the collar was still potentially dangerous. and it was also important evidence. so the question was how to remove it safely and still keep it intact. there was no easy answer. commander stankiewicz wasn t making any guarantees. he was 90-95% sure that we could drill through the back of it and and take it off without it exploding. that s a very poor result if you re on the ten percent side of it. yeah, and so i know i needed 100%. so what was the decision that was made? we decided to do i guess, for lack of better description, a surgical decapitation so we could get the collar off safely and intact. so you took the victim s head off? yes. it was one of the hardest decisions i ve ever had to make both professionally and personally. after completing that grim procedure, coroner timon met with brian wells family and told them about it. they felt brian was being victimized again, even in death. how painful is that for you?
he said it was safe. probably. it s hard to hide things from an x-ray machine. and we thoroughly x-rayed that device. but i i still can t s i m not inside of it. i can t see inside of it with my own eyes. and i was scared when we took mr. wells to the coroner s office cause we it was just myself, and our livery driver. and we were unprotected. it was just the two of us. don t hit any potholes. no, exactly. yeah. the collar was still potentially dangerous. and it was also important evidence. so the question was how to remove it safely and still keep it intact. there was no easy answer. commander stankiewicz wasn t making any guarantees. he was 90-95% sure that we could drill through the back of it and and take it off without it exploding. that s a very poor result if you re on the ten percent side of it. yeah, and so i know i needed 100%.