Trial Rewatch | Menendez Brothers: Defense Expert Dr Ann Burgess - Part 1

[Music] hello hello and welcome to crime in court my name is Heather and we are re-watching the 1993 manda's Brothers trial California versus L and Eric Menendez and they are on trial in 1993 for the homicide of their parents which they admit to doing so the real issue at hand is was it self-defense did they feel threatened did they feel like they were in imminent d danger and someone who can really speak to this is our next expert witness for the defense which is Dr an wolbert Burgess um before we get started I wanted to talk a little bit about her because she really deserves an introduction so I randomly found something on Hulu titled Mastermind to think like a k i l r and it is available on Hulu and Disney plus if you have Disney plus I think you know Hulu comes along with that now so um that's at least that's the case for us um so I don't know if that's everyone or if it's a certain package you have to get but our Hulu is coming through um Disney plus all right so regardless of that if you have that I recommend checking it out it is a three-part docu series iies about Dr Anne Burgess herself so you're um I don't know what her testimony is going to be like so I want to give an introduction about her she is a Pioneer in in in True Crime I mean she really in her own right she's like one of the first instrumental women to um really make a difference in the True Crime community so she currently she's 87 years young she doesn't stop she started as a nurse so um I'm going to read a little bit about her from Wikipedia there she is from 1984 she's currently 87 like I said and Still rocking at life all right so Ann burges is an American researcher and nurse whose work has has focused on developing ways to assess and treat trauma in our victims she is a professor at Boston College uh School of Nursing so Burge she's been a professor she's been te she's been a nurse she's been um teaching the FBI and helping them profile uh violent criminals for a very long time so she's um she has a very distinguished career her early life she was born and grew up in Newton Massachusetts as a young woman she said that the only career choices were to become a nurse or teacher she eventually got her Nursing degree at Boston University Burgess is a doctorally prepared board certified psychiatric clinical nurse specialist it was a long sentence and big words and I got them all out okay good so she pioneered assessing and treating trauma in our victims sa victims any victims who succumb to a uh traumatic event such as our um or similar all right so she co- founded one of the first hospital-based crisis counseling programs at Boston City Hospital with Boston College sociologist Linda little Holstrom this is this is all outlined in D detail her early career and stuff uh if it's very interesting if you want to go check that out if you have Hulu all right so together she and Holstrom conducted extensive research regarding 1960s our victims in Boston She interviewed victims and Quantified their experiences so she was a Pioneer in actually trying to figure out in law enforcement they weren't looking at why people did things and how you felt about things so she actually as a nurse and someone who cared about other people she wanted to know how it made people feel and you know what were the repercussions of these traumatic events so um She interviewed victims and Quantified their experiences that this caught the attention of the FBI she began to consult for John Douglas Robert wrestler and other FBI agents in the Behavioral Science unit you might recognize these individuals as the Mind Hunter guys like the original mind Hunter people who termed the this guy is credited with coining the term serial k i l r um so he's uh she worked with these guys the M Hunter guys the ones who began criminal profiling in order to find violent offenders violent criminals um criminals like Ted Bundy Charles Manson Ed keer to name a few uh Burgess was granted access to their early cassette tapes of those individuals and at first she questioned working with the FBI as she had four young children at home and she knew so she's a mom she's a nurse she's a student she's a professor she's she's every she's a consultant she's everything I wonder how old was she at that age I don't know uh okay so Burgess was granted um access to the early cassette tapes of those individuals at CER TD bndy Charles Manson um the importance of the work that she was doing made her agree I was feeling pressured to make the right decision I mean I didn't care much often about the offenders they were k i l e RS the biggest motivation from my perspective was helping the victims so she her line of work and what she was really focused on was helping the victims heal through you know uh psychology through mental health through the mental health profession and um law enforcement is there to catch the guys but they realized that they could both work together and come up with this criminal profiling and it was very effective and um she was very instrumental in that happening so these are some of the individuals that she was she helped um or is credited to help catch some of these well-known uh individ ual so John B simonis John jubert um Brian Dugan these were all like violent child crime offenses and the Menendez brothers who we know she's an expert witness and we're going to hear from her shortly she also helped uh one of the individuals that was suing Bill Cosby back in 2005 so um and actually she was the first one who began the civil lawsuits against Bill Cosby and um multiple people came forth after the me to movement happened for that so um I think that's a good overview of who she is overall Burgess was integral in the development and expansion of the FBI's Behavioral Science unit burges published books and findings so that Behavioral Science could be utilized by law enforcement even in her late 80s Burgess continues to teach and work on different cases she's currently conducting a study on missing and un alived indigenous women she has two sons and two daughters with her husband alen oh this was interesting in the documentary came out that um she her her husband is an aviator and she was also trying to learn how to fly planes at this time she wasn't very good at the Landing I think she said but um but yeah so she tried to learn how to fly planes on in her spare time with all that other stuff going on she's now a grandmother obviously you know um at this point in time you would think that that might be possible so she has a granddaughter named Alex who helps her um Alex loves data she said and so she does a lot of the data collecting and in data for certain cases and things like that so she's doing Mass um people who shoot up schools uh I don't know if you can say that word on YouTube Mass um un alivers through the use of a gun manifestos they're manifestos so that's what she's working at or working on with her granddaughter which I think is cool and um she has tons of Awards She's written books she's huge influence in True Crime and po pop culture today so I give her tons of credit this is what she looks like today I think she's just like I watching the documentary I'm like she is just the cutest lady so um this is her bio on the or her Factory directory for Boston College I thought that the Wikipedia explained her early career a little bit better but I thought this was interesting too um her work continues in the study of Elder AB in nursing homes cyberstalking and internet seex crimes she teaches courses in I would love to take any one of her courses she teaches courses in victimology forensic science forensic mental Health case studies in forensics and forensics science lab so I thought that that was very interesting I wanted to give her her due so without any more sorry I can't see I'm I'm in the dark today I woke up with a really bad headache and I'm just starting to feel a little bit better here so all right um but the light's going to be too much for me so I am going to get us started please hit that like like button before I forget I always forget um please hit the like button and let's listen to Dr an Burgess part one of the manda's brothers trial in 1993 um interesting fact she did not testify in trial 2 remember trial 2 after this they miss trial trial 2 um this the same judge is on the case but he does not allow any talk or evidence of the ab word uh they can't use it as their defense which is their entire defense so I think that that alone should get them another trial but what do I know all right so let's begin you guys your right hand swear that the T you may be the truth the whole truth and nothing the truth will help you pleas take the stand and record Ann Walbert bries your phone pleas a n n w o l b e r t b u r g e SS and do you have a professional title yes I do and what is that I am a clinical specialist in psychiatric mental health nursing and you are a you have a doctorate do you not yes and what is your doctor you're a doctor of what I'm a doctor of nursing science so you're a doctor of nursing yes and is your particular specialty psychiatric nursing yes it is and how long have you been um when did you receive your doctor in 1966 and what is your current profession I am a professor of psychiatric mental health nursing at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and what are your other if there are other professional activities my other professional activities I have a clinical practice in in what in um both child and adult um persons in Psychotherapy okay what what licenses do you hold in order to be a psychotherapist I am certified as a clinical specialist in psychiatric mental health nursing and that is by the American Nurses Association and do you have any state you need a state license for that yes I do and what states do you have licenses in I'm licensed in both Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and what state do you reside in I reside in Massachusetts and you teach in Pennsylvania yes I do okay now we were saying uh you have a clinical practice and you're you're a professor and you have a clinical practice as well what other professional activities do you regularly engage in I also engage in research um Clinical Research in What fields are you engaged in clinical research in the fields of victim trauma uh child sexual abuse child pornography um crime scene analysis and are there any other professional activities that you have time for I also um belong to professional organizations I also hold um positions with uh government agencies what agencies do you hold positions with uh I am chair for a uh study section at National Institutes of Health the AIDS and related research study section six okay now would you tell us about your educational background I have a Bachelor of Science degree from Boston University and I registered nurse at that time I have a master of science degree from the University of Maryland and I have a doctor of nursing science from Boston University and after U did you complete your education all in one block and then start your professional work or did you intersperse it um I pretty much completed it in one block and would you tell us that what the early years of your professional career were what did you do what were you involved with in my early um I always held an academic position and I've always combined my academic position with a private practice and because I'm an academ I do research and I write I publish and I um attend professional conferences and serve on professional boards what was your first academic appointment my first academic appointment was at Boston College School of Nursing in Chestnut Hill Massachusetts and what was what was your um position there my position there uh was first associate professor then I was promoted to professor and I also had some um administrative positions I was chair of the Community Health program in nursing and later I was chair of the graduate program when did this woman sleep I mean seriously I'm getting tired listening to all the wonderful things she's done and comparing um and I'm just tired my life is uh not as fulfilled I guess I would say I mean who is compared to this woman in nursing and what was your next um academic position my next academic position was at Boston University and I went there 1980 uh as director of nursing research now Boston University is a different institution than Boston College isn't it yes it is one is BC One is BU that's right okay and I'm sorry to interrupt you but you were what at Boston University um I was both director of nursing research and then I was interim dean of the School of Nursing at Boston University and what was your next uh academic uh either distinction or position in 1983 I uh accepted a position at the University of Pennsylvania as the ven American professor of psychiatric mental health nursing and you said currently you are the head of the psychiatric Health nursing division at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing yes I am chair of the division what do um and I take it in that you are educating uh teaching uh people to become psychiatric nurses yes I'm responsible for that area of nursing yeah describe for the juries if you would what is it a psychiatric nurse does the psychiatric nurse uh diagnoses and treats actual and potential mental health problems primarily is concerned with the care of persons who have U mental problems mental disorders now that's a different kind of track isn't it to get to be a therapist for example than becoming a psychologist and doing it that way yes it is what is the main distinction in the training between being a someone with a bachelor's degree in nursing and a specialty in psychiatric nursing versus someone who has a bachelor's degree in Psychology and a and and just graduate degrees in Psychology well in nursing we have our own body of knowledge and at the undergraduate level we prepare students to be what we call General Practitioners so that they can practice in a general way in AET and that's all nursing at the Master's level is when we begin to specialize and that is when a student would part select a particular area um there generally about five or six major areas is in nursing and then at the doctoral level is where the research is done and it pretty much follows the Fairly standard um PhD doctor of nursing science um program of studies but the focus of course would be in nursing in our own field now someone with that kind of a background who obtains a doctorate in psychiatric nursing do they have um medical information medical training that ordinary psychologists would not ordinarily have yes we have a strong biomedical background that our students must be able to master for a beginning level practice now you've indicated you've always been you've always held an academic position and you've always been involved in research that cor could you describe for the juries what your first focus of research was my first focus of research was when I was at Boston College and this actually followed my um joining with several other professors on campus to have an interdisciplinary seminar for our graduate students in the healthcare system and at the close of that semester's uh seminar a colleague from that seminar associ olist Linda Holstrom approached me to talk about a research project that she wanted to undertake and this was actually the first time that I began a course of of research and it was on the study of rape victims now what year was it that you started this research on rape victims this started it was a one-ear study between 1972 and 1973 now are you familiar Dr burges with the term rape trauma syndrome yes I am and where did that term come from that was a term that Linda holster and I coined in one of our first major Publications from our sample and that was a actually the title of a paper that was published in the American Journal of psychiatry in 1974 and has that uh concept that syndrome that you and Linda hrum Define become accept accepted throughout both the law enforcement psychological and psychiatric Community sorry about that I had to take a call real quick so anyways here we go yes it has been accepted by those communities onforce concept that syndrome that you and Linda Holstrom defined become accept accepted throughout both the law enforcement and psychological and psychiatric Community yes it has been accepted by those communities now what um could you describe for the areas of your research U following this first project on rape victims actually the title of a paper that was published in the American Journal of psychiatry in 1974 and has that uh concept that syndrome that you and Linda holr defin become accept accepted throughout both the law enforcement psychological and psychiatric Community yes it has been accepted by those communities now what um C could you describe for us the areas of your research U following first project on rape victims the area of research uh then expanded from the adult victims to Child and Adolescent victims of sexual victimization and for how many years were you engaged in research um dealing with sexual victimization of children this was about for the first uh four or five years that was the primary area it did expand into other areas but that was the primary area and did you as a consequence of your research and writing in this area gain recognition as Nationwide as an expert in child sexual abuse yes I did and as a result of that was were you contacted at some point by the Federal Bureau of Investigation yes I was and when were you contacted by the FBI I believe it was in 1976 77 about that time period possibly even 75 and what was the basis what was the reason for the contact by the FBI why did they contact you at at that particular time the FBI Academy that's based in quano uh had the responsibility of training both their own agents but also law enforcement and they had received um I guess a mandate that they needed to train in the area of rape and sexual assault in the area of rape and sexual assault in what sense for what purpose in terms of the investigative aspect because that's their um specialty but they needed information on the victim uh for them to be able to develop their training materials they needed information about victims of rape and sexual assault correct in order to be able to investigate those kinds of cases that's correct and were you at that time recognized as an expert in victimology at that time yes well we were certainly publishing in the area I'm not sure at that particular time because the we were just Linda Homer and I were getting our Publications out and they they do need a period of time in the journals to gain acceptance are you now recognized as as an expert in victimology yes what is victimology victimology is a study of the victim in which um all aspects as best U research is able to do brings to bear on that particular topic for what purpose why do you want to know about victims the victims tell an important or a very key um part of any investigation if you're doing it from the investigative standpoint and certainly from a clinical standpoint they need treatment but from investigation that is your primary source very often of information and so that is that is one of their first starting points in in law enforcement and what is it that victimology that the study of victims is is attempting to do for law enforcement what is the kind of of information you're trying to give law enforcement that about victims that can Aid law enforcement in their investigation of these kinds of crimes well the task of law enforcement is to find a suspect it's suspect apprehension is what law enforcement is um primarily engaged in and once that phase is completed then that generally starts the um Criminal Justice System process okay but what is it about victimology that does does it assist in suspect apprehension does it also assist in presenting the case and knowing how to deal with victims and knowing how to assess their information that kind of thing oh yes and and what the training is is how to interview um how to take information how to get the very best that you can from a victim and of course that is what we would try to help them with they need to understand the state that the victim is in at the time they see the victim and know how to perhaps reduce some stress to get information from the victim and is there also um based on your research and others in the field are there also guidelines for interviewing victims in these kinds of cases so that you're not suggesting things to them so that you're getting as accurate and credible uh information can absolutely are there also based on your research and others research um indicia that you're training law enforcement in of when uh people who claim to be victims of these crimes are indeed likely to be telling the truth versus perhaps not yes all of those things yes and are all of those things things that you have studied and researched and are considered an expert in yes okay so after this contact by the FBI did you begin an affiliation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation yes the Training Division at at the Academy in quano and what was it that you were doing for them again she trained the FBI back in the 7s I mean this woman is incredible one of the things it was a joint venture actually in terms of helping them with the what is called the data reduction they were doing interviews with criminals that they would be interviewing and trying to amass a certain amount of information and that's precisely what um I and some colleagues began to assist them in and so that was really the research part and consultation so you were interviewing what's also known as perpetrators is that correct the agents were interviewing them we were assisting them with the data analysis part okay to break that down agents are interviewing perpetrators of sex crimes some were sex crimes of sex crimes yes at the time I mean with with regard to your involvement and at that time was it and you were trying to assess the data that the agents were receiving from the perpetrators well essentially we devised a protocol that the agents then the two parts of of an interview they would do their regular interview and then they would complete the protocol based on not only the interview but um they are very thorough in their work and they do not just you know they would look at all kinds of Records to corroborate all kinds of things and so that's what was we helped them with to um the protocol what was the purpose of the protocol what was the type of information that was being sought from the perpetrators well we were looking for patterns and um hopefully for some predictors that would then assist law enforcement in their suspect apprehension that's always the goal if you will of law enforcement so you were trying to find similar patterns um among perpetrators of these kinds of crimes to assist law enforcement in apprehending other perpetrators other crimes yes well they would take the sample that we had and then you would look at that from a statistical standpoint to see if that had application to other crimes and did there appear to be patterns of behavior patterns of perhaps even psychological makeup among sex crime offenders can you ask that question yes that is essentially true yes now was this the only um assistance you provided to the FBI with respect to developing protocols and patterns for apprehending suspects or were there some other areas you got involved in with them as well oh yes we got involved with um over the past 15 years we've been involved in a number of studies um and some of which have been funded by the uh Department of Justice that have looked at other things sorry that have looked at other aspects other aspects of what of investigative um work so you're still involved uh with the FBI is that correct yes I am now for the past 10 years have you been involved in a particular set of studies or projects with the FBI yes I have and what is the in that uh docu series that I watched which is current it just um the date is 2024 so it came out this year I'm not exactly sure when it came out um but I know it says this year's uh date so uh that's interesting that um well I wanted to point out because they're like you still work with the FBI well she actually still has over a dozen Active cases as she's like still a grandma in her 80s and doing it all like she and and she was still a professor and working on multiple cases at the same time so this woman has no quit the what is that study called or what is it about um this the overall study is called the crime classification project of which there are a number of parts to that okay what part have you been affiliated with uh the part that uh originally started was what was called the crime scene analysis um and that is part of what's called profiling process which is okay a profiling process of who profiling process of a unnamed subject okay the FBI was trying to develop profiles uh in order to help them apprehend unknown suspects profile indicators right not profiles in terms of any identified person but just characteristics if you will of um unknown subjects and one of the ways they were trying to uh develop that was by analyzing crime scenes that is correct and what was your involvement in the crime scene analysis uh portion of the crime classification project my role was in the analysis of the information that they brought from the interviews that they had with the convicted um offenders but that's all right but what involvement did you have in the process of examining crime scenes in order to make determinations about potential perpetrators okay well one of the things was to actually look at how they examine crime scenes the types of uh Records photographs information forensics the massive amount of information that they took and then how they looked at that and and essentially how they thought their process of thinking in coming to an an investigative decision if you will about the material that they had seen and were you involved uh with the FBI agents in refining and defining the methods by which or the ways in which they would classify crime scenes in order to work out these characteristics of potential offenders yes I was and was one of the areas in which the FBI was classifying crime scenes the area of homicides where people are killed that is yes it was and how long has this particular Pro um project been going on well that project began in 1980 with a funded study and were you you were involved with it then is that correct I was principal principal investigator on that project and over the course of work on that uh project uh did the FBI and those of you who were Consulting with this project come with uh classifications of homicides by crime scene yes and how many different classifications of homicides by crime scene are there basically two three excuse me three three and what are the three classifications one is the organized one is the disorganized and there is a third category that has been added that's called a mixed crime scene now are there did they all are there 32 kinds of homicide according to the FBI guidelines this is one yes the most recent classification of homicide identifies I think it's 32 categories within the homicide section okay and is there a category for what's known as domestic homicide yes there is and what does domestic homicide mean domestic homicide means where there is a some type of relationship between the U victim and the offender generally must be a uh either a significant partner or a um uh family member and are there um guidelines for strike that in analyzing a crime scene are there indish or indicators things that under this method of crime scene analysis point to to domestic homicide versus some other kind yes there are and I take it there are things that point to non-domestic homicide as well yes okay now in this particular case Dr Burgess were you asked to in effect apply these guidelines from this FBI CL crime classification uh methodology to the crime scene in this case yes I was and what um information or objects were you asked to review in order to make that kind of analysis the information included all crime scene photographs uh the forensic reports the uh medical examiner reports the police reports anything that pertain to information relating to the crime scene did you also read the testimony of the coron or medical examiner in this trial yes I did did you read the testimony of the investigating officer detective Zer yes I did and Bas and you said you looked at all the crime scene photographs yes I did did you also look at the autopsy photographs yes I did and based on your review of that material were you able to make some classifications of this crime scene yes I did first of all with respect to type of homicide were there indicators here that pointed to a particular type of the 32 types under the FBI classification system yes and what particular type of homicide did the crime scene analysis indicate a domestic killing and why did the analysis of the crime scene indicate a domestic killing uh there's no force entry uh there was no um um movement the bodies were U not touched they were left as they what is called the death scene was the same as the crime scene they were not moved uh there was no uh evidence of material being taken from house no theft right no theft um not even the doors to the house there was no break in there and there appeared to be no break in through Gates so that tends to indicate what that tends to indicate that there is a the unknown relationship that um these were not strangers well does it tend to show that it's a family member or close relationship or could it also show an acquaintance or well initially you would um you would look at all of those factors but essentially that there was no no Breakin or and they where the bodies were essentially uh certainly suggested that it was domestic rather than they had expected you know had let somebody in well if they had let somebody in they certainly weren't shot right upon that that point is saying that they're in an interior room of the house yes they were now in addition to making a determination in crime scene analysis of the type of homicide uh I believe you started to tell us before that there are certain that there are three basic classifications for the crime scene itself that correct and you said they were number one was disorganized that is correct and number two was organized that is correct and number three was mixed right they should be the other way it should be mixed should be in the middle okay disorganized mixed and organized I'll do with that one okay now what is the purpose if you will of classifying a crime scene as either organized or disorganized it speaks to the amount of planning that can be determined from just looking at the crime scene and why would the FBI or any law enforcement agency for example want to what investigative purpose does it serve to analyze a crime scene to see if there has been planning or no planning well was generally going to um alert or or tell the investigating officer where to focus their investigation what type of person uh what relationship Etc to begin to look for and are there certain crime scenes that tell a great deal about the actual person the if not the actual identity personality characteristics of the perpetrator yes in fact that's essentially what the FBI describ it as is that they Tred to read personality if you will of what has happened in the crime scene was the earliest part of this study focusing on serial sexual killings yes it was and was it characteristic of many of those killings that there were sort of repetitive since they were serial killings there more than one but I mean sort of ritualistic features yes there was so with respect to those kinds of crime scenes can a great deal be learned from the psychology of if you will of the perpetrator oh yes and don't forget the other part of the study was they had done the interviews with these persons with with people who had been convicted of such yes and they talked about their crime so it wasn't just the crime scene but it was able to get the um the offenders did talk at length and so as a as a result of the study did the FBI develop um a way of looking at a crime scene to know when when certain kinds of planning is going on as reflected by what they wind up with yes now with respect to a disorganized crime scene what does that say what how does that fit into the notion of planning or no planning disorganization generally impli low amount of planning if any if any correct and I take it an organized crime scene shows very uh very few Clues uh very elaborate planning um certainly to the point where there's no apprehension of suspect and when you talk about uh planning is it viewed from a perspective of just whether you could tell how much thinking went in or is it viewed from the perspective of if you will detection it is from detection as a major part yeah would you explain just what what that means I mean how to the detection aspect of a suspect this is what was looked at in terms of of the study of how quickly the person was apprehended more likely than not on the disorganized size that um the suspect was almost immediately apprehended see that's the way the statistics came in this is by placing these um um into into the into the crime scene patterns and then to see how fast it was suspect apprehension so does the but but my question is does the planning component have to do with planning to avoid detection oh yes yes that's the intent of the offender to avoid detection yes okay I mean that's the kind of planning that they're looking at yes it's not like planning to you know inflict a particular injury or planning to leave a pink scarf under a radiator it's it's planning to to avoid detection that they're FR that right yes so if you find a disorganized crime scene then what you're finding is low or no amount of planning to avoid detection that be if there yes mhm and in applying uh these guidelines and analytical um methods to the crime scene here uh did you reach a conclusion about what kind of crime scene this was yes I did and what was that um and I will preface it that there are generally indic that may be indicators of both organized and disorganized but generally in this crime scene I saw more evidence of disorganization and did that indicate to you a lack of planning to avoid detection detction objection sustain the an is it does it appear to be a disorganized crime scene because you cannot not see any or any significant evidence of planning to avoid detection yes now what was under the FBI's criteria what was disorganized about this crime scene okay location choice of of weapon give me list I'll ask you to do okay location choice of weapon injuries to victims um emotionality indicators of emotionality uh where the actual injuries were okay is there also a concept that's applied in crime scene analysis called staging or lack of staging yes there is is that part of the analysis of whether it's a disorganized crime scene or is that another type of indicator no it is an indicator that is also considered staging yes and did you find staging or lack of staging in your analysis of this crime scene lack of staging and is that an indicator of disorganized crime scene yes it is okay so we've got six factors now are there any others that you determin appointing to a disorganized crime scene no I think no now was there a factor pointing towards organized that showed some pre-thought yes and what was the organized Factor U one organized Factor was that there were no uh shells found okay at the crime scene and was there any other organized factor that you could tell just by looking at the no that was the main factor they okay now let's talk about each of these factors of this organization starting with location what is it about the location that points to disorganized or no significant evidence of planning to avoid detection there was one other Factor on the organized the lack of weapon I'm sorry lack of weapon and uh no shells okay so lack of weapons left at the scene you mean yes okay we'll get to those as well let's start just with what is it about the location what do you mean by location okay location is where actually the crime Cur and what is the location here location here is interior of a home that's in a residential area and a fairly uh fairly residential area in other words all the houses around and it is inside okay and what appears to be um lacking in plan for escaping detection about that site well one of the factors had to you have to also add the type of weapon that was used I'd like to combine that at that point to look at those two the type of weapon it was known was a a shotgun now you're familiar are you not based on your work with the FBI and how shotguns operate yes you're familiar with other weapons as well based on that work yes I am in fact have you been to crime scenes and actually done this analysis on site yes I have all right so then we have a combination then of shotguns in a residential area being used in an interior room yes okay and maybe it's obvious but what is it about that that he speaks no significant evidence of planning to avoid detection okay one of the factors is that this is a very loud um type of weapon to be used and the number of shells that were fired there was a a large number of shells fired and so that the noise certainly was a key factor and when you do your crime scene analysis uh the initial analysis has to do solely with what the actual scene is life is that right that's right uh but does the FBI and do you in working with them upgrade the analysis as more and more information comes in yes you do and are you aware therefore that in this case both in in court testimony and police interviews uh a fairly large number of neighbors heard this yes I am aware of that and does that validate the initial analysis that using a shotgun in a residential neighborhood in the interior of the house is going going to be heard yes in fact it was heard cuz there were neighbors that heard it but they didn't think that it was an actual gunfire they thought it was like fireworks or something else in the neighborhood they didn't um think it was actual real gun okay now the you didn't know anything by the way and and you haven't been given any information have you about the average response time of the Beverly Hills Police Department to uh gunshots in their little city no I don't have that information and did you have the information that the Beverly Hills Police Department is located less than a mile from this particular crime scene no I did not know that okay now you said the third Factor here pointing towards or leading to the characterization as disorganized was the injuries to the victims and what do you mean by that injuries to victim is that you look at where on the body um in a gun uh shooting Pace where where the injuries are and not only where they are on the body but the number and why does that tell you something about organization versus or how does that tell you something about organization versus disorganization okay the more organized uh type of person who shoots is going to use the minimum amount of shots to accomplish the task and why is that why you using a minimum amount if you're more organized preferable um because for several reasons one they thought about it they planned it out they want to do it as fast as they can if you will and avoid detection so to get out of the area fast okay and you said there was another um the well it's the type also the type of weapon that's chosen to accomplish the task okay when you talk about um that a more organized a planned a more planned shooting would use fewer shot you put that in terms of getting out as fast as can wouldn't is noise obviously also a factor oh yes noise is a factor and the location that the uh the site if you will of the shot to again accomplish the task of the body in your analysis here based on the uh the photographs and the autopsy report and the testimony um did you determine that this was an unnecessarily large number of shots okay did you determine that the number of shots here uh bespoke a disorganized crime scene yes and you said that there were was also an aspect of um disorganization based on evidence of emotionality in this crime scene could you tell us what that means yes that the the term is sometimes used Overkill that there is a large more shots are fired than is necessary to accomplish the task and this was the situation in this crime scene that a large number far more shots were fired than necessary so if and that indicates that there is emotion involved yes that generally points to what's called a high degree of emotion now are there any indications based on any of the crime scene information as to what emotion might have been involved speculation you're on that's just a foundational question foundation for right um in the analysis that the that in these guidelines for analysis that have been developed by the FBI are their criteria concerning where the wounds are inflicted on victims that based on all of the research indicate particular Attitudes by the perpetrator towards the victim yes and you indicated that um one of the indicators here of this organization was where the injuries were yes is that tied to the emotionality issue yes okay and what is the research shown that the FBI has conducted about um the location of injuries and the attitude or emotional state if you will of the perpetrator yes well the research looks at for example one site one particular area is uh focused on uh that indicates a lot of uh could be anger or rage for example in sexual homicide parts of the body are focused upon that speak to the emotion the person has towards towards the sexual parts okay so in in one of the analysis if there's if it appears that a particular part of the body has been singled out such as the sexual parts of the body and sexual crimes that Bes speaks anger towards the victim uh towards right it speaks about their focus on those particular parts and other areas face often times face there is an enormous amount of of injury to the face it doesn't have to be a gunshot but it can be um other beating and so forth so that the sight of the injury uh whether it be by hand or by gun is is important uh it's called either de personalization as a way to um read the injury part of the uh victim okay now when you said to the to the face you're talking about where most of the trauma is focused on one part yes okay now in this particular case um what analysis did you come up with concerning where the injuries were on uh these two decedents U my analysis that the injuries were random if you will they were to all parts of the body there was not one area singled out um did you determine that there were even injuries to parts of the body that would not be debilitating I mean to parts of the the body that made no difference with respect to either bringing about a fatal response or debilitating the victim what conclusion based on this analysis could be drawn or what what could be posited if you will about the fact that the injuries here were appeared to be random and were all to all parts of the body well that would speak to a more pervasive emotion than just one emotion such as anger or rage or what um but would speak to a wider uh aspect um such as such as fear now you said that there was um a concept called staging yes I did and you indicated you found lack of staging here now what is it that you that you saw or learned about about this crime scene that led you to that conclusion first of all why don't you explain for us what staging means staging means that the offender has done something to the crime scene to make it look like another crime occurred or in some way to cover up or to lead investigators into another Direction okay now is that like affirmatively putting things or doing things to make it look like somebody unlike the offender did the crime yes things can be actually added and brought in or things can be removed such as in uh removing items U burglar Rising um to make it look like that that was the primary intent okay now you said though that there were no shells found here so something and obviously you know about shotguns they do these things fly out of them they do hit the ground right so is the removal of the shells here staging or is that something else no that wouldn't necessarily be called staging because it's uh it is removing um it's related to the weapon and removing the weapon but not in the sense that it's trying to make it look like another type of crime it's quite clear what the crime was or the the killings were well it also doesn't indicate any right that you indicated one example of staging would be for example to make it look like the place was burglarized when in fact it was a domestic crime that's correct or to move the bodies to make it look like there was some maybe potential for ransom or something like that when it was just a domestic crime that's correct so you didn't see any evidence of that staging no I did not now you aware of the fact based on a testimony and police reports that there actually were uh two rifles in the house at the time of the shooting yes I'm aware of that would it be considered staging if for example those rifles had been loaded by the shooters and placed in that family room that would be one indicator or suggest one indicator yes take our recess until 1:30 ladies and gentlemen we'll resume at 1:30 please don't and what does that you speak concerning any of these indicators of disorganization in terms of targeting or focusing in on a particular uh site it shows that there was much more of a random aspect to the shooting was not clearly planned into one area okay now in analyzing a crime scene for planning purposes do you look at it with a view to different stages planning stages yes and what are the different planning stages there are three planning stages one is where you try to get What's called the pre- crime before the crime pre pre crime planning planning pre- crime planning okay second would be during the crime okay now if you talk about planning during the crime that means taking additional action planning additional action Yes actually how how how it uh is enacted how the crime is enacted okay so during the crime how it's enacted be speaks planning at that level or planning before the crime even began it may include both but U primarily what happens during that precise time okay and what's the third stage and then the third is the post immediate post crime behavior for planning all right now you have testified that there were two indicators um of planning at some point in the fact that no shells were found which means somebody took the time to pick them up and the weapons were not left behind meaning they were removed from the scene that's true now do those two facts shells being picked up and weapons removed do those speak to pre-crime planning during crime planning or post crime planning I speak to post crime planning now there is evidence in this case that is not evidence from the crime scene concerning reloading okay yes um It's Not Your Role here to comment on all the evidence in this case decide whether this was or was not a planned crime is it that's true you're here to analyze a crime scene yes okay I want to ask you one hypothetical question though based on the number of uh injuries inflicted and the location of the injuries and the significance of those injuries from a mortality standpoint as testified to by the coroner okay yes and I want to give you this hypothetical question if hypothetically there is one reloaded shot and it is to the left side of M Mrs mendez's face okay yes um in your opinion was that more evidence of Overkill yes it was was that shot based on your medical background and you're reading the testimony here necessary in any way to affect the death of that of Mrs Menendez no it was not necessary uh you're familiar with the Cornus testimony that she had received numerous other fatal wounds that is correct now is is there another way of uh characterizing a crime scene apart from disorganized and organized is there a way of characterizing in terms of risk of detection yes and did you make that analysis with respect to this crime scene yes I did and how would you characterize this crime scene with respect to risk of detection characterize it as high risk of detection now you've indicated why don't you tell us what the factors are that lead you to characterize this as high risk of detection I take it to the person who did the shooting okay one of the indicators of detection would be uh getting evidence on one's person and given the location type of weapon uh there was a high uh probability that um some of the blood from the close- range firing of multiple shots would have in some way gotten on to the person or persons uh the second is of course the location the small area in which this crime occurred and the noise from the multiple guns and that it was in August at a time when uh doors um would be open in terms of the noise being heard outside of that immediate area now in another respect let's assume Hy now you can't tell when you analyze a crime scene I take it how well right that in looking at this crime scene without when you analyze this crime scene you put out of your head anything you knew about who was ultimately arrested and what the rest of the facts of the case were is that correct and could you tell just by a pure analysis of the physical evidence of the crime scene whether there was one shooter or two Shooters no now later on of course you know that both Eric and La were arrested and now you know of course that both Eric and La have testified that they were the shooters in this crime scene yes from the perspective then of two people shooting in this close space with shotguns was there an additional element of risk not of detection but of another kind of risk in this crime scene in in terms of yes in terms of um first all reloading was one issue and the second of um getting the evidence on them um I'm talking about risk in a small space with two people shooting shotguns off well the noise certainly is going to be double the noise in terms of and at fast rapid if you will shooting that very loud how about the risk of shooting each other absolutely knowing that they're absolutely so does the fact that two people would be involved in shooting a large number of rounds from shotguns uh loaded mainly with size four Buckshot in a relative small space you speak careful thoughtful planning no does not now in addition to the risk of um evidence such as blood or from from the actual shooting are you familiar with um You' indicated you're familiar with shotguns you're familiar with the forensic evidence that guns produce are you not yes I am you're familiar with gunshot residue testing for example yes I am and firing a large number of rounds from a shotgun does that produce a fairly large quantity of gunshot residents yes it does so if there is evidence that um persons fired this kind of gun and there's no evidence that they wore anything protective to keep the residue off them does that add to the highrisk nature of this crime scene yes now in picking up the shells okay in analyzing this crime scene when you looked at it and realized that the shooter had or Shooters had picked up the shells um although that bespeaks some post crime planning does it increase risk of detection post crime yes it does and in what in what way because the evidence can be found it depends where the evidence goes where where it is ultimately put so there is a transportation period or a need then to try to dispose of something that's correct and if it's the person who did the shooting who's trying to do that that person is running around with evidence that's correct now in these studies of uh particularly serial killers people who have killed multiple times where you see I guess the highest highest level of organization and planning that's correct yes uh when people like that are planning crimes do they plan for these eventualities like you'll have to get rid of this you'll have to get rid of that unless you do it this way or unless you do it that way over yes I do so is the fact that you then take evidence and leave it in a place and call the police and bring them to that place a non-planned non-thought out type of activity yes it is now you're aware in this case are you not that um it was Eric and ly who called the police the defendant who called the police to the scene I'm aware of that and you're aware are you not that prior to ever searching Eric mendez's car the police allowed Eric and L Menendez to go to that car and they removed material from it I'm aware of that does the need to do that be speak pre-crime planning no it does not is there um strike that with disorganized crime scenes yes is there a pattern to the apprehension of the perpetrators yes there is and what is that pattern irrelevant with dis with highly disorganized crime scenes and in domestic VI domestic type crimes okay yes uh does the FBI train both their own agents and other law enforcement uh to look for the perpetrator right there at the scene in this case were the shooters right there at the scene when the police came yes they were are disorganized crime scene creators ordinarily caught more quickly than organized crime scene creators isn't the whole point of this crime scene analysis to assist the police in the Swift apprehension of perpetrators yes it is and is indeed also standard investigative practice and taught as part of this crime scene classification uh that the person who calls in at a scene of a domestic crime is usually the prime suspect I mean she's an expert in this in profiling people so why wouldn't they be able to answer this question it is uh a question that I have she should be able to answer stuff like this I would think even though I mean I get the objection like it's potentially a speculation but she's an expert in this so these are the things that she knows the crime scene has a lot to say about the perpetrators now you're aware are not um Dr burges that there's evidence in this case that um Eric and L Menendez purchased the weapons used some days before the shooting yes I'm aware of that now is that activity any part of crime scene analysis or crime scene classification it may be [Music] yes does the fact that the weapons used in a disorganized crime scene were purchased days before change the analysis that the crime scene was still disorganized with respect to planning to avoid detection detection rephrase the question okay your opinion is that in applying these FBI guidelines of analysis that this crime scene be speaks lack of pre- crime planning that is correct all right does the fact that the shotguns that were used were bought 3 days before change that no it does not so even though they bought the shotguns a couple days before that doesn't necessarily show that it was pre-planned in the sense that they were organized and had a clear thought out plan to do this I think it was as a means to protect themselves and they had known that you know the weak building up I think we I hope we get more information about it because the weak building up to the homicides was uh very contentious between Jose and the boys this is when Jose tells Eric you're not going away to school I want you home here during the week you're not going you know you're not going to stay in the dorms and this like broke him spir like broke Eric's spirit cuz that was him thinking like I finally get away from this guy and then this happened so that was one of the things plus Eric told Jose about or told um Lyall about it and Lyle um obviously wants to protect his brother and was um mad he was mad about it so that also contributed to the whole you know they uh Jose threatened to do whatever it takes to keep the family secret secret so and threatening to you know that meant he was threatening their lives and um so again I still think that and and she thinks it wasn't planned just because they bought the shotguns it wasn't necessarily A pre-planned this is how we're going to do it type of thing it was still chaotic disorganized and done out of fear that's what the crime scene is telling us so it's a big distinction okay now I'm going to change the subject if I might after this 15-year project with the FBI um did you engage in other research yes yes I did actually during the same 15 years you were doing other things as well were you not yes I was and were you still uh were you involved in a clinical practice as well as your teaching yes I was and did you during uh those same years publish uh articles and other writings concerning U abused children sexually molested children victims of sexual assault yes I did and did that research in the clinical practice in your clinical practice you treat sexually abused persons do you know yes I do did that lead you to another area of research apart from the this crime scene analysis and victimology yes it did and what area of research did that work lead you to the area of research led to the understanding of the brain and its functioning and this came about because in our clinical work my colleague Carol Hartman and I noticed how persistent uh symptoms were that victims had and despite our efforts to try to extinguish some of those symptoms uh we were not having um a great deal of success and so we looked for information that could help us to better understand it if we could better understand it that would give us some uh ideas of where to point our directions for treatment he let me interrupt you for minutes we can get some definition here of some terms you've used you said in treating your patients in your clinical practice these were the these were victims of yes of of Crime Victims or trauma victims when you talk about trauma victims do sexually molested uh children and other abused children fit within that category of trauma victims yes I do do Vietnam War veterans fit within that category of trauma victims yes I do do children who have observed Wars or violence in the home fit within that category of trauma victims yes they do are people who are involved um not just victims of crime but victims of accident where they're badly hurt can they be trauma victims yes they may be all right and does your practice include people from all those categories of trauma victims yes they do now you said there were persistent symptoms um were these symptoms related to the trauma yes they were and you said you couldn't reach them in therapy what do you mean by that what do you mean you couldn't reach these symptoms in therapy uh using traditional therapy which is uh talking therapy Psychotherapy you couldn't get rid of the symptoms is that what you mean yes I mean we could do a lot of talking but the intrusive thoughts and the images were still very present in the victims the patient that was my question what were the symptoms that were proving so resistant to therapy the recurring thoughts of what had happened and it would be both the visual images that they had it would be wherever it it uh from a sensory standpoint they might see things they might hear things they may smell things uh they would get a reexperiencing of the uh traumatic event and is this an area that's um been that'd be awful to live through such a traumatic event and then to constantly be reminded of it and not be able to escape it because your brain just won't shut it off it's crazy that I mean this this stuff is fascinating to me I hope you guys are enjoying this as much as I am subject to a fair amount of research the fact that traum traumatized people tend to re-experience aspects of the trauma yes is this something that that in fact began as Research into uh what used to be called shell shock and the experience of soldiers in war yes it is all right so you wanted to get more information to understand why you couldn't help these patients stop having these plays if you will of the trauma yes and where did you look to get that information we began reviewing the information that was available in the latest brain research the way the Mind worked um if you will the cognitive Sciences the brain research uh stress response Theory and information processing theory was there some basic fund of knowledge about why trauma was producing this replay effect yes there was some basic information on that could you give us some of that information as I mean not dumb down but simple enough that we can get it without having to spend three or four hours listening to okay okay if you could okay um basically it is the we identifi the area where much of this processing problem occurred what do you mean by processing proper okay information comes into a person's mind uh via neurons that are housed in the brain they they if you will like little neural mappings that we have in our brains and there are neurotransmitters that carry information from one point to another and this is basically what comprises how people think and organize their um their thinking okay so information comes in it follows some kind of little map for that kind of information that's right there are various areas in the brain if you will that get stimulated depending on what kind of information is coming in okay and the area that houses if you will the most important part of the brain for all of this is what's called the lyic system and this lyic system is a group of brain regions there are actually three very important parts of this Olympic system I can say what they are if you want I'm going to give you the diagram please yeah all right ladies and gentlemen we're going to have a little bit of further discussion the lawyers and I and the witness so we'll give you a break here until 2:30 don't discuss the matter among yourselves with anyone else and we'll resume at 2:30 just because she doesn't know biology doesn't mean we have not bicker here um there is an objection as to the foundation and as to the nature of the research and whether or not uh the research itself is uh accepted as um reliable information in the medical community and uh the results of that research and um so there's no jury present and this is kind of uh like a way for the attorneys to to parse out what this testimony is going to be and if she's qualified to give it so the specific um conclusions that have been drawn from that are the issues here well with all due respect I don't believe the people are entitled to a complete run through with this witness's testimony and our understanding is keelly fry even if it were still the law and I don't believe it still is does not apply to basic medical research which people versus Kelly is a law in the state of California and that's as far as I know the rule and Mr B wants to pop up and say something otherwise but um uh with all due respect you're going to have to lay a foundation okay Dr B do you teach on that point because of M Focus what whatever it is the OB here the court make reference to the McDonald case at sidebar yes and I analized what the offer proof is to some extent to uh the type of evidence introduced in uh people versus McDonald or that uh was not introduced in people versus McDonald that the Supreme Court said should have been yes and this is a quote from people versus McDonald where the court says we have never applied to Kelly fry rule Expert Medical testimony even when even when witness is a psychiatrist and the subject matter is as esoteric as a reconstruction of a past state of mind or the prediction of future dangerousness or even the diagnosis of an unusual form of mental illness not listed in the diagnostic man Manual of the American Psychiatric association and then uh following up on McDonald is people versus stole St L which we cited to the court in another context and that also indicates that um medical testimony expert opinion testimony along the lines of psychological testimony or medical testimony is not subject to a Kelly fry objection so that's why rais with prosecution what the basis for the objection is if it's qualification that seems to be one thing but I don't think it's subject to a Kelly fry objection well Kelly fry as um a standard uh whether it's that standard or some other uh lesser standard that is applied still there should be a foundation laid before such evidence is introduced if there is an objection made in a timely fashion to it the court has a discretion to conduct these hearings uh outside the presence of the jury and has elected to do so we've done that with various witnesses that the prosecution has called and we're doing it with this one people did not object to any of these other matters that they have been gone into so far by this witness but they are objecting to this and it is um as far as this this court is concerned a novel uh area of um evidence and one that the court feels U is subject to a found found whether you label it one way or another you see how the world wasn't ready to hear this the judge it's the judge is saying this isn't this isn't uh a well-founded uh reliable study or something I don't like he's not giving Dr Burgess credit for all her amazing work and making it like psychotherapy is just I think who was it who uh Pam bazan even asked somebody like do you know who do you know what psycho Babble is I think it's her um so yeah they try to make her out to be like this crazy this is just um psychology isn't real and type of thing like type of mentality and uh they weren't ready to hear it I mean this is scientifically based information and yet the judge is like well I don't know I don't know about trauma victims and the study of how they react and I I can't it's too much for me to deal with male on male victims that's what he's a lot of um people thought that way or felt that way and felt that men couldn't be Sid which is obviously we know the furthest thing from the truth and often times they don't talk about it so what standard I use to evaluate it uh is not the point at this time but the foundation should be established i' like to sit down freezing and it's warmer if you sit down I've learned in this courtroom okay it's uh a new physical phenomenon Hot Air does not rise matter it wouldn't matter if it did because I'm too short to ever get to the hot air well that's why so warm up here all right so you may proceed you're too kind too often uh Dr Burgess do you teach the operation of Olympic system at uh uh University of Pennsylania yes I do and how many uh we will mark them in a minute how long have you been teaching this particular area of uh of medical and biological research since 1986 and uh how well researched is the operation of the human lyic system uh it's came into uh the literature with walbe Canan back in 1929 uh when he described the fight flight phenomenon and is the lyic system as the source of the uh human brain's response to uh fear is that an area that has been researched for some 60 odd years yes and is it included in medical textbooks medical journals is it taught even in high schools as basic biological science yes it is and was the the basic research in this area does it still continue the basic animal research in the functioning of the brain yes it does now is it possible to do basic research on human beings when it comes to brain brain function no it is not so is all the research that has been conducted basic research in the actual workings of the brain been conducted on animals over all these years uh primarily with animals but I should say that there is beginning research especially on people that have um organic brain uh issues like Alzheimer's and so forth to begin to apply and study uh it's not necessarily going into the brain but it certainly is trying to see uh the origin if you will of the problem so that that we can do something about it well medical technology has advanced to the point in the last say 15 years where certain brain functions can actually be observed without having to cut somebody's head open and cut up the brain that's right so to the extent that technology allows access to the brain some of this basic research is now being done on real humans that's correct but prior to that when the fundamental research in lyic system as the source of the so-called fight flight or fear response had to be conducted on animals because you couldn't couldn't cut up people's head that's correct okay now in your research first of all the research that you have been doing has to do with seeing how the lyic system functions with respect to people who have been traumatized by fear that is correct and trying to understand how the traumatization by fear impacts the lyic system that is correct and also trying to see how such people who have been traumatized by fear re react to fear if you will in a biological sense what happens to their brains that's correct and this research is being conducted by how many different groups that you're aware of uh there are many groups that are are conducting this um want me to list them well the ones that besides your your own research and right U Bessel Vander has done research uh Bruce Perry has done research a lot of the um VA Veterans Administration hospitals are now funded to do research on on their uh veterans um the group of veterans who have been traumatized yes that's correct and basically what is the findings of This research concerning uh the lyic system system in traumatized people well the finding is that at least there is that area that it is there and probably what is there that that's where the fear response is when that gets activated uh what they are now looking at is What's called the recoding the genetic recoding uh that develops into the uh explains why the the ability of the person to have this flashback to have this uh thought come back into their mind with what appears to be no stimulation in other words they're not back in a traumatizing situation but they're still getting the uh reexperiencing of the flashback so there begin to understand by by studying the brain that there has been some genetic recoding of the neural structure of this set of regions of the brain yeah um because there is always cellular death and so with the new cells that are part of the way our bodies operate there is that new genetic recoding and it recodes for a higher level of fear is what the current um research suggests now the research that's been done that actually shows regeneration of cells or new genetic makeup that's that basic research that's still being done on animals to show that that their brains recode that is correct and this research is being applied if you will um to the behaviors of traumatized people and is explaining their behaviors based on this physiological phenomenon that has now been studied yes is there anything in the methodology either of the studying of this genetic recoding the basic research or in the methodology of the applied research to explain the behaviors that is anything new or different than standard medicine standard biology and standard psychology no have has this um uh EXP explation for Behavioral changes in trauma victims based on this genetic recoding of the lyic system gained Acceptance in the community that treats uh evaluates diagnoses uh trauma victims yes and has this research and these understandings been Incorporated in the therapy and treatment of trauma victims uh yes it has been has has the understanding that there is a physiological cause for the flashbacks altered the way therapy is now being given to say postraumatic stress disorder victims Vietnam War veterans traumatized children that group of trauma victims yes it definitely has and is there extensive now publication and teaching in the new way to uh to treat these people because of the understanding that there is a biological and physical cause to these flashbacks and not just a psychological one yes your honor I think that's an ad Foundation but who am I if the court that's what I say I know you do at every opportunity but okay yeah always the last word but at this point the prosecution has a right to cross-examine exactly yeah okay then they will where limic system the limic system is a group of brain regions that primarily are composed of the hippocampus the hypothalamus in the meid section all right just for a moment let's move that uh chart over this way and then let the jurors come in so that they can be more comfortable in jury room all right go ahead I indicated that in 1929 research began on and was it on changes in the Olympic system caused by fear or the limpic system itself uh no was Canon's initial work on fight flight phenomenon and was that was that a study that was done in relationship to the limpic system or is that a psychological study oh no it a physiological study that really began to explain behavior in the face of uh frighten situations and it was um the beginning of research into the biological origins of fear and the response to fear yes okay now I believe you've indicated that there's beginning to be research studies on um a further refinement of the biology which would be genetic recoding is that correct that's correct and when you say it's beginning when did it begin and what phase is this research okay the the research really began about in the mid 80s when the Nim NIH I'm sorry uh began to fund research studies in this um area so it's roughly been a good 10 years uh where an enormous amount of money Federal money has gone in to various labs around the country to better understand the way the brain works and to begin to help explain behavior you talk about the way the brain works the money that's been funded through the NIH on the way the brain works is not confined to the phenomena of fear but other things such as Alzheimer's disease yes um the genetic origins of disease actually all the genetic the human genome study which they're really trying to identify within cells uh the genetic component so that it is a wider cut of types of studies but they're all related to brain research it comes under the rubric of the decade of the brain is what it's called what the funding has been for and so the research is beginning and I think you said the current research suggests I think that was your word suggests that brain recoding genetic recoding goes on is a result a continued application of fear would that be correct yeah as the fear is experienced then there is a now there is and over stimulated in other words overwhelmed so that there is going to be now some new recoding that is when that seems to occur that's what the research suggests okay but by suggest is that is that the same as conclusively proven that's a research term I say suggest all right and when you you suggest as a scientist what are you trying to suggest you suggest what the research is suggesting but it's not is that to me suggestion means it's not it's it's an idea it's an inference but it's not necessarily conclusive no I wouldn't say that I just say that that tends to be the language that we use U I can pick another word all right I prefer to use more research terms all right um has in your mind has it been conclusively proven that exposure to fear creates genetic decoding that that's on the relevancy issue or Foundation issue that's a weight attemp no it has to do with the reliability scientific evidence which is what the cour is concerned with here objection do you remember my question yes believe my opinion is that the research is quite substantial in this area that states that genetic recoding does occur in terms of the fear response when the person has been overwhelmed with fear and what is the effect of the genetic recoding when a person is then exposed to fear another time yeah what happens is the recoding has to do with survival because fear is tied into to survival that the Basic Instinct in a person is to survive so that when it gets recoded it now gets recoded in terms of a higher level and one of the terms that is used is what's called rekindling so that when somebody is this person who is now exposed to another fearful situation will not take as much as someone who has not been to elicit this fear so that's why we talk about the fear level increases the queuing in can be much more subtle than in someone who has not been exposed to such fearful situations now psychology has suspected this for a long time correct that that repeated exposure to fear lessens the time in which a person reacts to it oh it's been in their literature yes okay and it's now since the mid 80s and the the decade of the brain the people are beginning to look at the biological origins of a of a um psychological response say is there any way to test a particular human being who's still alive to see if the genetic recoding has occurred well you see it in their behavior uh you mean well they're doing the pet well in other words not t like an x-ray I mean well they do the scannings they use the pet scannings um this is the Imaging Imaging that as the technology has so improved in terms of being able to study the brain um that's really what's being used for humans as opposed to studying a course in animals uh is dissecting the brain a better way to determine if there's been genetic recoding you're not going to that is not a foundational question argumentative question well in a general sense um has it ever been verified by looking at a a brain of a deceased and analyzing AIT as well they do do look at brains of deceased people uh for example Alzheimer's just one good example schiz Frank are another good example where they really do go in after someone has di died to try to see where in the brain If there any uh whatever they can see observable defects it might explain the Alzheimer's yeah but the problem is when you have a person that's deceased you don't have that response you don't have the potential for the response because you can't stimulate the brain you can't stimulate the brain okay I I think my question then is is there a test that you could do on a human being to see if they' had genetic recoding which would indicate to you that they have been subjected to multiple multiple incidents of fear well one of the problems is you don't have the before you don't have the after all right so you have a new coding if you will can you say that a specific person that you're interviewing has genetic recoding you can you can certainly tell their level of fear and the way and this is where this has been so useful in the applied in the applied section to um persons who have been traumatized because once you get a clear understanding of what it has that originally has traumatized them then you can begin to make the association the link if you will to what in the current situation is triggering that fear reaction because they give an actual explanation you know the whole body reacts the heart increases the blood everything kind of activates for preparing the person to fight or flee but in terms of that's there are all kinds of physiological responses to fear correct you just described many of them yes and in addition there's the genetic recoding that occurs as the stimulus increases or persists over time correct correct and do you have any way of knowing how much stimulus is necessary to trigger genetic recoding no I don't I I I don't personally know that right now without researching it all right is there any way that you I mean you can talk about this the neurobiology of fear but is there any way to apply it to a specific individual and say that this specific individual suffers from genetic recoding or has experienced genetic recoding and that means they've been exposed to fear well we don't say it that way well is there a way to say it that's comparable to what I'm trying to say yeah what we would say is they get an alteration In Their Fear processing see this now ties in with the way information comes into the brain and gets processed so it has to link in because humans have a factor that animals don't they have cognition they have a brain that uh can you know think and talk Etc so that is what ties in so yes to your question that you can see an altered response to fear processing they do not process fear as people who have not been exposed to that trauma do but the way you determine that is by just observing the human being's response to fear well one of the things that's occurring in the research is to try to get some of the chemicals these stress CH hormones are released in the brain and that is it interferes with the way the information goes back and forth so that they are beginning to look at what um you know blood test is going to be one possibility to see that people have this higher level of stress hormones brain hormones um has that has that methodology been perfected in other words well yes I mean the um pharmacology of trying to treat is where was one of the very promising areas uh to now give the medications that can reduce the fear processing so yes there are and and these are drug trials that go on and they're specifically looking at for example PTSD in a way of reducing that intrusive imagery and the way they're doing it is by giving certain kinds of unless this is something going be introduced here okay all right so I'm going to ask a question again and maybe is there any way you can test an indivual for instance Eric mandez and say with certainty that his um that he has had genetic recoding as a result of being exposed to fear I don't there's not a blood test currently available that's the only way you would be able to B neurobiologically look at it um all right and you have to do it at the time that they're being under stress so that seeing someone at a current state when you're trying to look back uh is not necessarily you're not necessarily going to get those stress hormones there there are other physiological responses that you can look at to determine if someone is undergoing stress it just increas the things that you look for in a light detector test right things increased heart rate perspiration I don't know knows light detect tests are all something else okay but there is presently no way to establish that a particular individual has had this genetic decoding as long as they're still alive correct well no you can observe their behavior I mean that's that's that's what we have currently and what this does is not to explain the behavioral symptoms so that it really adds to what we already have but you're looking at you're looking at behavior and you're not running a chemical test but that's what fear response is is behavior all right I else just just one thing you've always known I mean I won't say always but for for a long long time how the body reacts to inter feere with respect to releasing hormones releasing chemicals that's all been known that's been mapped that's been measured correct that's correct the the more recent additional piece of knowledge to how the body reacts to fear is that the brain itself undergos genetic changes that's correct and that's been proven in the animal studies where they have then dissected the Little Critters and looked at their brain and seen that they've been remapped correct so that's just a further explanation the biological root therefore of what's triggering all those hormones all that chemical reaction all that I just want to say it's amazing that we were just really diving into the study of brains back in the 80s and 90s and now like look at our technology and what we can accomplish with um our medicine it's it's kind of crazy that um I feel I feel like it hasn't been that long for research but it had I mean I guess I guess the 80s was a while ago Behavior that's correct so that's how it's understood now yes the behavior is still there and it's observable yes all right let me ask the defense what exactly is it the intend to elicit from this witness in your Tes uh pretty much uh what she's just been testifying to that they understand that this is the source of the fear response in humans that it sends out these chemicals that cause behaviors uh when under stress that in people who have experienced uh traumatic stress in the past the brain May react to an even lower level of stimulation than people who have not previously experienced fear uh traumatic fear that when the brain does react it stimulates this chemical reaction that that causes behaviors that is not hooked into the cognitive section of the brain but is hooked into the lyic system which is an intuitive autonomic type of system and she is she going to testify as an expert in regards to either defendant that she has examined them or formed any opinions that in fact that they have uh suffered this physiological change no she she's going to say that in her opinion Eric Mendez has suffered traumatic um fear in the past particularly concerning his sexual molestation by his father and those TR and he has a history of uh intrusive thoughts about that but more importantly he also has a history of high anxiety and Hyper monitoring behavior and that the H this is all based on information that has been provided to the the witness this is all science judge all science I I the study of people is still a science the study of people's behaviors is still a science just because he doesn't want to believe that it's real that psychology is real this is ridiculous this is why they didn't get a fair trial they this judge was not ready to hear scientific proof cently from other sources such as um anecdotes of one sort or another all kinds of Behavioral information not just from from Eric but from testing from school records all the stuff that we've heard about basically uh she assumed that all that that has occurred and if it did occur it would create a certain response in an individual is that basically what you're well what she's going to say is based on his behavioral respon he's not going to say that she she cannot say his brain is altered and therefore that's this response she's going to say his behavioral responses are such that the understanding now is there may actually be a change in the brain that causes these behavioral responses that's what the research shows that there's actually a biological trigger now there's always been a biological trigger for fear what she's going to testify to is with traumatized people that biological trigger May operate on a lower level so where before you're on for example the kind of she's not saying that that is what occurred or if it did occur at all in Mendez she describing in general that that is what happens well that's all she's doing before both juries we can do out how far she can go down the path that Eric mandes in front of his Jury alone but she's going to do that in front of both okay so what is the people's position neurobiology of fear is not relevant to this particular case because there's no way of showing that these there's no way currently of showing that these defendants have in fact had this genetic recoding which would which would account for them having this biological response and as as to the the genetic recoding now as to the biological response of the flight or the fight and the increased heart rate and the release of certain kinds of adrenaline for instance um that might be curent because those are things that can be tested for but in terms of well you can't test for this obviously um the test is not available there's no blood test for it and and all she can do is say in general this is what the research tends to show may be occurring and there may be a change in the brain but we don't know if there's a change in their brain so how is it relevant let me just say there's no different than what AR was talking about the psychological evidence of battered Abus people indicates that they pick up on very subtle cues they see fear where other people might not see it and they react to it at a heightened level because of their experience this is no different except it explains the biological basis for it that's all are you saying this happens in all individuals this biological change in the brain or just in some no this does happen when the individual's overwhelmed with fear in everybody yes and this recoding genetic recoding that you've described that happens to everybody if it's if it's sufficient now that's that piece isn't quite clear but certainly people get the fight flight uh phenomenon fight flight is a phenomen that applies to every human being and every animal on the face of the Earth whether there's been a recoding so that okay I just want to make it clear for you yeah I understand part of okay um in light of uh the evidence introduced here the court finds that the defense has met its minimal burden to for a foundation for this evidence to be produced it doesn't uh mean that the witness May testify in regards to uh what actually happened in the uh situation of each defendant but you can describe in general the uh nature of this uh reaction right anything else now before we proceed all right let's get the juries in as I indicated one juror uh needs to take break at 3:15 go to a medical appointment so that's what will happen work and we're ready to proceed okay um Dr bures before we get into an actual explanation and going through the diagrams of the brain and the schematic of the brain that's up there um with respects to the lyic system has the lyic system of the brain been studied for some time as the location of the FYI this is now in front of the jury of the human body's response to fear inducing stimulus yes it has and is that the place where fear comes in and where a set of reactions begin that is correct yes okay and what has been known uh in the re how far back does this particular research on the Olympic system as the fear response Locus the writing goes back to 1929 uh Walder B Canon okay and what was the basic uh understanding from all the there's been researching this over the years as well yes there has been so almost 60 years of research more than 60 years and what is the basic uh understanding biological working of this part of the brain as the locus for the body sphere response how does it work how does it work um first of before we do the DI you could just give us a general idea how it works okay in the brain there are what are called billions of neurons and the task of these neurons is to transmit information the brain also is mapped it's what's called neural mapping and so that they can trace how the parts of the brain interact with each other and these neurons take the information back and forth in the lyic system is also housed where information comes in so it's a very very important part of the brain where information comes in as well as the center for alarm and protection now it's that Center let's say a piece of fear inducing information comes in okay I step off the curb and a truck is coming towards me yes right now that information gets processed into this system yes and this is also the system where my body's going to respond to that truck yes okay what does my body do in response to that truck okay there are three phases the first is what's called as the person reacts as the Preparatory phase and this is where the body is alerted that there is some danger maybe you hear that truck coming down the street and so what starts to activate are the brain hormones the stress hormones that are now going to prepare the individual for the second phase which is where the body now must make a decision as to whether it is going to uh fight or flee in other words you're going to jump back uh out of the street as that truck comes or you going to run across the street to try to get out of its way okay now before you get to fight or flight I I'll give you a different example than a truck for that but first of all what are the hormones that the brain releases okay the there are actually two and it's what's called kind of basic in other words two phases it's the nor adrenogen system gets activated the in system yeah and it has what's called it inhibits and it activates so this is the the two phases that is now which speaks to the fight flight phenomenon so that you have both of these stress hormones going and it shows itself also in one's body because it is preparing the body to fight so that the muscles get taught the heart beats uh is this what releases adrenaline absolutely yes that's one of the stress hormones okay so one of the stress hormones releases adrenaline or activates the adrenal system to release adrenaline right and it gets activated in the brain even though people feel it in the rest of their body the brain is the primary place where it gets activated and then because these neurons are telling the rest of the body what to do how to prepare itself to do something okay and and people usually report that there are certain physiological symptoms of Terror yes you will they do um rapid heartbeat for example that's because of adrenaline that's one of the things that the stress hormones release yes it's getting more blood if you will to the body so that it will be prepared okay adrenaline stimulates the heart to beat yes the beating creates more blood that's right okay um people also talk about a tingling sensation a breathing Sensations are these things sometimes sweat breaking out on the brow clam in are these physiological reactions all caused by the Rel of these stress hormones from the center of the brain yes and it's all automatic it's not under anybody's control this just happens automatically now you said the second the first phase is the alarm bells are going off yes and all the stuff is Flowing yes okay the second phase now is when the body needs to take action of some kind that's correct and talking about and this is been called the fight flight stage that's correct and let's talk about it in terms of fight flight let's say somebody is coming at me to attack me fists up and looks really angry now I've got to decide my body's got to decide whether to fight them or to run that's right okay now what is going on then biologically in the second stage when I'm being faced by this attack well that's essentially when all of the hormones are are spreading to tell the body to pick one of two of these decisions of what you're going to do make a decision all right and how is this decision making made now I mean is this a if the body's with all these alarm Bells going on okay is the decision to fight or flight a decision that's made in the cognitive part or is this a decision that's being made from this automatic everything's flowing part well see well generally it's automatic because people uh get to use the other analogy are going to jump back if they see a truck coming they're not even going to think right they're just going to because it's instinctual the uh fear response is present in the body to protect the person from danger so survival becomes the main goal if you will why this whole system gets activated and these reactions this fight flight reaction is instantaneous and automatic yes okay and now in this particular phase when the action when the body is sprung into action either jumping back or running forward is there another set of hormones that get released triggered from the lyic system yes then there's the third phase okay and this is what's called the blunting phase and the now the hormones change to kind of blunt pains take for example a physical trauma uh in other words people can not even realize that they've had an injury and they see the next day that their arm is black and blue and they might even say how did I get that then they will have to think back to how they got it because the blunting if you will the opiate system uh is activated to protect the person from the pain now the body releases opiate type hormones that that act upon neurons in such a way nerve vending that you don't feel pain that's right now is that the same thing that happens say if you're if you're confronted and you're stabbed and you don't feel the wound for a while mhm yes in fact trauma victims coming into an emergency room very often we'll describe that quite ridly Okay so we've been through these three stages the first hormones are the alert system then there's the second phase where the body automatically reacts and then there's the third blunting phase now in this blunting phase when the opiate system is activated U are there physical symptoms of this as well yes and what are the physical symptoms of this uh what happens here is if the danger finally passes then what the body now is is in almost an exhausted phase and if um there has been too much stimulation and activation of all of this I mean you can ultimately get death uh from such uh extended uh trauma but essentially in other in situations we've just been talking about the person would feel kind of exhausted there's a crisis or and all the body reacts and then they just feel a lot of exhaustion and that's the way the body is going to rejuvenate itself get itself back if you will reset itself the brain's got to reset itself okay now with respect to those things that set off the alarms to begin with the fear response okay um is there a terminology for what those things are that set off a fear response um well extreme uh danger okay are there cues that set a fear response yeah anything in the environment that the person feels as a threat uh is going to set that off um now your research um was not this fundamental Research into how the lyic system works because that's been a given in medical biological circles for a long time correct that's correct your research and and other more recent research has to do with with what with tying this to what well applying this to the symptoms that we see in traumatized populations so that we can better assist and help someone who has had a traumatizing experience okay now is it has it has it been understood and known in psychological research for some time that people people who have been traumatized who have experienced overwhelming fear over the course of their life tend to react differently to new threats of fear than people who have not been traumatized by fear yes and what is the difference that has been studied from watching and knowing about the behaviors of people okay what happens when there's been overwhelming fear and it's been repeated very often is that in the brain there is what's called a genetic recoding and so the fear level now for that person is going to be at a different level than for someone who has not experienced whatever that fear was before we get to that let's just talk about behavioral SC before we get to what the brain is doing okay the recent research shows that there's actually been genetic changes in the brains of overwhelmingly traumatized people yes so their brain system will operate automatically in response to new fear cues at a much quicker level than people who have never been subjected to overwhelming fear but before we get to this new research on genetic recoding was there observable in the behavior of people who had been traumatized overwhelmed by fear that they were having fear reactions oh yes okay they were having fear reaction based on much lower levels of stimulus than my truck coming down the street yes okay so horn could honk and they'd freak out basically that's right yes okay and was you have said that you were led into this research because another term for this is you're hypervigilant so everything in your environment feels scary to you so you're like always aware of what's going on because you're afraid of your environment you're you've been in a traumatic experience you've had a traumatic event which altered your recoding your genetic recoding and so you're preparing yourself for more instances of fear all around you and it's it sucks it sucks to kind of live that way but um it is part of what your brain does because of intrusive thoughts of flashbacks of reexperiencing fearful events among trauma victims that's correct but was there also observed apart from people having flashbacks are we experiencing was there also observed among traumatized people um heightened sensitivity to cu's of potential fear yes yes was there also observed anxiety levels in these people a sort of high ongoing level of fear yes you're familiar with the research on um um abused children that talks about such things as hypervigilance yes I am what does hypervigilance have to do with this discussion about fear and reaction to fear in essence that uh observation is explained by this uh fear altered process in other words something in the environment is uh causing that the person is constantly search in the environment for anything that may be dangerous and that is seems to be a common characteristic of people who have been traumatized by fear inducing behaviors yes it is with abused children for example or battered wives for example people who have been physically or psychologically or sexually assaulted yes do they develop patterns of hypervigilance minute watching of the behaviors of the people who have assaulted them or battered them yes I do and do they appear as a group to have this generalized high level of anxiety yes I do and has there been a great deal of res Arch on how easily thrown into high levels of fear they are by the slightest changes or cues in the behavior of their batterers yes in that type of situation yes now the the latest research that you were talking about this genetic recoding okay how does this research connect to this behavioral psychological body of research that's existed for some time okay the genetic recoding now explains the why the person is at a higher level of U fear and must survey their environment in this heightened way is there a notion that's come from this strike that is it now believed that people who experience these fear-inducing traumas that their brain actually rep patterns yes it gets rewired repattern that's yes and is there a term rekindling that is associated with this research yes there is would you explain to us what the rekindling term means rekindling essentially means that as the new um people are people have not been traumatizer at one level people who have been traumatized it takes much less to activate their fear response and literally it's it's a term Rec means that there's always there already is a base there for the fear to be activated and so it just takes much less or more subtle cont of cues in the environment activate their fear response I think it's 3:15 all right uh we do have a situation where one of the jurors has an emergency medical appointment to attend to so um we'll accommodate that and recess for the day and for the week in the trial we have both the fendants in court with all Council and both jury panels as well and to everybody good morning we're ready to resume with the trial we have the witness back on the witness stand would you state your name again for the record please an Walbert Burgess I'll remind you that you're still under Ro yes and you may proceed with your direct examination Dr burges um last Friday you had started to discuss uh this model if you will this neurobiological model uh to explain the fear responses of traumatized persons yes now before this the research that led to the construction of this particular model was there a substantial amount of of research and literature on The observed behaviors with respect to fear of traumatized persons yes there was and was there in this research um common patterns of how sexually molested children abused children uh War veterans rape victims accident victims and other traumatized people dealt with fear yes there was and would you describe for the juries what that behavioral model was well the behavioral model did describe the various symptoms that included the the hyperarousal the being uh on guard the scam of the environment and also what's called the startle reflex that traumatized persons would have a a higher level of being startled there are also other symptoms that were described in the behavioral literature that looked at uh what we call anxious symptoms avoidant symptoms and um other kinds of symptoms and under this behavioral model was there um efforts to understand such things as um hypervigilance which I think involves scanning the environment for cues yes and the anxiety the sort of across theboard an Society of battered and Abused Women battered and abused children yes and when you talk about avoidance what what kinds of behaviors were demonstrating avoidance avoidance behaviors would be considered some of withdrawing from activities being depressed uh all the way to even some suicide ideation suicidal thoughts and those were common symptoms in this class of people yes they were identified in the literature now what was there also a behavioral uh model for the intrusive thoughts or what we've called flashbacks yes sir okay yes there was and what were those things considered under the behavioral model under the behavioral model the type of treatment that was generally used was talking therapy Psychotherapy cognitive therapy uh there are a wide range of uh models considered under psychotherapy what was that symptom though of recurrent thoughts or or full-blown flashbacks with very little queuing if you will very little common characteristics starting the process up what were they considered well they were considered uh what they were just considered recurring thoughts and they may also have been treated by a more behavioral type of model where they would try to extinguish the the thought uh it's called thought stopping they would encourage the person to minute the thought came into the mind to put it out of the mind and those therapies um either the behavioral thought stopping or the talking therapy Sor that what was was the purpose of talking therapy to try to give Insight so the person would understand why they were reacting yes that's the purpose and in traditional therapy is there an expectation that if a person has insight as to why they're behaving they can then modify the behavior or the feelings yes that's the intent now were these talking Therapies or behaviorist therapies effective with traumatized people to either stop the intrusive thoughts or to get rid of these hyperarousal scannings startles anxieties were they working well they were not working certainly in a population group of traumatized persons and based on that is that when you and others started looking for a biological explanation for why these things were not reachable through therapy yes now you told us um a little bit about this system these regions in the brain that control a person's reactions to fear inducing stimulus yes there are two charts up on the board um one is a schematic I guess and one is a cross-section of the brain is that right that's correct and can you U utilize those charts to try to explain to the jurors how information processing in this area fear operates in the brain yes okay may I we t this large uh we call midical view of the human brain you can see that there are kind of like layers here and the one that we're most interested in in terms of olymic system is this section that is um actually colored in you can see how it extends it's a fairly long area this being more of a cortical area if we move over to to this this is now a simplified representation of the limic system which is is this we now moved here and what becomes very important in terms of a fear response are three areas within all of these structures this is the hypothalamus this is the hippocampus and this is the Migo complex and this is very critical because this sits at the base of the brain which is Dr if you could move into the witness box or on the other side soy yes we have to remembery in the audience as well okay the um the three brain regions that are most important in the lyic system is the this is the hippocampus this is the hypothalamus and the migid section which is very important for they contain a bundle of nerve cells these neurons this is very very important regarding the fear uh component now how is do we know through how fear information information like the truck coming down the street where that information goes in the brain it would this this is the base of the brain and this would be the um igid section which there's a lot of nerve cells there neurons and it would start at this particular point but then it activates as those neurons start sending out their messages it starts to activate throughout the limic system okay if you could resume your seat when this information activates is that those physical responses and the release of hormones is that what the body does yes as it goes up to the rest of the brain it activates the U brain hor the stress hormones brain hormones now that happens in everybody yes and I believe you started to tell us on Friday that there are stages of this processing of fear response yes and what is the first stage called yes the first stage is the Preparatory stage now how what is the biological activity going on in the Preparatory stage that's when the first signal that there is danger in the environment comes in to the brain and this release of stress hormones is that part of this stage as well yes that would alert the organism to re to it must do something now you say it must do something yes why must the organism do something because the most Basic Instinct in any human is survival and that is the purpose of this alarm system is to protect the individual from harm in order to survive and that's why has to do something when the truck's coming down the street yes okay now what is the second stage the second stage is what the person actually does that is the fight flight uh they take action person body is prepared to act and it either must act against the danger or it must Retreat it must try to flee the danger and that's the example you gave of either you jump back to the curve or you run across the street yes now what thinking is going on as we understand it what rational processing of options and Alternatives is going on between the truck is coming down the street and I jump back on the curve no thaning automatic response now has this component of the model the fact that there is no thinking been studied and examined and researched and written about yes and in what situations um has it been found that there is just an automatic response well in the situations where um certainly the appasia snail uh studies that but you're going to have to I know an is going to want you to spell appasia snail a p l y s i a okay what is an appasia snail it's a sea snail sea snail sea snail and why are we interested in snails it has very important in the base of the brain it has larger um nerves and so forth to study so from a a research standpoint it provides a nice um viewing of these nerves for the researchers okay and how does studying the snail tell us that there is no thinking but automatic instinctive survival activity going on well they they've done the they've studied the avoidant in other words the fleeing part of that and they have noticed that with u some stimulation of these nerve bodies that the memory the short-term memory will last up to an hour with more chronic or more prolonged if you will stimulation of these nerves there is actually been noted the uh the um genetic recoding and the way it's described in the literature is it goes from the RNA changes to the DNA one being the transmission one being the translation okay but I think I was asking you actually something more basic than that okay okay and that is for example hypothetically let's say you're in an automobile and somebody cuts you off yes okay very close now are you cognitively thinking I better turn the steering wheel and I better hit the BR or do you just turn the steering wheel and hit the BR just automatically respond you don't think uh hopefully you have responded in a in a way that avoids the danger now this has been noted in all sorts of traumatic situations has it not that people and animals just act yes okay the snail experiment the snail studies those actually proved that there was um automatic changes in the genetic structure as a result of trauma yes the research suggested to that yes so it supports the biological notion that these activities are automatic and not let me ask you this what what is the difference in the function what is the main function for example of the cortical area or the cerebral cortex that bigger part that's on top of the lyic system right that's our thinking that's where cognitions or thoughts or the uh the whole way we organize our thinking is um based or housed and did these experiments on the snails indicate that in response to prolonged stress signals don't even get into that cognitive part well in snails we don't have any evidence of they but there were other experiments with other with other animals that have shown yes well the importance of these lower level animals and and snails Etc is that we do share in our survival brain these structures so that is what becomes very important um in that in that type of research on the basic what's called Universal Instinct of survival you say we have a survival brain is humans still have a survival brain yes we actually have three levels to brains um this has been well um documented in the literature by Paul mlan who research describes what he calls the Triune brain in evolution the what brain Tri Triune t r i u n e Triune brain and evolution is that like three- L brain is that what that means and so even though we've evolved we still have that original survival brain yes like the snail that's correct okay now are there in fact um efforts made uh with people who have to work under traumatic conditions to uh take advantage of this notion of automatic response yes and would you describe uh what those efforts are who these these populations of people are okay well uh persons that work under high stress uh need to be prepared to be able to automatically respond and those would include such populations as soldiers going into combat it would be we see this and train in terms of nurses and the emergency uh Department to be able to automatically respond when a very stressful situ situation occurs in other words so that they don't fight or flee but do what they have to do yes so this is an effort to actually override what the automatic response would be to train them to do what's logically and reasonably necessary for their work yes you want them to be able to think clearly stay calm be able to attend to the PK at hand and I take it that's not something that people who are in this fear response are able to do that's correct now what is it that the research shows happens to people who have been severely traumatized whether in one big event or repeatedly that makes them and their reaction different than the ordinary model what is important in traumatized populations is they begin to read the cues differently this is the what we call the the rewiring and they will read more danger into cues than necessarily A non traumatized population now you've talked about and and others have talked about hypervigilance before let me give you a hypothetical if you have a person let's for the sake of this hypothetical assume it's a battered wife okay who knows that on Friday nights when her husband comes home from the bar if they didn't have his favorite beer he's going to beat her up okay let's take that as a hypo and the husband comes home with the bar and says they didn't have Miller okay uh hypothetically she could start to experience a severe fear reaction because she has this special knowledge of what they didn't have Miller means yes now if she then becomes very fearful very frightened um she's not that's a really good example by the way not wrong is she to be fearful then no she has this knowledge of her husband okay so when we're talking about traumatized populations read cues differently they're not necessarily being irrational to be afraid no okay but what has been learned now about what the brain does with people who have been I guess overly frightened or repeatedly frightened yes okay what is it that we've learned is happening well what we've learned is that they stay in a very high uh arousal State they are very anxious uh very maybe very frightened they also have this ability to scan or constantly scanning the environment to see if there's danger and they also become quite can be very startled very easily um because of their reading of cues in the environment okay and the research then into the brain structure has shown what well the research has shown that as you increase and Prov especially chronic fear or continued U fear that this is the explanation for the recoding uh the genetic recoding or the rewiring or whatever term uh they are now going to react quite differently and there is a neurobiological basis to what has been observed they actually have different uh cells than they had before or different contents to those cells that keep them on this level of anxiety and arousal well the coding is different it's the message the message that is sent uh our neurons send us messages and that's what goes back and forth in the brain so it sends higher level of arousal messages yes and is there reason to believe that even the the general anxiety state is because they're constantly sending a message a fear message of some sort yes I may keep the person at this very high level of anxiety now was there something that was understood by the term trauma learning that this now also gives a biological um underpinning too yes um the the term trauma learning is a term that's been coined um actually by Dr Carl Hartman in terms of this phenomenon because all of this activity is in the service of learning in the brain what is what what is the brain learning through this activity well um as the brain experiences it sends these messages so that is one of the bases for learning in other words learning how to deal with fearful situations MH yes now is there also um an understanding of what happens to traumatize people who can neither fight nor fle yes and what are the circumstances where that occurs well what happens when somebody is in such a situation they go into this third um phase which is really the numbing phase and they stay quite numb if you will to ongoing activity can you give us examples of populations or people who are in situations where they can neither fight nor F oh yes children certainly are a good example of populations because they don't have the equipment if you will to be able to fight or um persons that are trapped in a in some type of a like a hostage type of situation they can't get out uh concentration camp persons um uh even natural disasters I suppose you could have people that are are unable to get out of a hurricane or something like that well let's focus for the moment on children children in what kinds of situations um have been what in strike all that the study of children in situations where they can't fight or flee okay yes um specifically what circumstances have you researched in stud I've studied children who have been abused who have either been directly abused or have also witnessed abusing situations violence within the home or example such as that for the moment let's take as an example a child who's being sexually molested yes okay okay is is that generally speaking a traumatic um incident to a child yes it is and how does the fight flight mechanism work or fail to work for children in that kind of traumatic situation generally children are unable to extricate themselves or to get out of the situ ation and they um stay in it um both because for many reasons okay with respect to the body okay you've indicated there's this Preparatory stage these hormones get released now you're supposed to take action yes and you're talking about people who can't take action for whatever reason that's right so do the hormones just go away do some some little message go up and say oh we can't take action we all go home no what happens the mind uh the mind takes over for example in the flight part um one of the things that can happen is that the Mind literally puts itself into another topic and that's something that's called daydreaming or uh techn term is dissociation but they put their mind elsewhere so that they do not have to attend to what actually is occurring to them and that they do that during the the offensive acts themselves yes they do and does that make the stress hormones go away or are they still pumping no the stress hormones are still pumping now is there something that's been observed therefore with with people who get trapped in situations where they can't fight or flee um based on the fact that the stress hormones keep pumping well when those hormones keep pumping they are influencing certainly the brain structure so that is what's called the overriding component to the alarm system what do you mean by an overriding component when the there is too much activity in the brain hormones and the person cannot extricate from the situation that is what generally moves the person into either the um dissociation the thinking of other things or the numbing is in the service of survival you said an overriding component this also I think youve referred to it before as overwhelming yes overwhelming yes and in your neurobiological model is it therefore un at least believed that children who have been exposed to these situations who have these overwhelming um stress reaction and dissociate or numb uh does that leave them with these symptoms we've talked about this high anxiety High arousal do they remain in a state of over stimulation basically well they can't stay in a total state of overwhelm that's just not the way the body operates in any type of situation so there is what's called some coping a way of managing it or actually an adaptation to the abuse why do they why doesn't it all just go away after each episode though and then they are back to square one like anybody else well there there the resetting phenomenon doesn't occur because it's there's still an abusive situation if you're talking about a ongoing type of of situation if it's a one-time situation that might be quite different so the notion is that they're always kept at some high level of anxiety because of the ongoing nature of the abusive situation yes now we tend to think that people get used to bad things okay that if you're frightened a lot you should get used to that and be less frighten if you will do these models and this research support that theory or are they uh in fact the opposite well there can be the adaptation as I say they will learn through the trauma learning they're going to learn how to how to deal with it uh it's not going to be a healthy way we we say but they certainly um they learn to deal with it and again you have to look at each situation to see how they do it that but if I understand what you're saying basically what what the research has shown is that people have been traumatized frightened more easily than other people oh yeah they do so they don't get used to it in that sense not in that sense no and the coping strategies that children come up with to deal with abuse uh such as sexual abuse or other abuse typically what are they well some of the coping mechanisms the the other important one is the fight aspect uh you will get children especially very young children who will protest in terms of hitting at the abuser or hitting at someone or crying crying is another uh verbal way if you will of fighting so that you will hear symptoms we've heard that Eric was a crier he was always crying along that line with very young children um other symptoms again you would look for the age of the child to see where along the Continuum there would be symptoms are things are when we talk about fighting we're all picturing like you know ftic cups but you're really talking about is is rejecting or efforts to reject the abuse or to yes we call it protest behaviors that if you take a careful history you often can find again especially young children some manner in which they try to protest it and would uh threats to run away or attempts to run away in an older child constitute Pro T Behavior oh yes definitely would hiding in the closet or trying to elude the um abuser constitute protest behaviors yes now I think that you said that where this neurobiological model now accepts the notion that there is recoding of the brain on the basis of the exposure to trauma yes with a child under say the age of three has the brain been fully coded I mean in its original or Baseline form yet no it has not so if you have a child under the age of three who is subject to traumatic episodes is the original coding of that child's brain different than it would have been hypothetically without the trauma yes so can you preset a child from a very early age to be hyper sensitive and hyperaroused to fear yes you can now turning back for a moment to how this whole system is activated during say an abusive episode on a child yes um this anxiety that this kind of behavior creates does how does this affect in the long term such a child well it's going to affect various aspects of its development because that's going to be carried into each developmental stage and what do you mean by that well as children develop uh there are tasks that must be mastered for them to be able to move on to the next task and that's generally the way one looks at Child Development so when you have the anxiety that is also going to influence those phases is there some notion that a child coping with this kind of trauma and stress uh from an early age I can't get out of the past somehow yes that's precisely one of the problems as their mind continually goes back to the abusive situation and how does that interfere with learning and that's going to interfere with learning because the mind keeps going back and doesn't push on to present and future good mental health generally looks at people who can stay present and future oriented now also I think you said that one of the coping strategies is this notion of dissociating yes or this notion of numbing are those the same things or are they different oh they're really different okay want you describe I think you describe what dissociating is it means sending your mind somewhere yeah that's more cognitive kind of function whereas the numbing is much more of a physiological feeling affect uh type of uh phenomenon so in a numbing coping response the child just doesn't feel things physically or does he not feel things emotionally also yeah they really are separated from the thought in another words they're cut off sometimes it's it's described as somebody's cut off from their feelings now let's assume you have a child who's in this kind of environment where they're being exposed to these traumas do they tend just to dissociate during trauma or does it become a habit if you will of mind yeah really can become AIT of mind and when you're um examining say the background of a child are you looking for evidence of this dissociating outside of the actual abuse incidence yes I am and what do you frequently find that you will find uh a number of reports stating that this is going on it won't be stated as the association but it will say the child is not necessarily concentrating in school or seems to be daydreaming a lot or is looking out the window or is not able to follow the activities in the classroom and that's what this looks like from the outside in a child dissociated yes this is what another person would generally observe now this other notion of numbing is um does the literature support the notion that abused children tend not to relate the incidents with a great deal of emotional affect yes is that related to this notion of numbing yes and would you explain that well they are uh cut off from the feeling so that when they describe what has happened they're able to do it they're able to describe in a rather perun way what has necessarily occur and the what we say the a the emotion does not necessarily match the statement and that would sometimes be in the initial stages of an evaluation now um and then ultimately perhaps the children get back in touch and are able to be emotional and well that's the purpose of of treatment okay let's talk about though this this notion of of a child who's been through this history when they're in a new stressful situation would you tend to find them using these coping strategies dissociating and numbing yes like if they're testifying in a courtroom in a trial where their life is at stake would you tend to think they'd rely on Old defenses like dissociation and numbing yes sustain the answer is courtroom um the structure of a courtroom and the method of examining a witness is that something that produces um anxiety usually in the people on the witness stand yes if those people have a history of being particularly sensitive to uh to stress and pressure could it you know cause them to fall back on coping devices from the past yes it could now one point we've talked about this brain recoding which is an actual change in the genetic structure yes the transmission of the message can the brain ever be recoded back to normal we know well there are uh efforts now to begin to attend to this uh whether it gets back I'm not sure that we have uh that research but we do have efforts to uh influence through medication the uh brain chemistry but short of intervention through medication um the brain doesn't just automatically recode itself if the if the particular stressful situations stop for example no but if there's a reduction of the stressful situation that's a a major step forward uh that's what you always try to do in any situation is to eliminate the trauma so these people um may get better then yes and at some point could their um tendency for example to be highly anxious and hypervigilant diminish over time yes would that happen even without treatment or does it require It generally requires treatment you had said that these were the symptoms that couldn't even be treated with usual talk therapy yes now you said that there are uh some adaptions that abused people or traumatized people make so that they can survive in an ongoing way yes uh if something changes if some new element or new crisis comes in do those adaptions work no they do not and then are these people likely to experience these really extreme fear reactions yes they are now going back to this notion of trauma learning okay how long does the impact of this last on a child's life it can be longlasting what are some of the impacts that you can see in U some of the behavioral or psychological impacts that you can see we notice uh many impacts in terms of the uh with you can get What's called the more internalizing type of reactions where there's withdrawal there may be depression there may be uh serious uh suicidal thinking then you can get what's called more of the uh externalizing symptoms where there is more of a um showing of the uh distress in a behavioral way U so you can get school room classroom kinds of uh symptoms acting up if you will in a classroom not being able to sit still uh things in which children's Behavior becomes uh a problem okay what effect does it have on the child's concept of self it is very very negative to the child's concept of self it makes a child feel worthless helpless all of those types of negative feelings generally come into play now this notion of helplessness is this a notion that runs through uh examination of trauma traumatized people of various types yes it does there's a there's a term that's usually applied in battered women cases of learned helplessness does something similar occur to Children yes you can see a nonassertive uh they're not in any way able to defend themselves so you see a much more um passive presentation with children now apart from any this this sort of Personality projection does a child who's been in these situations repeatedly where they can't fight and they can't flee do they approach problem solving the same way as a child who's been able to influence what happens to them who has had some control no they don't okay can you explain the difference well the problem solving skills which are very important cognitive skills if you will and and certainly all relate to the way information comes in are May well be severely uh influenced in terms of they they just haven't learned them they've been focusing on other kinds of things so that they may perceive a situ differently uh they have not had the experience that other non-traumatized children have you understand that in the theoretical framework of I want to go back for a moment to the battered wife when when the question is posed why don't battered wives just walk out the door the theoretical answer is learn helplessness um are there more than just that reason is why children don't just walk out the door well children yes there are more reasons why children don't uh they they may have no place to go they may have no uh safety uh aspect uh they certainly may be small that they they can't and they also are very um connected with their parents um there are a lot of mitigating factors that a child still believes that the parent uh is the most important person and they feel very much connected with the parent but is helplessness this helplessness learning if you will or this learning to be helpless um something that continues into adolescence and even young adulthood in abused children yes if it's not interrupted yes and for those children even if they're old enough theoretically to walk out the door does helplessness play a role yes and what role does it play it keeps them tied into the situation they don't see their options uh they they can't think of what else to do so we do see that Phenomenon with adolesence do most abused children run away or do most abused children stay there and take it based on the research in the literature objection sustains the for question okay B there have been numerous Studies have they not have abused and molested children yes and particularly in the incest and home abuse setting yes to focus on domestic abuse rather than abuse by strangers yes and uh there's statistical studies done in this area as well are there not yes there are uh to assess the extent of various forms of child abuse in this country and in this state currently yes and um do abused and molested children tend to leave the home routinely no they don't now do people who have had this re experiencing and reexperiencing of of trauma have a sense you've talked about helplessness do they also have a sense of isolation yes I do and what causes that the isol very often is something that's imposed by the abuser uh to keep the child from persons that they may be able to talk to so that you do see a family in the case of a family situation where the children are kept away from Friends other family members now when you say kept away do you have to be totally locked off or you know permanently to have a sense of being isolated from other people no it can be from uh the way that it's stated in the family the rules of the family so to speak do children who have experienced trauma learning in the sense that they have been frightened by um an Abus are in the family uh tend to be easier to control by way of rule setting yes I do is there a notion in behavioral literature that terror is an effective tool for discipline yes and I think you've already indicated that uh abused children particularly sexually molested children tend to be compliant in passive protction rephrase the question yes I mean I think you've indicated that sexually abused children for there to be long-term abused tend to be passive and compliant yes is that because they like it no it is not do they like it no they do not now is one of the distinctions between uh when we come to these issues of isolation and helplessness and inability to to come up with alternatives for their situation one of the distinctions between children raised in such an environment and battered women that battered women at least have earlier life experiences that's correct in which they could have problem solved or had responsibility for themselves yes overoll the answer will stand now I want to go back for a moment to the actual fear response okay yes the physical signs of this fear response are what increased heart rate blood pressure increase sweating um all of the autonomic nervous system symptoms um there are more but those are the general ones people feel when people describe things like tingling and their scalp you know people talk about their hair standing on end and chills running down their spine are there actual biological causes for that linkages yes and when a person who has this um you talked about the kindling or rekindling effect on Friday yes I did would you describe to us what that is well the kindling effect is where in a traumatized person they have a certain level of the fear so that when the new or they perceive in their environment a new queue it it takes much less for that to flare up if will so that it's a it really explains that higher level of um fear response than in non-traumatized persons and when these persons are are experiencing this trauma response do they get all the same physical signs and and symptoms that anybody else would in yes so they do in the situation yes yes now is there research that indicates that that one of the side effects of this alteration in the neurobiological structure is a change in the serotonin levels that the body produces yes what what is serotonin well serotonin is an important brain uh hormone that modulates and regulates and keeps at this uh even Keel if you will the um the so that the neurons can transmit back and forth so it's a very important chemical part of the brain and is it believed that people who have undergone these um genetic changes uh due to exposure to trauma have a lower serotonin level than non-traumatized populations yes they have a lower level and is you talked about medical about medication as an intervention is this one of the areas where there out of Medicaid to raise the serotonin level well yes they do you actually can raise the serotonin level by prescribing certain medicines which medicines are um effective in doing that uh there are several um by trade name um Prozac is one zolof is one uh Wellbutrin is another I believe and are these then the kinds of medications that are now being prescribed for traumatized people to help overcome what this genetic remapping may have done yeah well it's done also for depression and suicidality as well as the uh the traumatized I mean there are other populations that benefit from that I think we've all heard about Prozac but yes right we have a needs a break so we'll take a recess and we'll resume in 15 minutes don't discuss the matter with anyone don't for and that's where I'm going to stop it for today we're about halfway through this video so I'm splitting it up into two parts um not that it matters to you this is uh from the Menendez trials um here vandas trials part one so it is she was on the stand for for 5 and 1/2 hours and this one and then another video she's on the stand for like almost 7 hours so we're splitting it up so we're not doing a six-hour stream at a time um so just FYI we will pick up next time with cross-examination of Dr Anne Burgess and it'll be interesting to see because I think they're going to really go hard at her um miss banic most likely is going to um try to debunk psychology as if psychology isn't real but we know today that it is maybe in the '90s early '90s we didn't think so but we know now that it's pretty accurate um anyways I hope you guys enjoyed this I'm really liking Dr an Burgess I think uh we need more women out there like her just you know Paving the way for others to to um learn to actually learn from people and how people process things and how people relate to one another and not just you know some statistic I think um it's important to know uh what these kids were going through and all this the chemical changes in their brains that were happening at the time and it affects their ability to make decisions and to make the decision not to shoot their parents you know I mean it would affect the way that their brains obviously work and that's um why she's here to to let the jury understand that because until you're in a situation where you're being mistreated by someone else you don't really know how you're going to react and uh yeah I'll just leave it at that uh maybe one day I'll get more into my ex husband and stuff because it's it relates um especially I relate to like a lot of the stuff that Dr Anne Burgess was talking about so anyways maybe one day I'll tell you a little bit more but I don't think today the day we don't have time I got to take care of the dog so thank you guys so much for uh tuning in thank you for hitting that like button so that this stream can get pushed out to others I really appreciate you guys for being here let me know what you think of Dr Anne Burgess and of this trial as a whole and what's going on in your mind about the Menda Brothers trial let me know in the comments below I will see you guys um on Thursday take care bye now if you've been impacted by a true crime and would like your story told in your own words or if you or someone you know has been wrongfully convicted or accused of a crime please write to crime in court channel@ gmail.com and tell us your real true crime encounters thanks for watching [Music]