Autopsy Revealed in New Mom's Murder Mystery

I don't know what to do. I don't know what, what the f**k, what the f**k. We have new information in the case of the New Jersey mom allegedly stabbed to death inside of her home, discovered by her husband, and yet, roughly five months later, we still do not have any answers. We have no arrests. There's blood everywhere. We now have Brooke Hanlon's autopsy report. What it tells us about what might have happened inside of her home and what it means for an investigation that is still very much a mystery. We're on the case presented by Law and Crime. I'm Chris Stewart. Well, to say investigators are keeping information close to the vest in the case of Brooke Hanlon would be an understatement. It has been roughly five months since his mom was found stabbed to death. We don't know of any suspects. No arrests have been made and law enforcement, they haven't really appealed to the public for help. We did just get the autopsy report for Brooke Hanlon. It was done a day after she died in June of this year. We're just getting it now. And when it comes to the narrative, if you will, of the injuries that were found on Brooke Hanlon's body, what pieces of information were found inside of the home at the scene, this is what that part of this seven-page report looks like. It is heavily redacted. Now, this document does lay out some important pieces of information as we're trying to figure out what happened to this 35-year-old wife and mom. But it is shocking that nearly five months after she was allegedly stabbed to death inside of her home, police have yet to make an arrest. Again, they haven't appealed to the public, really, and they've just kept a lot of information private. Now, before I get to what this autopsy report does tell us and what we know about this investigation, let's start at the beginning and get you caught up. That is the voice of Brooke's husband. He made a 911 call around 4.30 in the afternoon on June 6th. This couple lived in this home, Chester Township, New Jersey, a really nice suburb, not far from New York City. Now the husband, he has said that he had nothing to do with the death of his wife. Now, Brooke Hanlon and her husband, they also had a one-year-old baby at the time of her death. She was a new mom. The autopsy says that Brooke was wearing green shorts and a green tank top when her body was found. June 6th was a Saturday. It just seems like it was a pretty casual day, pretty casual outfit for summer. Oh my God. I need an ambulance. Chester Township. Chester Township. Okay. Is there a floor apartment of room numbers? Is this a private home? A private home. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. Tell me exactly what happened. I know you said your wife is dead. I just found my wife. I don't know what's going on. CPR. I need CPR. Start the instructions. Okay. She's not breathing or conscious. Oh my God. There's a, there's a laceration in her. Now you hear Brooke's husband say there's a laceration on her chest. The medical examiner said an autopsy found her cause of death to be multiple sharp force injuries. Her manner of death was ruled a homicide. We're getting out there. Just stay on the line. You need more information. Okay. No. Please. I don't know what to explain. I need you here. I need you here immediately. She is bleeding and she's not, she's not conscious. Okay. Okay. Oh, oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. All right, the paramedics have been sent to stay on the line. Yeah. Yeah. What? If there's a defibrillator available, send someone to get it now and tell me when you have it, sir. No, I don't have one. I don't have available. Okay. I don't know what, what the. What the. Okay. Please put your phone on speaker so your hands are free to help her, sir. It's on speaker. It's on speaker. I did not move a. No, please. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. All right. Listen carefully and I'll tell you how to do chest compression, sir. Place the heel of your hand on the breastbone in the center of the chest, right between the nipples. There's a cut. There's a cut. I'm sorry. What was that, sir? Okay. Can you place the hand of, the heel of your hand on the breastbone in the center of the chest, right between the nipples and put the other hand on top of that? Yeah. Okay. All right. Pump the chest hard and fast, at least twice per second and two inches deep. Okay. Let the chest come all the way up between pumps. We're going to do this 600 times or until help can take over. Okay. Count out loud so I can count with you, okay? One, two, three, four. Keep going, sir. You're doing great. Okay? Help is on the way, sir. Keep going. Sir, try and take a deep breath, sir. Try and take a deep breath, sir. Hello, sir. Are you still doing the chest compression, sir? Of course. Keep going, sir. They're getting there as quick as they can, sir. Now, as you hear the dispatcher leading Brooke's husband through chest compressions, you also can hear him yelling to his wife on the call. I need you. I need you. Three, four. Three, four. And, sir, I know you said, where are you in the house? On second floor. Second floor. Second floor? Okay. Okay, keep going. I got this. I got this. You got it, Brooke. Come on, baby. Come on. Come on. Keep going, sir. What the f**k happened? And where is there a big, a large cut, sir? There's one on her breast. There's one right below her breast. Okay. Okay. Just keep going, sir. Okay. Keep going, sir. We have responders pulling up. Just keep going until they take over. Just keep going. They're right outside. Just keep going until they take over, okay? You're doing a great job, sir. You said the front door is open, sir? Okay. I'll update the responders. Keep on going, sir. Two, three, four. Keep on going, sir. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Keep going until they take over, sir. Keep going until they take over. Please, now, now, now, now, now. Are those the responders, sir? Yes, yes. Okay, you can speak with them, sir, okay? I found her. I need you, I need you. That's what you hear him saying to his wife over and over again as he is performing CPR. And at the end, you can hear him tell first responders that he's the one who found her. Now, we also hear in that part that Brooke is on the second floor of the house. The 911 call lasted six minutes and 38 seconds. Now, Brooke's husband has said that he had nothing to do with what happened to his wife. A reporter with the Daily Mail got in touch with him and he allegedly said that his heart is totally shattered. And then when he was asked if he had anything to do with what happened to Brooke, he said, quote, of course not. Now, we know that Brooke got married in 2021. They met in Boston. And then they moved to New Jersey. That's where Brooke's from originally. A key part of the investigation may also be what Brooke did for a living. She was a psychotherapist. Now, miresource.com has a profile for Brooke Hanlon that says that she's, quote, providing a warm, supportive, and nonjudgmental environment. Brooke Hanlon is a licensed mental health counselor in New Jersey and according to WebMD a psychotherapist is someone who helps people manage emotional issues mental health problems or just difficult parts of life I mean what she did make no mistake it was heavy work and you also have to wonder who are the people that came in contact with her in that line of work what were they going through the autopsy report it is heavily redacted and we don't learn much as far as the narrative of what police say allegedly happened inside of the home now it is unclear where Brooke's husband was where the baby was at the time all of this took place now it does appear that the medical examiner believes that Brooke was stabbed seven times it also says that she died of sharp force injuries and her manner of death as we said was ruled homicide join us now once again to talk about this one retired NYPD detective David Sarney what do you take away from this autopsy report? well thank you for having me we always go to this they always start the basic rudimentary things an autopsy is a result of the death of an individual this autopsy shows that where the victim here has sharp force trauma injuries in other words that there were stab wounds there are numerous stab wounds that we you know upwards of seven which is or you know we really can't tell it's the redaction but what you're looking for is anything out of the ordinary besides the stab wounds apparently there seems to be no facial injuries to the to the victim so that tells you something that's going to happen in the next couple of weeks the person you know whoever stabbed the perpetrator who ever stabbed her was very close did not did not punch it or strike her in any way that we can determine or was determined by the autopsy or was determined by the detectives on scene because when they get to the scene they can investigate the crime scene take that information bring it to the medical examiner to determine the totality of circumstances what type what was this was the suicide was a homicide um they probably you know this comes down to was a weapon recovered near the body we don't know because it's not the police um meaning this you know if you've got short force injuries you're looking at short force stabbing so could that eliminate the fact that the suicide more than likely because the numerous stab wounds that this individual that she took she there would be the knife would then the object would be nearby it does not seem to be nearby so that's why they also geared toward a homicide because if you're going to you know end your life you'll have the items near you because apparently she died because of the standard short force injuries and nothing else at this point yeah and you look at i mean it's to say i mean they have been so tight-lipped about this from the very beginning you know the prosecutor's office all the way down i mean this autopsy was done the day after brooke hamlet died and here we are in october now getting access to a very redacted version of it um why are they just not talking more do you and it's it's only speculation at this point because we know so little but like why are they going this approach to letting the public know more about the investigation well it comes back to realities you know we don't detectives won't tell everybody everything you don't want to tell the media everything because it can taint the investigation let's say they have a person of interest and we there's some leakage out of it i'll tell you it's very surprising there's been no leaks whatsoever no media press release or leaks from the investigators or the prosecutor's office at all about this but it's because you don't want anything to go into the public forum where it can um make this suspect who they may be looking at now we don't really know anything about making the suspect feel uncomfortable and leave they could be having this person under surveillance waiting for other information to come back because if you remember if the autopsy report her hands are bagged the reason why they bag their hands is because they're going to try to see if there's any dna underneath the fingernail clipping the fingernails the fingernail clippings to see if anything matches so this is the thing we're not we don't know about there's a lot of things you're not going to know about it because the investigators want to make sure that this case when it is or where there is arrest that all the evidence that they have was not leaked out and it was put to the prosecution to then prosecute this case at first first make the arrest and then prosecute it but right now you know i don't expect any leakage from this i only expect actually an arrest eventually it's going to take time and we say this you know this is you know there's a lot of whys that haven't been answered people want the whys like why her why at this time and that's the thing i always look at maybe they're trying to still answer that out but they're not going to tell you everything and they shouldn't tell you everything because it's an active investigation an active murder investigation and we don't know at this point i mean her husband has not been accused of anything you know there's been media outlets that have like paparazzi'd him outside of his house and it's like if if you know he is innocent which it seems that he is at least from what we know at this point i mean we you never know um but you know he has denied involvement he has not been named a suspect um you know he has gone on and lived his life he's very much a you know a widower you know at this point what do you make of the fact like if it was someone from the outside who came in and you know if i lived in this county if i lived in chester township new jersey like i'd be looking over my shoulder if i was a neighbor to think that someone came in and attacked someone in the house uh which is certainly a possibility why not if you are the police you know be able to put that in for i know you want to keep the public at bay but at the same time like is there anything you can read into like a public safety standpoint that police have not at least said like we're you know there's someone out there who did this it comes back to the same thing i guarantee you they went through vicap the violent uh violent apprehension program looking for things that may have fit a pattern to see if this incident fit a pattern like that uh apparently if they did they were working on it if it didn't you won't know either way uh i think they feel or the presumption is when speculating that they have an idea of who the perpetrator or perpetrators are they just don't want to bleak him out so that's why sometimes you'll hear this is a hazard to the to the community or danger to the community that's never been said i mean they didn't release the name her name it's for three weeks so they really kept this under they kept this on the wrap so that's why is this a person that she that is known to her or she knew him or her it goes back to but you can see that the the her murder her homicide the homicide is violent in fact the number of stab wounds this wasn't a one-time deal there's numerous stab wounds all around her body so this is maybe someone that is known to her or knows of her so this is why i think they've kept it close to that well and i think too of like when you listen to the 911 call and there's it's i mean it's so emotional listen to him and you think of this husband who's you know he says found his wife he says found his wife and he says found his wife he says found his wife and and she's been you know stabbed to death inside of their house like she's on the second floor which you know if you're a detective on this case like what does that tell you that she was inside of the home doesn't seem like what stood out to me like what she was wearing like it's a summer saturday like kind of a tank top and shorts kind of you know very casual type of outfit she's on the second floor of this house how does that play into the investigation well that's the thing also was there fourth century apparently there was no fourth century so that means you can talk to the husband and ask you know how is her routine did you lock the door in it regularly but do you lock the door at all will you just close it is that something you have to think about because forced entry says there was something going on in there someone wanted to go into that house or they knew her routine so that's the thing and the second floor is something that did they you know we asked if there's a burglary tape with property taken we don't know it was removed we don't know if the sharp force injuries were a result of uh items from the house that have not recovered or items left behind which apparently does not seem to be or not we don't know but to go to the second floor commit this murder and leave the same way you came in is unusual but if the person is known if they're known to each other it may not be unusual because that was the target and maybe that's the thing was this this appears to be a targeted attack upon her and we don't understand if there's a randomness to it we don't know because the process the investigators are not releasing that but it appears to them that's why you haven't seen a release of any hazards or dangers they seem to have a belief this relationship between the victim here and the perpetrator or perpetrators you know one case and i'm not saying because in that case the husband uh was just convicted but just because of the 9-1-1 call was incredibly damning was caleb flynn and i know we talked about that you know i think back to when you know that 9-1-1 call was released and you and i were both talking about like how does he know there's two gunshots and then like here we are a year later and he's been convicted of killing his wife um a very different situation you know the husband in this case has not been accused of anything and it seems like he's just trying to live his life but when it comes to a case like this where someone in a home has been stabbed to death how does that compare when you're gathering evidence compared to a case like caleb flynn where authorities had a woman who had been shot twice in the back of the head well i think the 9-1-1 call says lacerations people already hung on that oh what lacerations you know when you come home and it wasn't saying she was stabbed seven times because then that would be something that we looked at um the 911 calls part of the evidence is the digital forensic evidence looked at apparently her computer was being looked at obviously would you want to see if there's anything routine that she was to meet with that day or what the schedule was you confer with the family you confer with the husband you interview any neighbors seeing anything unusual around the area you also try to get any surveillance videos from exterior ones uh cameras from streets from street areas or anything that determines how they got whoever these people or perpetrators was got into that location and left because the way in which she seems to be murdered the multiple stab wounds there's got to be noise you would think there's some noise in that this is some screaming or something did anybody hear anything and you see or hear anything and also blood trails that's the thing we're looking at hands where her hand with a self-defense uh wounds to her hand Not only that, like that blood between the perpetrator may have blended in because when you stab someone so many times with a sharp body there is a possibility the person may be cut also and that laceration may have dna left on the scene we don't know what the crime scene looks like we know this you know i've seen unfortunate stabbings and there is a lot of blood in somebody and that blood could be anywhere so was there a pattern of blood walking out of coming out of the house that they were able to identify blood spatter uh how is the blood spatter in house we know nothing at this point and that's why i don't want to speculate i want to put people into particular ways but when you look at the people saying look at the husband of the husband of course he's going to look at he's going to be a suspect until we determine otherwise every no one is above reproach when it comes to these investigations no and like i remember the last time we spoke of this too i think it was fox news digital had that he had hired an attorney which like to me uh you know everybody has a right to a defense but also you probably know you know if you're a lawyer you're going to have to have a you know if you're a lawyer you're going to have to have a defense but also you probably know you the person that found your wife that you're going to be someone who law enforcement are going to look at um when someone hires an attorney though how does that impact an investigation um because he's been cooperative like everything that's been reported is that he's been he's been cooperative there was even like the daily mail got in touch with the husband and he said you know something along the lines of you know of course i didn't have anything to do with it um and then there was another report out there that neighbors have seen him i guess he still owns the home and he's not going to be fighting you know by any means um for detectives knowing that he has an attorney is there something that impacts the investigation in any way well to get him into get him back to be interviewed he may have his attorney with it an attorney an attorney is you're allowed to have a right to return that's part of you know the bill of rights you have an access to attorney he did because you know if you become the suspect you want to have a defense or an attorney watching your back and that's what they're going to do so that's what a defense attorney is going to do does it impede the defense attorney's right to have an attorney that's part of the bill of rights impede it to an extent it does because you have to if you want to speak to him bring him to the precinct or wherever they're going to speak to him at the attorney is going to be there and they will determine whether or not the questions that are being asked are viable to the investigation or trying to accuse the husband so that's where you have that that outside party that defense attorney working vigorously to defend their client to the best of their ability both morally legally and ethically sound maneuvers in that case that's what you're looking to do it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be able to defend your client but you're going to have to do it in a way that's going to be a little bit more difficult because of having to coordinate and i think that's really what it comes down to because you know he's been he has been cooperative but it's also his protection and he's a right to an attorney you know you all presume innocent of proven guilty united states uh criminal justice system you'll have to understand that yeah and it's just uh you know when you look at the house it seems like though it's not you know really that far of a drive from new york city i mean it feels like a very like country area of northern jersey you know where you do wonder how many houses have cameras how many cameras are actually out there on the streets you know how easy would it be for someone to pull up carry out this crime then get in their car and drive away um when it comes to the classification of this as a homicide because there's you know part of me too i mean ellen greenberg's a case that we've talked about a lot and i'm not saying that that's what this is or there's any speculation of it but like that's a case where there's this debate back and forth of what it was and you know people there have been documentaries done that the evidence doesn't match up to what one side is saying or the other um in a case like this when you have a medical examiner that says this was a homicide uh i guess what does that mean to the investigation and then does that rule out any sort of possibility like we see in the greenberg case where there are people and in that case you have law enforcement are saying it was a suicide i guess how does that back and forth go um in a case like this and i know that determination was made very early on that this was a homicide right well this is the good thing because in the autopsy report you see that there were investigators at the me's office during the autopsy which is important because as far as an investigation is concerned that means determined usually the matter of death by the investigation by the by the detectives from what they see the crime scene the coroners don't always go directly to the scene they're doing the autopsies they're doing the body work uh the crime scene work is done by the detectives so they were able to coordinate and if there are any questions that were asked by the me it could be answered by investigators that were at the autopsy so not only that it goes back to the same thing and it was probably saying were there any odds and you know during this investigation were there any sharp objects where the body is because you'll ask and saying you know how could what do you think was the hate to say like what do you think was the stamp that ended her life or was it multiple that will ask the me and they'll and they'll answer the me will say you know is there uh not was there any sharp objects around the body when this happened because we're looking for a particular size and a particular particular length and that's what they look at so detectives go okay let's go look so that's why in a crime scene that's why when they go through that house they're checking for everything especially the stems they were looking to see if any objects were in the location around where the body is or any objects or knives from the house that means in the perpetrator or perpetrators i would say more than could be more than one male or female came into the house with their items and left with them so you know when it doesn't you know that's why you know as far as investigation concerned there must be when it comes into death investigation there must be the detective to go to the me's office with the information from the crime scene so then they can coordinate and confer determine the matter of death we know the cause of death is sharp force injuries which are stab wounds but we have to determine based on the investigation plus the coroner the me's office depending where the stab wounds are because we have an unfortunate case where it looked like a homicide but it was determined that it was a suicide because the evidence they had you know the apartment how the apartment in this case was extremely bloody from room to room there's blood everywhere but based on the investigation by the detectives based on the me's report it turned out to be a suicide so that's what it comes down to it it's a it's an operational protocols where the me speaks confers with the case detectives or detectives from that case so they can bounce off their information they can answer the why's or what is and whether and they can bring that to the me and then they determine based on the fatality circumstances and we'll see what happens you know next in this case you know you feel for her family not only just for losing brook hanlon but the fact that it's just been such a long period of time and it feels at least from the public standpoint that there are just not a lot of answers at this point but of course there's always a lot more to the story and what detectives are working behind the scenes uh nypd uh retired nypd detective david sarnie always great to have you here on long crime thanks for doing this thank you very much and stay safe that'll do it for on the case presented by law and crime i'm chris stewart see you next time you