automatically mean murder. does the autopsy settle that question at this point? well, i mean i think to some degree, it does, right? so, we know that it s homicide which means it s death inflicted by another human being. so, strangulation, manual strangulation, strangulation um as it s described by the by the um by the coroner here um you know, it it s murder unless under some factual circumstance, the person who strangled gabby petito was acting in self-defense. and so, that s a um you know, that s a fact that we we ve not we we don t know that, yet. and and and likely, we won t until this matter goes to some sort of a trial or hearing. kobilinsky, putting aside the circumstantial evidence for a second, is there any evidence that is discovered during an autopsy of someone that
now on the investigative and forensic aspects of this now that we know what we know. joining us for that is cnn senior law enforcement analyst and former fbi deputy director, andrew mccabe. also, frances kobilinsky. i am wondering your initial reaction to to what you heard from the coroner? well, i think we were waiting for the cause of death and, you know, he did say that this was due to strangulation. i didn t know at first what that meant because there are three different kinds of strangulation. there there s hanging. there s ligature strangulation and manual strangulation. and obviously, now we know it s manual strangulation which is a very close-in way of killing somebody. it s not like shooting somebody from a distance. this is very personal, and it does tell a story about anger and hostility. um, and just an attack on another person. so, it tells us a lot. andrew, when you when you hear that cause of death
information. but because it s an ongoing investigation, that information is not going to be released. plus, under the the state statutes in wyoming, the only thing that the coroner is responsible for releasing is is the identification of the body, and the manner and cause of death. and everything else is is essentially protected. but there there are reasons why, for instance, in our investigation we call this a homicide, first. and then, the cause of death later. and that had a lot lot to do with certain circumstances and factors that we observed and and found in our investigation. um, dr. blue, i really appreciate your your time tonight. and i appreciate all the work you do. it s you you give voice to those whose voices have been stolen from them. and and you help tell a story, and get justice for for families. i really appreciate you being with us tonight. thank you very much. randi, as well. thank you. some additional perspective now on the investigativ
kobilinsky, putting aside the substantial evidence for a second, is there any evidence that is discovered during an autopsy of someone that that who this has happened to that could help authorities identify or build a case against the the person who did it? i think this is a very complicated case because they were they were engaged to be married. they were they were living together. they were in the van together all the time. finding brian laundrie s dna or trace evidence on the remains is not going to tell us very much. however, if we now know that she was manually strangled, then finding his dna or trace evidence where the pressure was excerpted by the hands and fingers on the neck, that would be very revealing. and that could be used in court to make the case. i mean, right now he is not even a suspect. he s still a person of interest. so there s a lot of loose ends
dr. kobilinsky, just in layman s terms and and maybe without getting too much into any sort of detail here, um, how does one determine a timeline of potential time of death? i mean, the the timeline that that dr. blue was talking about, you know, was is over the course of several days. but it, specifically, you know, it has an end date. although he said i believe he used the term wiggle room in that. how do you determine that? well, anderson, you know, what we re talking about is the postmortem interval. and if you find the body before three days of postmortem interval, it s pretty straightforward. you ve got rigor mortis and the body temperature going from normal body temperature down to ambient. rigor mortis. you have changes of potassium in the vitreous, the jelly part of the eye. but after three days, it becomes very hard. and quite frankly, they need an