantime. This bed frame was also extremely soaked with liquid. I packed it up, cut out the carpet and then took care of this screed covering of the floor. And that unfortunately ran over the edge strip into the insulation layer. So, what then lies under the visible concrete floor is a layer in which the corpse fluid has run in and accordingly this top layer first had to be chiseled out. That was very, very, very loud. And because it was loud and also caused a bit of dust, I then closed the door. And the brother passed the room three times and asked me again and again to leave the room open. Also, a bit unusual, because as I said, I work with chemistry and I work with disinfectants. He wanted it that way and all was well, I thought to myself.

Its fine. And when I was lifting the floor out and closed the door out of reflex, because I really only meant well in terms of noise and dust development, the brother and three other people stormed into this room, tore open the cupboards and - I'll never forget this - the brother said: Watch out for this idiot, that he doesn't steals anything here. There's gold here somewhere. Our old man has hidden gold somewhere. Wow, I thought to myself. To call me something like that, I thought, was extremely harsh and I would have liked to punch him in the face. I'll tell it like it is. But I pulled myself together and pretended that I hadn't heard it, because I also thought to myself that they simply have such an unbelievably negative mood, that we don't want to escalate it, and it's also not my job to clarify this topic in any way. What I forbade myself of course, I then said: What? What is the problem here now? Then he says: Yes, we are here on the search. Our father had gold. And it must all be hidden here somewhere. And then they rummaged around disrespectfully in these things. Like burglars, only much worse.

They ripped open the bags and tore them apart, and dragged everything out of the cupboards. According to the motto: I don't care who cleans it up later. I mean, I've also experienced that similarly once or twice. But this tone of voice and all that was of course extreme. And as we wanted to clarify these situations verbally, or at least for me, because I just wanted to follow up again, the other brother and the sister also entered the room and then it really escalated into a physical altercation, because one accused the other that he had just put something in his pocket, and they had seen that from the edge of the room. They would have just walked by and the brother could open the bag. That's when I thought, "They've really gone off the deep end. It just escalated here and I was about to say that we might cancel the job. But then, they more or less went for each other's throats and got physical. I kept thinking to myself: how can people be like that with each other? I mean, they're brothers and sisters and I thought about it and just shook my head and closed my eyes and thought to myself, you're almost done with the work, do your thing and then the problem is at least eliminated and I've done my job.

They ripped open the bags and tore them apart, and dragged everything out of the cupboards. According to the motto: That's what the living learn from the dead.

But when I think about it like this, I somehow got really mad because I first realized: they're talking about love here, they're talking about who took more care of their father in some way, and as it turned out, the father was lying there for three months. They are at each other's throats here. One strangles the other, everyone loved the dad more and, in the end, he died lonely and miserable and laid in his bed for three months and no one cared. This has nothing to do with great love or affection and closeness. And at some point, I said: Now I need a bit of peace and quiet, please all get out so that I can continue my work. I do my thing. After that I'll leave, write my blog and then you can do whatever you want here. And that's how we did it. So, I did my thing. And I really kept this story in my mind for a long time because I was like, what is this? What is it that has caused these siblings to escalate at this moment? And I then came to the conclusion that it is pure greed. It is greed that one of them could get a bigger piece of the pie or in some way grab more of it - and I say this quite deliberately - than the other. And yes, I really thought to myself at the time, this is disgusting. The father has just died and one actually deals mentally with this topic of coping with grief, especially when one has loved.

And that has not been present with them at all. Nothing of the sort. Quite the opposite, they're still fighting with each other. And yes, I thought to myself, it's a cliché, but greed doesn't make you happy. Greed poisons our thoughts and actually takes away the possibility, in my world of values at least, to think positively. It's such a negative vortex and this negative vortex then pulls you down further and further. And these people, I felt sorry for them at that moment and it also made me kind of angry, because so many other crime scenes came to my mind again. And I asked myself: what is really the meaning of life now? Why are we actually here on this planet? Is it what we have or is it the togetherness that should be important to us in life? Is it the things like family and friendship and love? Or is it about possession? And now? This very family has given me the best example of how I don't think you should do it. And I don't know what's left at the end of the day when we die, what's going on in front of our inner eye, and what we perceive, and what the last film of life is. But I am pretty sure that it is not what we have and what we may have achieved in material things, in life. Rather, I am sure that it is the experiences we lived together with other people, that affect ourselves and the people we have loved and who have accompanied us.

And above all the things of our experience and our actions. And then the thought came to me to focus on what is important to me. Because the having is not the essential, but the doing. And that we can do so many things to reduce this constant needing to have in this society a bit, this higher, faster, further, and perhaps focus a bit more on cultivating friendships, going on trips and experiencing them, learning new things, playing sports, making music, painting. Everything that means doing and not focusing so much on what is having. Because that actually just encourages our greed and poisons our thoughts. Yes, that was The Three-Month Dead Man in the Country House, which got me thinking and I hope you enjoyed the story. And if you want to follow me, subscribe to my podcast, or you can also follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you can find me under Marcell Engel.com and I would love to have you back next time for a new crime scene story on my podcast Cause of Death. Until then: all the best and love. Stay healthy. Ciao, yours Marcell.

And above all the things of our experience and our actions. And then the thought came to me to focus on what is important to me. Because the having is not the essential, but the doing. And that we can do so many things to reduce this constant needing to have in this society a bit, this higher, faster, further, and perhaps focus a bit more on cultivating friendships, going on trips and experiencing them, learning new things, playing sports, making music, painting. Everything that means doing and not focusing so much on what is having. Because that actually just encourages our greed and poisons our thoughts. Yes, that was The Three-Month Dead Man in the Country House, which got me thinking and I hope you enjoyed the story. And if you want to follow me, subscribe to my podcast, or you can also follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you can find me under Marcell Engel.com and I would love to have you back next time for a new crime scene story on my podcast Cause of Death. Until then: 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 12000 locations around the world. What can Marcell clean-up for you? Anytime. Worldwide. Get in touch or just click through to www.MarcellEngel.com. Empathic. Profound. Honest. Cause of death is guaranteed to leave you cold.

And above all the things of our experience and our actions. And then the thought came to me to focus on what is important to me. Because the having is not the essential, but the doing. And that we can do so many things to reduce this constant needing to have in this society a bit, this higher, faster, further, and perhaps focus a bit more on cultivating friendships, going on trips and experiencing them, learning new things, playing sports, making music, painting. Everything that means doing and not focusing so much on what is having. Because that actually just encourages our greed and poisons our thoughts. Yes, that was The Three-Month Dead Man in the Country House, which got me thinking and I hope you enjoyed the story. And if you want to follow me, subscribe to my podcast, or you can also follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you can find me under Marcell Engel.com and I would love to have you back next time for a new crime scene story on my podcast Cause of Death. Until then: Join me! I'm excited.

And above all the things of our experience and our actions. And then the thought came to me to focus on what is important to me. Because the having is not the essential, but the doing. And that we can do so many things to reduce this constant needing to have in this society a bit, this higher, faster, further, and perhaps focus a bit more on cultivating friendships, going on trips and experiencing them, learning new things, playing sports, making music, painting. Everything that means doing and not focusing so much on what is having. Because that actually just encourages our greed and poisons our thoughts. Yes, that was The Three-Month Dead Man in the Country House, which got me thinking and I hope you enjoyed the story. And if you want to follow me, subscribe to my podcast, or you can also follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you can find me under Marcell Engel.com and I would love to have you back next time for a new crime scene story on my podcast Cause of Death. Until then: Subscribe to the season and you won't be late for an episode.