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Nancy Grace
Day 85 in Natalee Holloway Case
Aired August 22, 2005 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, day 85 in the Natalee Holloway case, the 18-year-old girl missing from her high school senior trip. This week, Natalee would have started classes at the University of Alabama, full scholarship. And tonight, Aruba`s prime minister -- that`s right, the PM - - admits Aruban authorities blew the investigation into Natalee`s disappearance.
And catch this. Superstar Olivia Newton-John`s long-time love, nine years together, missing since June 30, Newton-John just announcing the disappearance.
Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace, and I want to thank you for being with us tonight.
Tonight -- incredible voice, incredible star -- Olivia Newton-John, long-time love missing, we learn tonight, since the end of June. Hello! It`s August! He went fishing overnight, boarded a fishing boat, and has never been seen since.
But first: Aruba`s prime minister admits Aruban authorities bungled the Natalee Holloway case from the get-go. With us tonight in Aruba, Jossy Mansur. He is the managing director and editor of "Diario" newspaper. In Philadelphia, defense attorney Joe Lawless. In San Francisco, defense attorney Daniel Horowitz. In New York, forensic scientist Dr. Larry Kobilinsky and psychotherapist Lauren Howard.
But first, let`s go to WBMA reporter Anastasiya Bolton. Anastasiya, bring us up to date, friend.
ANASTASIYA BOLTON, WBMA: Nancy, first of all, welcome back.
GRACE: Thank you.
BOLTON: Now, the Aruban prime minister did meet with Beth Holloway Twitty over the weekend. And she went on to say that he did admit that the investigation was badly "botched," quote.
GRACE: Whew!
BOLTON: Now, there is some war of words going back and forth now. The spokesman for the prime minister said that the prime minister did agree that the beginning of the case could have been better handled, but he never said it had been botched. Nevertheless, the prime minister does promise that the Aruban authorities will not rest until the resolution in this case is found.
I`ve spoken with sources from the prime minister`s office today, and let me make one thing clear. The prime minister really does not have the authority over this investigation. He is over the executive branch, and there`s the prosecution. Prosecution and police are over completely separate branches of that government. So he really does not have the authority to tell...
GRACE: OK. I get that, Anastasiya. Don`t leave. With us, WBMA-TV reporter Anastasiya Bolton.
But Joe Lawless, isn`t that like saying, Well, now, listen, Bush has nothing to do with what the district attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, is going to do with a murder case? Well, theoretically, of course not. But when you`ve got the PM saying you botched the case, although now they`re definitely backing off the "botched" word, the B word...
JOE LAWLESS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, yes. If you`re the president or the prime minister, you`ve got a bully pulpit. You`ve got an opportunity to exert pressure on investigative authorities. And Nancy, I think what`s key here is when someone says, in what I think now, unfortunately, is a homicide investigation -- when you`ve botched the beginning of a homicide investigation, you`ve pretty much botched the investigation because if those aren`t solved or if you don`t have some key clues locked in at the beginning, it makes it much harder to get a resolution down at the end.
I think the prime minister can exert a lot more pressure, if only because of public opinion, if nothing else, and I think he should keep doing it.
GRACE: Speaking of exerting pressure, back to Anastasiya Bolton with WBMA-TV. Anastasiya, didn`t the prime minister also tell Natalee`s mother that she should be careful in her comments regarding the Aruban authorities?
BOLTON: I have not heard that. I understand that he just did reassure her that everything is going to go, well, fine, or he`s just saying that they`re going to do an absolute best to keep the investigation going. Let me also mention, again, the...
GRACE: Anastasiya...
(CROSSTALK)
BOLTON: ... Aruban government told me today that it is good news, that the authorities are still saying that they`re working on this case and they`re not calling this a cold case. So he said...
GRACE: Well...
BOLTON: ... indeed, that there is some good news in all of this.
GRACE: Anastasiya, I really do appreciate that they`re claiming it`s not a cold case. But I`ve got in front of me, Anastasiya, a report from the AP, Associated Press. Now, unless the AP is lying, this is what they report, that the prime minister said he urged Holloway Twitty, who has been critical of the probe into her daughter`s disappearance, to be careful about her remarks regarding the island`s judicial system.
Now, speaking of exerting influence, Daniel Horowitz, what do you make of that comment by the Aruban PM? This is the same guy that didn`t even spell Natalee`s name correctly in the last letter that he issued.
DANIEL HOROWITZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, we might as well change his name from PM to PR. He`s a public relations person for a resort community. Nancy, I`ve been saying this, and it really hurts me to say it, but in two weeks, Joran Van Der Sloot is going to be let go, and they`re doing damage control. They`ve been trying to dig up dumps, go find witnesses, all to say, Look how much we`ve done, and, Oh, we care so much. Bottom line is they blew it. Americans should go to the U.S. Virgin Islands for a vacation...
GRACE: Hey, so Daniel...
HOROWITZ: ... where American law applies.
GRACE: Daniel...
HOROWITZ: Yes?
GRACE: ... I plan to see America first. If I have to hop a Greyhound, I will see America first before I head down to Aruba after all of this.
Let`s go to Jossy Mansur. Maybe he can help us out. He`s the managing director and editor of "Diario." Jossy, is it true that the Aruban prime minister told Beth Holloway Twitty, according to this report by Associated Press, that she should be careful regarding her comments about the Aruban judicial system?
JOSSY MANSUR, MANAGING EDITOR, "DIARIO": I believe he did say something in that sense, but I believe that what he meant was that she should be more reserved in her comments as far as the criticism is concerned towards the Aruban authorities.
GRACE: Why is that?
MANSUR: Because he`s the prime minister. This is his government. He presides over five to seven other ministers. And he has a big responsibility towards the public here.
GRACE: Well, speaking of what the Aruban authorities are doing, they`re not helping search the landfill, Jossy. It`s been the group from Texas and other Americans, right, Ellie (ph), searching the landfill.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Aruba search and rescue, as well.
GRACE: Aruba search -- well, I`m glad to hear that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
GRACE: Hey, Jossy, take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BETH HOLLOWAY TWITTY, NATALEE`S MOTHER: It`s just so unfair that whoever made these crucial mistakes, whether it was due to a cover-up, just blatant, inept -- I don`t know which one played the larger role, and -- but I know things went terribly, terribly wrong in the beginning, and we are still to this day going through, you know, feeling the repercussions of that.
What`s so sad is, look at all the people that have been involved in this and have put forth so much effort, from dive teams to Equusearch to family members. And our lives are -- have just been turned upside down, all of our friends and family in Mountain Brook and Birmingham, and gosh, all the people that have been involved all over the U.S. It`s just such a tragedy that we`ve all had to go through this because of those first few days of the investigation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: I can`t stress enough how important the first few days -- actually, the first few hours -- of an investigation are, if you want results.
And remember, this week, today, tonight, should have been Natalee Holloway`s first week away at college, full scholarship! Who on this panel, as esteemed as you all are, can say you had a full scholarship to go to college, that you were that smart, that you made grades that good, to go be a doctor and help other people! My little nephew took off for college last week. Of course, we`re all in tears about that. But she should be in the bookstore tonight. She should be -- about right now, she should be leaving the cafeteria with a group of girlfriends, deciding if they`re going to the library, for Pete`s sake. Her mom should be making sure all of her little clothes are folded up and put in those horrible metal drawers in your dorm.
But instead, the speculation is this girl is deteriorating at the bottom of a landfill or out to sea, where she will never be recovered.
You know, Jossy Mansur, I`m still disturbed that the Aruban prime minister told Beth Holloway Twitty that she should be careful -- those were his words -- about what she says about the Aruban government. And it`s my understanding that Aruban search and rescue has looked into that landfill, that the Texas group, Equusearch, has searched it, that another group is planning to search it. Where`s the Aruban government when it comes to the landfill?
MANSUR: Well, there hasn`t been much cooperation in that field over there. The only cooperation that was received in the beginning was that half day off for the public workers so that they could go en masse and help search for Natalee. The rest has been done by the Equusearch from Texas, the Golba team that is here now, and the Aruba search and rescue team, and other private members of the community.
GRACE: Right. Right. Aruban search and rescue is not a government group. And now we`re hearing that the prime minister did not say "botched," Lauren Howard. But isn`t this parsing words?
LAUREN HOWARD, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: From day one, Aruba has taken an extremely defensive posture. They have closed ranks, protected their own. They do not have crime on this island. And the immediate response was not, Let`s find out what happened, the immediate response was, Let`s gather together into our sort of closed community and take a defensive posture and not have the world -- world opinion pointing a finger at us as an untoward place to go.
GRACE: Well, you know what? Let`s get right down to the actual investigation of what is going on tonight. Very quickly, back to Anastasiya Bolton with WBMA-TV. We were all told that once the gardener -- who was discovered, actually, by Jossy Mansur, who is with us tonight -- gave his sworn statement to a judge, the Kalpoe brothers, and I was hoping the judge, Paulus Van Der Sloot, would be brought back in for questioning.
Now, according to my flow chart, Joran Van Der Sloot hasn`t been questioned since a week ago Thursday, and these two Kalpoe brothers certainly have not been taken into custody, Anastasiya.
BOLTON: That`s right, Nancy. First of all, let me address the Kalpoe brothers. The Kalpoe brothers, we did expect them to be rearrested, and as of last Monday, a week ago, the gardener gave the sworn testimony which was, indeed, in line with what he said previously, that he saw the three men on the beach at 2:30 in the morning the night Natalee Holloway disappeared -- he, of course -- the brothers have not been, obviously, arrested. We were told by our sources in law enforcement that they do expect that the Kalpoe brothers will be arrested.
GRACE: Oh!
BOLTON: Obviously, that hasn`t happened. I`ve spoken to the...
GRACE: I`m sorry. That was me groaning because, Anastasiya, no offense, but you told me that about 10 days ago. We`ve heard that over and over. The Kalpoe brothers are going to be re-questioned. What are they doing down there?
BOLTON: They tell me that they`re continuing with their investigation, that they maintain that they still continue with the investigation, even though, as you have mentioned, Joran has not been questioned for over a week now, almost 10 days, and they`re not saying when they`re going to be questioning him again.
GRACE: OK.
BOLTON: Although -- although, Nancy, I have to point out that the Dutch behavioral specialists...
GRACE: Oh!
BOLTON: ... are working on what they call a new strategy for questioning. They`re going to try to...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: You told me that two weeks ago!
BOLTON: ... we don`t know.
GRACE: Anastasiya, I know you`re just the messenger, therefore I will not kill you. But the reality is, you told me that two weeks ago, that there was a Dutch team of specialists devising, cooking up a new method by which they would re-question Joran Van Der Sloot. Hasn`t happened. Hasn`t happened! We`re going on two weeks. How long does it take to devise a new mode of questioning?
And very quickly, before we go to break, to Jossy Mansur with "Diario." Jossy, what about the severed arm~! I mean, I was out in the middle of a bird sanctuary last week, and I heard about the severed arm. Hasn`t anybody reported they`re missing an arm? I mean, what`s the hold-up with analyzing the arm?
MANSUR: I don`t know. That`s a question for Venezuelan government to decide. You have to remember that when they sent the arm to Caracas for examination they had a very serious and tragic plane crash and the technical police were very busy with that, as well as with other normal activities that they have in the lab.
GRACE: Well, I know we had the Venezuelan air crash.
Dr. Larry Kobilinsky, forensic scientist, let`s just get down to it. We saw this in the Laci Peterson case. When a limb or a body has been at sea for this long, there`s no flesh left to use for a DNA comparison. Or is there?
DR. LARRY KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: Well, Nancy, you`re right. The likelihood of having soft tissue, even muscle, attached to the skeleton is slim. But there is bone, and bone contains DNA. And of course, we can do mitochondrial DNA analysis. Now, that is a much more complicated method. It requires sequencing. It`s a longer-term process. It can take weeks.
I know that Latin America has a group called GTOD (ph), which is a collection of countries that have DNA laboratories, and they`re there to help each other. So I think getting the job done is no problem, but the question is when. It should have been done by now.
GRACE: I know, because the arm washed ashore several days before the Venezuelan air crash, and still no answers.
Very quickly, to tonight`s "Case Alert." Is there a break in the case of a Pennsylvania prosecutor, Ray Gricar? Remember him? Gricar vanished April 15. But now a woman claims she spotted Gricar in a Texas restaurant and even snapped him on her cell phone camera. The woman gave these photos to police. Is the man in these pictures the missing prosecutor? Earlier this month, police discovered Gricar`s computer, missing the hard drive, submerged in water near the location Gricar vanished.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Natalee Holloway should be at college classes starting this week at University of Alabama, full scholarship. Instead, her family is wondering if in 15 short days, Joran Van Der Sloot will walk free from behind bars.
Very quickly, to Jossy Mansur with "Diario" newspaper. Jossy, what do you think about the theory that Natalee`s body was moved twice, that these three suspects allegedly left the body somewhere the night she went missing, and then they got help in disposing of the body shortly thereafter?
MANSUR: Well, I`ve heard that theory advanced here in Aruba. It was advanced by a witness that was on the beach that claims to have seen them put the body of a young woman in the back of a white pick-up, drive towards the lighthouse, bury the body and then disappear.
GRACE: OK, Jossy...
MANSUR: And then apparently...
GRACE: Question. The cadaver dogs -- were they ever brought to sniff Paulus, Judge Paulus Van Der Sloot`s car?
MANSUR: As far as I know, no.
GRACE: Oh! To Anastasiya Bolton with WBMA-TV. What can you tell me about an anonymous tipster, a jogger that was apparently jogging in the area when Natalee went missing?
BOLTON: Nancy, authorities apparently are searching for a man, the jogger, who anonymously called the hotline for Natalee Holloway, established for Natalee Holloway several days after she disappeared. He claimed to have seen something but never made another contact with authorities. Now police want sworn testimony about what he said and saw the night Natalee disappeared. Apparently, they can`t find the man.
GRACE: Jossy Mansur, I assume the police department has "star 69." Can`t they track who has called in? I mean, the feds can get a dump on a line and tell you who`s called you for the last week to your home.
MANSUR: I know that this call was made to the tip line of the police a long time ago, in the early days. I don`t know whether they jotted down or have any way to trace back this call. But they are actively searching for this supposed jogger that saw a car parked near the pond, again.
GRACE: So we`ve got two people stating the car was parked near the pond. We`ve got the gardener, who`s given sworn testimony before a judge, and this anonymous tipster, this jogger.
OK, we`ll all be right back, but very quickly, to "Trial Tracking." The 10-year mystery of the disappearance of a 19-year-old Emory University student, Shannon Melendi in Atlanta, comes to a head in court. Today, opening statements in the murder trial of Butch Hinton, charged with Shannon`s kidnap and murder. Hinton has been accused of kidnapping women on three separate occasions in two separate states, and he even served 15 months behind bars for the kidnap of a 14-year-old girl. So what was Hinton doing walking free near a college campus?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LUIS MELENDI, SHANNON`S FATHER: I will make his life miserable, you know? I mean, this is not over for him. If he thinks he`s going to get out and this is over, he`s got another think coming. I will make his life miserable as much as I possibly can, you know, within the law. But I will -- I won`t let this go, no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Shannon Melendi was never found.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TWITTY: I`m just going to have to wait until September the 4th. I`m just going to have to wait to experience it to see what we`re going to do.
We`re always thinking and putting different things into motion. As far as Deepak and Satish, I`m not giving up that they will not be rearrested. I just -- I still think that that is a strong possibility.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace.
Straight down to Jossy Mansur with "Diario" magazine -- newspaper. Jossy, the gardener says he sees Joran Van Der Sloot, one Kalpoe, and a third man in a car near this pond. Hey, Elizabeth (ph), can you put up that picture, the map where we see where the pond is? So that was around 2:30 AM, Jossy. So how does that affect Judge Paulus Van Der Sloot`s story? He went from saying he picked his son up at 4:00 AM back to 11:00 PM. He backed it up five hours.
MANSUR: Well, that destroys that story completely, as it destroys also the alibi of the two Kalpoe brothers that they dropped Joran and Natalee on the beach and then went home.
GRACE: And very quickly, Jossy, are dive teams searching the water again now?
MANSUR: Yes, ma`am. Apparently, using some kind of modern equipment by an American that`s here on his own, they located some item of interest out at about a mile from the coast, and a dive -- a test dive took place Sunday with five or six divers, and then...
GRACE: Do you know what the item is? Do you know what the item is?
MANSUR: Well, apparently, they`re talking about some kind of remains, human remains, bones, for example.
GRACE: OK.
MANSUR: And then they`re planning a big, big search with between 12 and 20 volunteer divers.
GRACE: OK, Jossy.
Very quickly, we at NANCY GRACE want very much in our way to help solve unsolved homicides, find missing people. This past week, a family found me on vacation, gave me these photos. They are desperate to find this girl. Their girl, Pamela Kinney, 19, disappeared from Apalachicola, Florida, August 14, wearing a white tank top, jeans skirt. She worked at a local Subway sandwich shop. If you have any information on this girl, help us. Pam Kinney. Call the Franklin County Sheriff, 850-670-8500. Please help us find Pamela Kinney.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
THOMAS ROBERTS, CNN HEADLINE NEWS ANCHOR: Hi, everybody. I`m Thomas Roberts. And this is your "Headline Prime Newsbreak."
The prime suspect in last week`s rocket attack on two U.S. warships is now in custody. The suspect is a Syrian man and is linked to an unnamed Iraqi-based terror group.
The war protest outside of the president`s Crawford ranch continues, even though neither the president nor the organizer, Cindy Sheehan, is currently at the ranch. The president is traveling to drum up support for the war.
Meanwhile, Sheehan continues to try to get her message across. She`s released a new antiwar ad, though some stations have refused to air it.
The former POW who became an instant celebrity after her rescue started college today. Jessica Lynch is attending West Virginia University. She hopes to become a kindergarten teacher.
And a New York lawmaker says health concerns prompted her to publish a list of cellphones and the levels of radiation they emit. Scientists still don`t agree on whether cellphones can cause brain cancer. The list will be available at nyccouncil.info.
That is the latest news for now. I`m Thomas Roberts. We take you back for more of NANCY GRACE.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANK LIVERSEDGE, MARINA MANAGER: About the 30th of June at 10:00, Patrick McDermott went on the boat Freedom. But Freedom went to San Clemente Island. They got to San Clemente Island about 5:00 in the morning. They fished all day at San Clemente Island. They cannot get on or off the boat at San Clemente Island. It doesn`t touch shore.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: This is a shot of Olivia Newton-John. Remember her in "Grease"? Fantastic, beautiful, a voice like nobody else`s, major star. It is her long-time love, Patrick McDermott, that is missing. They`ve been together nine years. There is a shot of McDermott.
Tonight, joining us from Long Beach, California, U.S. Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer William Epperson; in L.A., "Inside Edition" senior correspondent Jim Moret.
Jim, what can you tell us about Patrick McDermott`s disappearance?
JIM MORET, CORRESPONDENT, "INSIDE EDITION": Well, it`s a mystery, frankly. You heard in the...
GRACE: OK, you`ve got to tell me a little more than that. The guy`s been missing since the end of June, right?
MORET: Right, since July 1st. He got off -- theoretically, he got off a fishing boat July 1st. Some of the people who were on the boat said that they saw him get off the boat. He wasn`t really reported missing to authorities until the 11th of July. That`s when he had missed a family event.
And it wasn`t until this weekend that we learned of the connection between Mr. McDermott and Olivia Newton-John. And that`s really a shame, because her celebrity, I think, could have really helped this case and brought attention to this missing person.
GRACE: OK. I don`t understand why they waited so long to report him missing.
MORET: Well, he was due at a family affair July 6th. And we know that the person that you heard from earlier, thanks Frank Liversedge. He`s the landing manager over at that dock at the marina. He got a call on the 11th from this man`s ex-wife saying, did he leave anything on board? Is there anything to indicate he was there?
And it turns out that he left behind on the boat all of his belongings. He left his passport, his checkbook, his wallet, his driver`s license, his keys. His car was left in the parking lot across the street.
But you`re right. There is a big gap of time. And there`s no explanation for why it was 11 days until this was reported.
GRACE: OK, let me get something straight. The guy goes on an overnight fish trip with, I guess, a group of other guys, pays to go out on the boat. They go to a location where you cannot disembark the boat.
They come back the next day. He`s on the ship. Everything`s fine. He pays his money downstairs in the galley as they`re approaching land.
MORET: Right.
GRACE: He eats a meal -- I guess it was lunch -- as they`re approaching land. Then everybody disembarks, nobody sees him leave, but all his stuff is still left on his bunk, and his car`s still in the parking lot, yes, no?
MORET: Yes. Well, yes, except with this caveat: There were, according to one person I talked to, a couple of people who believed that they saw him get off the boat.
I was told that nobody is aware of anyone going overboard. No one is aware of anybody getting off this boat from the time it left the harbor until the time it got back who wasn`t supposed to get off the boat.
So, theoretically, this man could have simply gotten off the boat and walked away. It`s being treated as a missing persons case right now. It`s possible foul play was involved.
GRACE: But you`re telling me there are witnesses that saw him get off the boat?
MORET: It`s possible this man simply walked. We simply don`t know.
GRACE: Jim, Jim, you`re saying there are witnesses that saw him get off the boat? OK, I guess I`ve lost Jim Moret.
MORET: No, I got you back. Got you back. I`m sorry.
GRACE: Just give me a yes or no! Did a witness see him get off the boat?
MORET: I`m told yes, a witness saw him...
GRACE: Huh! OK. So that blows the whole theory, then, Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky, straight out of the water that he fell overboard, or committed suicide in some way, or that somebody killed him and threw him overboard.
There`s actually a witness that claims they saw him get off the boat. That doesn`t make any sense. His stuff is still on the boat.
KOBILINSKY: Well, Nancy, first of all, I`m not so sure that there`s credibility there. As you very well know, eyewitness testimony is often incorrect. And people will say what they think they want you to hear. So it`s really not clear to me that he departed from the boat.
But the other question is, is he more than a missing person? Was this something criminal? Did somebody attack him on the boat, off the boat? Was it a suicide? Did he want to disappear because he had personal problems?
I think there`s a real need for some good police investigation here.
GRACE: OK. To Chief Warrant Officer William Epperson with the U.S. Coast Guard. Sir, is there any evidence of foul play whatsoever?
WILLIAM EPPERSON, U.S. COAST GUARD: Right now, with the interviews we`ve been doing, this is still being treated as a missing persons case, and nothing has led the investigation to go in any other direction.
GRACE: OK. Now, I think what you just said was...
(LAUGHTER)
... you don`t think this is a homicide, it`s just a missing person?
EPPERSON: It`s still being treated as a missing persons case.
GRACE: Now, sir, after a certain period of hours, don`t missing persons cases turn into homicide cases? I mean, this dates back to June 30. We`re in August now.
EPPERSON: When he got off the vessel or didn`t get off the vessel, I should say, or I should say when he didn`t show up for a family event, it was at that point that the family then called the authorities. July 11th - - actually, the authorities were contacted on July 6th when he didn`t show up.
GRACE: So it`s been since July 6th. It`s August 22. Why is this still a missing person? Why isn`t it a homicide case?
EPPERSON: Because we haven`t found any evidence so far that leads us into that investigation direction.
GRACE: OK.
With us is Chief Warrant Officer William Epperson with the U.S. Coast Guard. Take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM EPPERSON, UNITED STATES COAST GUARD: If the public or anybody has any information on this case or has seen Pat McDermott at all, please call 310-732-7344, or you can go to our web site at www.uscglosangeles.com.
Right now, it`s being looked at as a missing persons case. And nothing else has deviated from that.
Being a missing persons case, this is not a normal case that I`ve seen, that has been handled by the Coast Guard Investigation Service. I know they handle these kind of things, but it`s the first time that one`s gotten this much attention.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Hmm. Back to Jim Moret with "Inside Edition." He`s their senior correspondent.
I`m a huge fan of Olivia Newton-John`s. You can`t hear that voice and not just fall in love with her. And remember her battle against breast cancer. She brought so much attention to that courageous battle.
But Jim Moret, what took so long to jump on the bandwagon? I mean, Jim, if this was your significant other, I mean, I would imagine you`d be lying prostrate across the courthouse steps begging. I mean, did she think that it would somehow harm the investigation?
MORET: You know, the first statement that was made by Olivia Newton- John was today through her publicist. Actually, a private investigator that she hired.
And you know, you and I have talked about the issue of celebrity. This is really a case where it would have helped. I don`t know.
Look, Olivia Newton-John is probably going through a horrible ordeal, wondering what`s happened to her loved one. And I don`t want to guess why she waited so long. I really don`t.
GRACE: Yes, well...
MORET: But I don`t understand why she waited so long. I really don`t.
GRACE: Well, there`s -- hey, Elizabeth, let`s run her statement. She says she has offered full cooperation to authorities, they`re continuing to investigate, hopeful eventually we will find answers, grateful for all of those who expressed concern. "I simply ask for your continued support and prayers."
You know, it could be any of a number of answers, Lauren Howard.
It could be -- Jim, yes or no: Doesn`t very have a new CD coming out? I almost said album. That`s a no-no.
MORET: Yes, I believe she does have one, as a matter of fact. Yes.
GRACE: For all we know, she`s been holed up in a recording studio, or she`s doing P.R. on the other side of the world. He`s on a fishing trip. A week passes since she`s...
HOWARD: A one-night fishing trip. It`s his ex-wife who called -- forget about her going public and talking to the press. It took 10 days.
The ex-wife is the person who reported him missing. It`s the ex-wife. He was missing at a family function. I`m curious how a nine-year soul mate relationship has a 10-day gap without a conversation? Why wasn`t she reporting him missing? That`s one question I have.
And I don`t understand why the police, from an investigative point of view, aren`t checking phone logs. Did she try to call him? Did she try to reach him in those 10 days and was unsuccessful in that attempt?
The other thing I want to understand is, if, in fact, this is a purposeful disappearance, there was a question about him being depressed on the boat, he was very talkative, he was complaining about his ex-wife, the alimony, so why are the police then not following the money? What`s the deal?
What were his holdings? What was the status of his alimony payments? Could he afford them? I mean, these are the questions, not forensic. These are the behind-the-scenes questions that I don`t understand why they`re not being asked.
GRACE: That`s why Lauren is a psychotherapist. She`s all entangled in their romantic relationship. And I`m a former prosecutor.
I`m like, forget the relationship. What happened between walking off the boat and getting to the car? That`s what...
(LAUGHTER)
... that`s the five-minute time period I`m interested in.
Very quickly to tonight`s "Case Alert." Today, the homicide trial of Sabine Bieber goes on. Bieber owns Tiny Tots Day Care, and she stands accused of giving an infant, Dane Heggem, a fatal dose of antihistamines like Benadryl. Why? To make the baby quiet, to make it shut up and take a nap. Investigators also found drugs in the diapers of other children at Tiny Tots from their urine, antihistamines. Bieber faces 60 years behind bars.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN, "SANDY OLSSON," "GREASE": Oh, I spent most of it at the beach. I met a boy there.
STOCKARD CHANNING, "BETTY RIZZO," "GREASE": You hauled your cookies all the way to the beach for some guy?
NEWTON-JOHN: Well, he was sort of special.
CHANNING: There ain`t no such thing.
NEWTON-JOHN: He was really romantic.
Tell me about it, stud. Is this the end?
JOHN TRAVOLTA, "DANNY ZUKO," "GREASE": Of course not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That`s Olivia Newton-John, known for her role in the movie, "Grease." Beautiful voice. Icon the world over. Tonight, her long-time love, Patrick McDermott, missing. He`s apparently been missing since June the 30th.
Very quickly to Daniel Horowitz. Daniel, this guy got off the boat. Then why is the Coast Guard on the case and not the local P.D.?
HOROWITZ: I think, Nancy, that we`re not sure he got off the boat. You know, there are some things that bother me, sort of along the lines that you brought up.
If his items are still on the boat, isn`t there somebody who owns the boat who said, "Hey, this guy`s pants and wallet are still here. I have to find him"?
And his car is still in the parking lot. Doesn`t the parking patrol say, "Whose car is this?" Why did so many days go by?
I`m not sure he got off that boat. But I have more questions than -- I have no answers in this case. This is one of the great mysteries.
GRACE: Well, Daniel, if I know you, you`re going to come up with something or make up something in the next five minutes. So I`ll be right back with you, Daniel Horowitz.
But very quickly to Jim Moret, senior correspondent on "Inside Edition." Jim, I know a couple of answers. I know that the owner of the boat did find the items left behind and put them in, I guess, a plastic sealed bag for the person to come back and pick up. And when the wife called him on July 6, he goes, "Yes, I have some objects. Let me see if these are his," and they were.
MORET: Right.
GRACE: And the wife says, "Well, do you see his car?" And the man goes out and sees the car in the parking lot. And that`s when those items were actually -- two and two is four -- were put together.
MORET: Exactly. Those items were basically kept and were not looked at until the ex-wife gave permission to do so. And that`s when, as you say, two and two were added up.
But I agree with Daniel. I`d love to hear what he has to say, because I really am stumped on this one. So many things don`t make sense.
GRACE: Joe, what did we lose? The time we lost from June 30 to July 6.
LAWLESS: We lost the opportunity to find out the small details of what happened, as you said, between the boat and the car.
Something that`s bothering me -- I`ve been hearing this -- didn`t this guy have a job, he was a photographer? Weren`t appointments canceled? Was he missed at his office? There are just so many holes in this.
There`s a lot more to this than meets the eye. I agree with Daniel. This is something that is a lot more than just a missing persons case, as far as I can see.
GRACE: What about it, Jim Moret? Did he have appointments that he missed?
MORET: None that I`ve been able to find out. We`re still early on in this investigation, from our standpoint, from a reporting standpoint. We`ve been getting -- you talk to the Coast Guard. They had very little information they could share with us.
None of the information that I`m giving to you we got through them. We had to get it from other sources. So they have not been very forthcoming.
GRACE: Hey, Jim, have all the people on the boat -- there weren`t that very many people on the boat.
MORET: Over 20.
GRACE: Have they all been questioned?
MORET: As far as -- well, the Coast Guard would not confirm this, but I`ve been told that all the people, or nearly all of the people, have been questioned.
Don`t forget there`s a manifest of who`s on that boat. So, certainly, the boat owner knows who was on that boat, and, therefore, the authorities would know who was on that boat.
GRACE: Dr. Kobilinsky, as a forensic scientist, he is with us. If Patrick McDermott fell overboard, which -- I mean, the guy -- they were headed back to land. He had just paid his money.
And another thing, he sat down and had lunch with all the other crew members. If he was going to commit suicide, would he sit there and think, "Gee, turkey and Swiss, pimento cheese?" I don`t see it.
(LAUGHTER)
KOBILINSKY: Nancy, you`re absolutely right. I think what`s missing here is a psychological profile to determine if he was depressed and how depressed was he.
Was he on any medications? Did he commit suicide, or was he fleeing? Was he so upset with his personal life that he felt he had to leave?
And I think that it`s a very difficult situation because, you know, the boat should have been checked thoroughly. You`ve got to assume, make the assumption, that something -- a crime occurred. Then you can check the boat, look for any evidence.
But at this point, it`s late. We don`t have a body. We don`t know where the person is. Missing person, but time will tell.
GRACE: Very quickly to Lauren Howard. He is leaving behind a 15- year-old son. Now, when he paid his money, they were still three miles offshore. That`s a good ways out.
HOWARD: Correct. Correct. It is not possible that this man, by design, left that boat with his gear, and his backpack, and his wallet, and his ID...
GRACE: He left all that on the boat.
HOWARD: Right. There`s no way he left that boat, leaving those things behind in sort of a stable state. Either he was removed from the boat by someone else, he fell over by accident, he fell over on purpose, which, if he was going to commit suicide, it wouldn`t be within four kilometers of shore, or it was a purposeful disappearance, because he was trying...
GRACE: You mean he faked his death?
HOWARD: Well, to get...
GRACE: You know, when people go missing, how often do we believe they fake their death? We never talk about that.
HOWARD: Yes, I mean, it wouldn`t even be to fake his death, to just disappear, to go south, to disappear into another country.
Now, what would that mean? That would mean he`s trying to get away from the things in his life, either his ex-wife and his alimony payments, his 15-year-old son. Doesn`t sound good. His relationship with Olivia Newton-John. Don`t know. These are the questions to be asked.
The people on the boat said that he appeared depressed, he was complaining about his ex-wife, and he was extremely talkative. Extremely talkative does not coincide with extremely depressed.
GRACE: No, it really doesn`t. I`m not buying into that whole depressed theory.
We`ll all be right back, everyone. But very quickly, to tonight`s "All-Points Bulletin." FBI and law enforcement across the country on the lookout for this man, Warren Steed Jeffs, leader of a polygamous sect, wanted in connection with sex assault of a minor in Arizona.
He`s 49, 6`3", 150 pounds, brown eyes, brown hair. If you have any information on Warren Steed Jeffs, call the FBI, 602-279-5511.
Local news next for some of you. But we`ll all be right back. And remember, live coverage of the daycare homicide case, 3:00 to 5:00 Eastern, Court TV`s "Closing Arguments."
Please stay with us, as we remember Specialist Ronnie D. Williams, 26, an American hero.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LIVERSEDGE: To think that a person could have fallen overboard or even jumped overboard on purpose, it`s pretty slim. Strange things happen in the ocean. Giant squid could have come up and eat him, or something like this. But, you know, as far as we know, he was on that boat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. CNN has not been able to confirm that this guy was depressed, angry about alimony.
I think, Joe Lawless, there`s a lot of speculation going on about this guy, Patrick McDermott`s, disappearance, the long-time love of Olivia Newton-John.
You know, when we talk about missing people, we very rarely come up with a theory that it`s a faked death or that somebody just took a powder. Why is that the source of speculation in this case?
LAWLESS: Well, I think probably because of his involvement with Olivia Newton-John. That puts him on the periphery of celebrity. It happened out in California, which is, you know, of course the place of romance and exoticism and stuff like that.
GRACE: I don`t find faking your own death to be romantic or exotic.
LAWLESS: No. No. I think it`s one of those things that there are just so many unanswered questions. You have...
GRACE: There`s a shot of where it happened, Joe. San Pedro, not too far from L.A. And if this guy really got off that boat, why is the Coast Guard still running the case and not the local police?
LAWLESS: That`s what I don`t understand.
GRACE: He didn`t get off the boat.
LAWLESS: Because the local police would have a lot better way to approach this than the Coast Guard.
GRACE: Lauren, thoughts?
HOWARD: Well, too many questions. You know, CNN can`t confirm this story about depression, but somebody`s making it up. Crew members said he was depressed, he was talkative. His neighbors said he`s very stressed, depressed...
GRACE: But you said depressed doesn`t go with talkative.
HOWARD: Oh, I`m not buying it, but people are saying it. The neighbor says, "It`s very strange he went on this trip and didn`t tell me to check his mail."
GRACE: One night.
HOWARD: One night. What mail? It`s not fitting.
GRACE: No, it`s not fitting. It`s not fitting.
OK, everybody, I`ve got to thank all of my guests. I can`t believe the show flew by so quickly. Thank you to all of my guests.
But my biggest thank you is to you for being with us tonight, inviting all of us into your home. Coming up, headlines from all over the world, Larry on CNN. I`m Nancy Grace, back in the saddle and signing off for tonight.
Again, thanks for being with me tonight. Hope to see you right here tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
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