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Nancy Grace

Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

Aired September 15, 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, hard evidence of sex assaults, robberies, gunfire and cops turning a blind eye at the New Orleans convention center. Why is it all being kept secret? Why is there no attempt to document the wrongdoing and apprehend the perpetrators? Hurricane Katrina victims suffered countless assaults while under government protection from Katrina, a total breakdown of law and order.
And tonight, the case of a missing Emory University coed, Shannon Melendi. Her body wasn`t found, so is the right man on trial in an Atlanta courtroom for murder?

Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight. Tonight, a man on trial for the `94 disappearance and murder of 19-year-old Emory student Shannon Melendi, her body never found. We go live to the courtroom.

But first tonight, to New Orleans. For five long days after Hurricane Katrina hit, 20,000 people endured the unthinkable, and it`s being kept quiet until now -- sex assaults, robberies, gunfire, hunger, thirst. It was a way of life and death as American evacuees struggled to survive. In fact, many did not. Tonight, eyewitness accounts of violence unleashed under government supervision.

First, let`s go straight out to New Orleans. Standing by, CNN correspondent Mary Snow. Mary, what`s the latest?

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Nancy, there had been expectations that New Orleans would be a virtual ghost town for several months. Today, the mayor, Ray Nagin, announced that he is going to start letting residents back into the city as early in Monday in certain designated areas. Business owners will start coming in over the weekend. There will be a dawn-to-dusk curfew. He says over the next few weeks, about 180,000 people will return to New Orleans. He says this is an attempt to breathe life into the city.

GRACE: I want to quickly go...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: The sun is shining. We`re bringing New Orleans back. And this is our first step, where we open up this city and almost 200,000 residents will be able to come back and get this city going once again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: Now, power still needs to be restored. That is a continuing -- water -- residents are being told they can`t bathe in this water or drink it. And also, Nancy, there are questions about security, the mayor saying that federal agents will be able to establish a perimeter and control entry into these neighborhoods, the police superintendent telling me today that cars will also be searched for weapons before people come back in -- Nancy.

GRACE: Mary, I didn`t understand how you could take guns away from ordinary citizens. You know, that little thing called the 2nd Amendment? But Mary, after I read this article by Will Haygood from "The Washington Post," I got to tell you, my chest has been hurting ever since. Mary Snow with us in New Orleans.

Right now, to Will Haygood with "The Washington Post." Will, for those people that have not read your article, what happened in the convention center?

WILL HAYGOOD, "WASHINGTON POST": ... myself and another "Washington Post" reporter and Scott Tyson (ph). But what happened is, people went there thinking that they were going to get on buses and that the buses would take them to safety, and that did not happen for five days. They were left without food and water, and they suffered much trauma during those five days. There were sexual assaults, reports of sexual assaults. There was gunfire. There were people who died. And it was a fairly horrific five days for those people.

GRACE: Mr. Haygood, correct me if I`m wrong, but doesn`t your article state that there were 250 National Guard troops there in one of the halls of the convention center?

HAYGOOD: Yes, there were, and apparently, they felt that it was not - - it was not prudent for them to go into the hall to try to calm the violence. You know, that was something that...

GRACE: Not prudent. Not prudent. I thought that`s why we had the National Guard, Mr. Haygood. Now, also according to your article, the National Guard actually barricaded themselves into one of these halls, so the people on the outside that didn`t have food, didn`t have water, needed protection, couldn`t get in where they were!

HAYGOOD: Right. Right. And you know -- and there was much worry, of course, amongst mothers and fathers who were anxious to get food and medicine and help for their -- for their children. There were a lot of children there. There were a lot of young single mothers there who had children.

GRACE: Well, also, your article outlines gang rapes, sexual assaults, gunfire, actual deaths, murders there in the convention center, with the National Guard holed up in one of the halls!

HAYGOOD: Right. Right. That happened. At the Superdome, there was -- there was a way to check for weapons as people entered the Superdome Sunday. But at the convention center, there was no such plan set up, and - - you know, and so it was willy-nilly, folks rushed in there. They were frightened. You know, many were scared. It was dark Monday night. You know, it was still raining. You know, flood waters were everywhere. People had lost relatives trying to make that trek there. And it was just a state of sheer pandemonium.

GRACE: Twenty thousand people in the convention center. According to our research, that convention center can hold up to about 110,000 people. Take a listen to what one of the evacuees had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was too much pushing and shoving. We couldn`t even control ourselves, less our children. We was hungry. We was thirsty. It was below poverty down there. It was ridiculous!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: I want to go straight out to Anderson Cooper, CNN correspondent and anchor. Anderson, I remember the night you told me things were getting out of control at the convention center, but I didn`t get it. I didn`t get it!

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. It`s hard to get it because, you know, when you`re safe and you`re dry, it`s hard to understand how anyone could have let this happen. But Nancy, I`ve been in that convention center. I went by there today. They`ve cleaned up the outside. So if you drive by it now, you`d never know this happened. But no one should ever forget what happened there.

A doctor I went there with and toured the inside of it -- because the inside is still as it was left. I mean, there`s human waste. You cannot imagine the smell that exists there still, and that`s two weeks after the people were taken out. So imagine what it was like when they were actually there.

This doctor saw people from senior citizens homes just dumped there in their adult diapers, incontinent, no one looking after them. And you talked about no food, no water, not enough food, not enough water, not enough protection. What about medical care? There was no medical care.

Those National Guard troops -- I haven`t read this "Washington Post" article, but if those National Guard troops were there, I mean, they must have had medics with them. There was no medical care for 15,000 to 20,000 people, except for a doctor by the name of Greg Henderson, who went with an armed escort from the New Orleans Police Department, an officer who was brave enough to just go in there and stand by his side. The doctor was only armed with a stethoscope. He didn`t have medicine.

GRACE: Oh!

COOPER: And he said he felt more like a priest, just going from person to person. He would touch them, he would look them in the eye, he would put his stethoscope on their heart, say, You know, what? You`re going to be OK. Just hang in there. But he didn`t know if they were going to be OK because, I mean, there was no hope, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. It wasn`t until Friday, late Friday, that the cavalry started to come in. There was a military convoy, and they started to get help.

I mean, it is incredible what happened there, and it should never be forgotten, Nancy.

GRACE: You know, I understood when you told me that people didn`t get medical care. Remember when we talked about the elderly being pushed up in wheelchairs against the wall to die? But I had no idea that there were gang rapes, there were actually murders, there was gunfire. Here`s a sound bite from the doctor you`re talking about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. GREG HENDERSON, TREATED KATRINA VICTIMS AT NEW ORLEANS CONVENTION CENTER: My job is to be able to take care of people. Yes, I do it in a way that`s, you know, a sub-specialty, looking down the microscope and other things. But at my heart, all of us have gone through that training, that commitment to taking hands, taking their hands, laying them on people and providing some sort of care. And that you cannot do. You know you could do it. Even a pathologist could have figured out some things, how to do some things. I could have rehydrated people. If I had drugs, I could have started them on some antibiotics. You know, I could have sewed up some wounds, you know? But you didn`t have anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Twenty thousand people together in the convention center. We now have learned through Mr. Haygood`s article that rival gang members from various housing projects were all in the convention center together, with young girls, single mothers, little children, the elderly. At one point, Haygood writes, they broke into the liquor and beverage area and got out hundreds of cases of liquor and beer. An incredible, disturbing story. This all under the protection of our government!

Anderson Cooper first told us about a single doctor in the convention center armed with nothing but a stethoscope last week. That doctor, Dr. Greg Henderson, is with us tonight. Dr. Henderson, you are a real hero.

HENDERSON: Well, I appreciate you saying that, Nancy. I just -- I really do. But I -- the real heroes to me are the people who came to my rescue. The real people are the people who -- heroes are people who toughed it out, you know, and through that adversity.

GRACE: What did you see there at the convention center, Doctor?

HENDERSON: Well, I mean, Anderson was very accurate, and everybody else who`s told that story, about basically what happened, you know, during the days at the convention center is just right on. I mean, it was just -- you know, I recently referred to it, it`s as if the entire city of New Orleans seemed to have vomited up its entire population into one place, and that was the convention center. All mass of humanity was just collected there, looking for some sort of help.

GRACE: What crimes did you hear about there in the convention center?

HENDERSON: ... I mean, basically, you can -- it was one continuous hell, but there were two types of hell. There was the hell that was during the day. And the hell during the day was the hell of trying to administer medical care to these people. But then, almost as if it was a Stephen King novel, there was a hell that descended upon the night, when, at nighttime, the gangs -- and indeed, that`s what happened, what I have heard that has happened, is basically, the gangs of New Orleans decided to occupy the convention center and make that their turf and make that their operating territory.

Now, they knew they couldn`t do much during the day because, you know, there were some people watching. But at nighttime, there wasn`t any lights. And the way they would operate -- and this is the way it was told to me by the patients I saw during the day -- is they`d spend the day sort of eyeing and picking out their prey, if you will, young women, some as young as 6 years old, and figuring out that, That`s the one I want to rape tonight.

And then when the sun went down, they`d take their weapons and they`d go out into the crowd and they`d start firing up in the crowd, and that would cause a lot of pandemonium and take everybody`s eye off the ball and everybody would go hysterical. And during that mayhem, they would grab the women that they wanted to assault, drag them into the convention center and rape them, and sometimes they would kill them and sometimes they wouldn`t. One particular incident that just murdered me, practically, was -- because I`ve got a 6-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old daughter, was Wednesday night, I heard a report of a 6-year-old that had been raped and died during the trauma of the rape.

And it`s so -- like I said, it was just -- I mean, Anderson tells it well. You know, it just was hell. It was hell from start to finish, but there was a daytime hell and there was a nighttime hell, and the -- it`s -- the daytime hell is when I think I saw the best of humanity trying to help each other. And the nighttime hell is when I saw what true human evil can be.

GRACE: To Anderson Cooper. Anderson, all those nights you were reporting to us about the waters rising and all the human tragedy you were seeing, we had no idea what was happening at night inside the convention center.

COOPER: Yes, only people who were there, and people like Dr. Henderson, who made trips into there at great risk to himself. I mean, just -- Dr. Henderson is very modest. This is a man who was here for a conference. He wasn`t, you know, sent by FEMA. He wasn`t sent -- ordered to come here to help. He was here, just trapped in the city. He`d gotten his family out and decided, You know what? I`m just going to -- I`m going to do what I can. He helped out the New Orleans Police Department and he decided to help out the citizens at the convention center, to do whatever he could, so...

I just don`t think this should be swept away. I just don`t think that the people who were there -- I think they deserve to have their stories told and for this to be studied and looked at and remembered so that it never, ever happens again. I mean, why were those people told to go there? Why weren`t New Orleans police able to, you know, try to control it more, or at least get help from the state or the federal government when word started to spread of what was happening there?

FEMA didn`t even know for some 24 hours. It had been on TV all day long, but apparently, FEMA didn`t even know the convention center was being used as a depository for people. I don`t even use the word shelter because shelter implies some sort of protection, some sort of actual shelter from harm. It wasn`t a shelter. This was -- as the doctor says, it was hell.

GRACE: You know, Haygood writes of cops going into the bathrooms at the convention center, stripping of their uniforms, throwing their badges in the trash so no one would identify them as police officers, a rape on a victim as young as 6 years old, while the National Guard, 250 of them, holed up in one of the halls there in the convention center!

When we come back, why is this being kept quiet? Why are these people not being held responsible? And when we come back, an eyewitness to these crimes in the convention center.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: New Orleans is hot. We can`t take this. We been out here for three days. And we`ve been asking for help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where`s the National Guard (INAUDIBLE) all this?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Twenty thousand people evacuated into the convention center. That convention center can hold over 100,000 people. So why were rapes, gang rapes, shootings, assaults, even murders allowed to happen in the convention center? Everybody keeps saying this is America. We know this is America, but things like this aren`t supposed to happen.

I want to go straight to a man who was an eyewitness to what went down in the convention center. Leon Doby, what did you see?

LEON DOBY, SPENT THREE DAYS AT CONVENTION CENTER: Oh, ma`am, I saw everything, from stabbings to fights to women hollering, being dragged off in bathrooms. I like to call it the mouth of hell. That`s what the convention center was.

GRACE: Is it true that police would just drive by and keep on going?

DOBY: Drive by. They did at least throw out one case of 24 bottles of water when they passed. That`s all.

GRACE: You were there with your daughters, ages 1 and 3. You took them in a crate that you pulled behind you through the water, first to the Superdome and then turned away to the convention center. How long were you in there?

DOBY: Oh, about three days.

GRACE: Mr. Doby, what would everybody do when they would see a lady screaming, getting dragged off by one of these gang members into the bathroom?

DOBY: Well, all I can say is, ma`am, people were really worried about theirselves. Like everyone was saying, they had a lot of single mothers there with their kids, trying to do the best they can, as well as single fathers trying to do the best as they can, as well as couples. We was just trying to do the best we could to get over that. But I have to resent the word "refugees." We`re not refugees. We were people just trying to get over a tremendous storm that just tore us up.

GRACE: When you look back and realize these ladies were getting dragged off to be raped and nobody did anything, how do you feel?

DOBY: I feel horrible. I have two daughters who I love dearly, and I would never want nothing like that to happen to any of them, so...

GRACE: What were you afraid of? Why were you afraid to help? Because you had your two girls?

DOBY: Right, a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old. If I`d have let their hand go, they would have wound up being lost somewhere. Then I would really have been in bad shape.

GRACE: Mr. Doby, what was the National Guard doing holed up in one of the -- like, a banquet hall?

DOBY: I don`t know. I don`t know, ma`am.

GRACE: Did you try to get in there to where they were?

DOBY: I asked a few of them a couple of questions, but you know, they wasn`t in no kind of mood to answer no kind of questions or anything.

GRACE: Yes, I guess they weren`t.

Back to Will Haygood. Sir, are you still with me?

HAYGOOD: Yes.

GRACE: Mr. Haygood, I didn`t realize all of this had happened until I read your article. And your account has been confirmed, confirmed, triple- confirmed, eyewitnesses that saw this happen. Why is it being kept quiet?

HAYGOOD: Well, first of all, so many of the people who were in there, when they got out, they were so shell-shocked that they scattered and they went to other cities and they went toward loved ones. They were lost for, you know, these days, and so many of their relatives didn`t know where they were, if they were safe or what. And so I think there was a feeling to flee. There wasn`t an urge to go down to the statehouse...

GRACE: Right. Right.

HAYGOOD: ... and sit on the steps...

GRACE: Mr. Haygood...

HAYGOOD: ... and say, I want to see my senator to tell the story.

GRACE: Will Haygood is with us from "The Washington Post." We`ll all be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Welcome back. I`m Nancy Grace. Straight out to Jennifer Miele, WTAE-TV reporter. Jennifer, it`s just the opposite at Houston.

JENNIFER MIELE, WTAE-TV HOUSTON: Exactly, Nancy. You had fewer than 100 arrests in the Astrodome over the last few weeks, just things like fights and domestic disputes. There`s an officer every 10 feet, and they all have smiles on their faces. You`re looking at an air-conditioned facility. There`s catered food. The conditions are much, much better here in Houston.

GRACE: Catered food? Air-conditioned?

MIELE: Yes. It`s been a nice assignment for me. You know, we expected the same conditions in as in New Orleans, but it is the total opposite. I think people here can say that they`ve been treated very well.

GRACE: I don`t understand, Jennifer, why the people in New Orleans were treated this way, why we couldn`t get food to them.

MIELE: I don`t know, Nancy, but I will tell you that the mayor of Houston -- I did a one-on-one interview with him on Wednesday. He told me that his attitude is cut through the red tape.

GRACE: Quick break, everybody. We`ll all be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Just what arose over, you know, the day -- five days of anarchy, if you will, was sort of a general lawlessness, you know, it was - - where there were, you know, few bands of bandits that were terrorizing the people here. So they were afraid to come in here and sleep at night. They would come in the day, where there was light and they could see anything. But they wouldn`t come in at night because they operated out of here.

And I heard, you know some pretty harrowing stories of how they would go and get young women and come back here and rape them. One of them, I heard her throat was cut. Another one, a 6-year-old, was raped and died from the trauma of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: This all happened under the nose of our government, the Louisiana government, the New Orleans government, and the National Guard at the convention center.

To Will Haygood with "The Washington Post," who broke the story wide open in an article today. Mr. Haygood, why didn`t people leave?

OK, Kim (ph), my satellite`s down on Haygood.

I`m going to go to Leon Doby, who was there in the convention center. Mr. Doby, why didn`t people leave?

DOBY: Where was we going to go? How was we going to leave? Where was the buses?

GRACE: Wasn`t there a time, Mr. Doby, when a group of buses came up and everybody ran out to the buses, and they just left?

DOBY: Yes, ma`am.

GRACE: What happened?

DOBY: Well, you have to ask the drivers. I don`t know what happened, ma`am. The buses pulled up. As people tried to get on them, they just closed the door and pulled right back off.

GRACE: Has anybody contacted you about what you saw, as far as being a witness to any of this?

DOBY: Oh, no. No, ma`am.

GRACE: Do you get the sense that nobody`s going to do anything about it?

DOBY: Oh, I get the feeling that this is going to be kept quiet, just like everything else is going to be kept quiet.

GRACE: I want to go to psychoanalyst Bethany Marshall. Bethany, people lost their lives, like this 6-year-old child, other women that were raped and then had their throats cut there in the convention center. OK, the other women that were raped, that managed to survive, can you imagine the trauma they`re going to live with the rest of their life, with the National Guard holed up in one of the banquet halls?

BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: And the fact that after this huge disaster, they went completely unprotected. Look, this was not a place of refuge. This was a war zone. And if you take a look at the fact that the homicide rate in the city of New Orleans is 10 times higher than the national average, the state of Louisiana has the highest rate of incarceration than any other state -- you lay that alongside the fact that there`s 155 gangs in the state, and then in a war zone, people behave badly and all that rage and anger that`s built up over time just gets released...

I think that these victims need to do three things. They need to rely on other people, tell their story to anybody -- everybody and anybody who will listen, take advantage of resources that are available to them. They need to realize that the trauma will go on and on as they rebuild their lives, so they need to be patient with themselves as they experience new emotions.

And they need to think of one thing that gives them hope, one thing that they want to rebuild in the future, whether it`s to have a baby, get married, get a new job. And then they may need to make a plan for the future so that they can put the past behind them.

GRACE: Well, you know what? That all sounds just great, but if I had been raped, while under government supervision, with the National Guard down the hall, holed up, barricaded in the banquet hall, I mean, to me, that adds insult to injury, Bethany.

MARSHALL: That`s why I say it wasn`t a place of refuge, it was a war zone, and war zones bring out the worst in everything, in everybody. And these women, they may never recover. I mean, they will look back for the rest of their lives and say, I was betrayed not only by other people but by government and by people who were in positions of authority...

GRACE: You know what, Bethany?

MARSHALL: ... and who were supposed to protect.

GRACE: That`s what I`ve found to be the most devastating part of attacks on children, boys and girls, and adult women, the feeling of helplessness, that nobody did a damn thing to help them. And here, right under the nose of the National Guard!

Dr. Greg Henderson, are you with me?

HENDERSON: Yes. I`m just stunned and just in an emotional state by everything you`re saying because I`m in 100 percent agreement with everything that was said. Mr. Leon had said, you know, it was the jaws of hell. I`ve used that analogy a hundred times.

I understand the psychotherapist`s point of view, but I think you also have to kind of think of this, as believe it or not, I guess the way I begin to process it myself, as hard as it is to believe, is what we had go on in New Orleans is basically a mini-holocaust. And if you remember from the Holocaust, what the mantra for the holocaust is, is, Don`t forget. And those people were treated badly, and it took them years sometimes to track down their perpetrators. Because I think the people who were treated like that at the convention center ought to adopt that attitude. It may not happen tomorrow, but you track those bastards down and you find them and you bring them to justice.

GRACE: Doctor, do we even know how many people were killed in the convention center?

HENDERSON: You know, I can`t give you a specific number. I have heard -- I know it is at least 30 to 40 people.

GRACE: Oh, good Lord in heaven!

HENDERSON: I know that...

GRACE: And that`s over the space of...

HENDERSON: I know that -- I have heard -- again, sort of like you, I`ve had confirmed from so many different sources that there have been at least 30 to 40 bodies on the second floor of the convention center because that -- that became the de facto morgue of the convention center, and that`s by people who died of natural causes, et cetera. And even though I`m a pathologist, I am not a forensic pathologist.

GRACE: Well, you know...

HENDERSON: And I think it`s going to be the job of the forensic pathologists to sort through, OK, who died a traumatic death based upon a crime, and let`s start tracking them down.

GRACE: In the convention center. And Dr. Henderson, we got some photos of dead bodies there at the convention center, and we are not -- not -- showing them. But you can look at them and tell these people did not die naturally. Their bodies are all contorted, and they`re all bloody. It`s horrible!

I want to quickly go to Raymond Giudice, defense attorney and former prosecutor. You know, as much as we`re talking about it, you know nobody`s going to do a darn thing about it.

RAY GIUDICE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, Nancy, let me say something. We hold our National Guardsmen and women with the utmost respect. They are heroes in the United States and overseas. But you need to call that National Guard unit`s supervising and commanding officer on your show, and he or she needs to answer these questions. They may have a great answer. I want to hear it.

But whether these guys and women as a dereliction and duty in violation of military law or a dereliction of humanity and did not come out of that room and render aid, like Dr. Henderson did -- can you imagine? Two hundred and fifty more Dr. Hendersons walking through that convention center, helping people, giving them some confidence and controlling some of this criminal element, we may not have quite this disaster. We need some answers on that.

GRACE: And you know what, Ray? You`re preaching to the choir. You know, I`m not the first one to throw the stone at the National Guard, you know. My father is a world war veteran.

And -- but when I hear them, Lisa -- Lisa Borden is with us also, defense attorney. Lisa, when I hear about the National Guard all holed up in a banquet hall, actually putting vehicles in front of the doors so the people can`t get into them, have you -- what causes of action are we talking about here?

LISA BORDEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, Nancy, it`s going to be pretty interesting to see whether or not -- certainly, I`m sure, lawsuits will be filed, and it`s going to be a big burden on the justice system down there, once it gets operating again. But it`s going to be interesting to see what kind of liability can be imposed. There`s a lot of governmental immunities that`ll have to be worked through.

GRACE: Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa! Governmental immunities? A 6-year-old gets raped and dies? What governmental immunity?

BORDEN: Well, I mean, Nancy, for example, you know, the first question is, Who is -- on whose responsibility were all these people in the convention center? A lot of them came there thinking that they were going to get on buses, but the convention center wasn`t opened as a shelter, so the city, the state didn`t open that up as a shelter.

GRACE: Right.

BORDEN: So you know, there`s that question. They`re going to say, Well, we`re not responsible. We didn`t tell these people to go into the convention center. They broke in and...

GRACE: Oh, yes! Right! Like Pontius Pilate, just wash your hands, wash all the blood off, then you`re clean! Yes! You know what, Lisa? That`s exactly what`s going to happen.

Very quickly, as if we haven`t had enough of Katrina, dare I speak the word Ophelia? Very quickly to Rob Marciano. What`s the latest?

ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good news on the Ophelia front is that it`s been downgraded now to a tropical storm, and it`s spinning its wheels out there just off the Outer Banks. But the destruction that was once Hurricane Ophelia left behind -- it`s unbelievable here in Salter Path, North Carolina.

Look behind me. This is a north-facing island to a sound. This is storm surge that came through this area from the bay, basically, like, a 10-foot storm surge that came in with an incredible north wind last night and water that came in from the ocean.

This 9/15/05, that date right there? That indicates the fire department came in and said, you know, It`s OK to go in and clean up. But there`s a number of buildings on this strip that are not safe to even go in because the back side of these buildings, which you can`t see right now, are completely wiped out. Any dock that was attached to them, completely wiped out. And everything that you see in front of us is damage that was in these buildings and was hauled out as those buildings got hollowed out.

The key here is how incredibly strong this category one storm was and the storm surge that came through. Anyway, at least now it`s a tropical storm. Back to you, Nancy.

GRACE: We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Emory University coed Shannon Melendi went missing over 10 years ago, her body never found. She was never seen again. Now, in an Atlanta courtroom, Butch Hinton on trial for murder.

Welcome back. I want to go straight out to "The Daily Reporter" staff reporter Robin McDonald. What is happening in the Melendi trial?

ROBIN MCDONALD, "DAILY REPORTER": Good evening, Nancy. Right now, the jury is on hiatus. They have been meeting since yesterday late afternoon, after closing arguments, and they have taken a break for the weekend, but not before asking to rehear testimony from two witnesses, both former cellmates of Butch Hinton`s.

The reason that is of particular interest is because one of those inmates is an inmate who`s testified that Butch Hinton had waked from a dream, claiming, It was not me that killed her, it was the demon inside me. The other inmate, basically outlined in greater detail as close to a confession as anyone has described. Butch Hinton allegedly told him that he had left the ballpark where the two of them met that day -- Shannon was on her first day as a score keeper, Butch was the umpire -- that they left in her car for lunch, that he later brought her car back and left it at the gas station, where it was found several days later by her friends, abandoned.

He also had more detail. Butch had described Shannon as a tease. He had also described in fairly graphic detail how to get rid of a body that matched the suspicions of law enforcement officers, that you cut it up, you crush the bones, you burn it, you toss the remains in the Chattahoochee River, in this case.

And for the jurors to ask to hear that testimony from those two cellmates signifies that, as prosecutors have thought all along, that those -- that this is going to be pivotal evidence in this case.

GRACE: Ray Giudice, don`t you believe that, typically, when a jury asks to hear a readback of a state`s witness, that`s good for the state, and when they want to hear a defense witness, that`s good for the defense?

GIUDICE: I think that`s a good general rule, you`re trying to read these tea leave. However, my initial reaction...

GRACE: Oh, please! Read the tea leaves!

GIUDICE: ... and I hate to -- hold on. I hate jailhouse...

GRACE: It`s not like a big mystery! I mean, you can figure out...

GIUDICE: Nancy...

GRACE: ... where the jury`s headed by looking at them!

GIUDICE: Nancy, you know that jailhouse snitches are looked even down upon by jurors. They`re innately suspicious of them, and I think that -- you know, the jury may want to say, Hey, we don`t believe this guy. Let`s hear it again and see if he can convince us. So I don`t necessarily jump to the conclusion that`s positive for the state.

GRACE: You, of course, would never have anything to do with a snitch, you only represent them.

GIUDICE: Well, it`s amazing how these folks always hear these dreams, that all -- and you`ve been through this many times, Nancy. The defendant is incarcerated and he woke up in a dream and said, I did it, and I`ll do it again. I mean, come on. How many times do we have to go through that?

GRACE: Yes, look, right. I have to agree, hearing dream testimony is a little suspicious. But Lisa Borden, it`s not just one snitch, it`s not just two. Robin, weren`t there five snitches?

MCDONALD: Quite frankly, in this case, one of the inmates, the one who had the most specific testimony regarding a confession, has been out of prison for 10 years. There`s nothing -- he has a job. There`s nothing that prosecutors...

GRACE: Robin, how much snitches were there?

MCDONALD: There were six.

GRACE: OK. To Lisa Borden -- yes, snitches. They`re not the greatest, but when you`ve got six of them, and as Robin just pointed out, from "The Daily Reporter," one`s been out of jail for 10 years. What`s in it for him to come back and rat out Hinton?

BORDEN: Yes, you know, in circumstantial cases generally, sometimes the volume of the evidence becomes just as important as how good each piece of evidence is. So in -- and particularly in this case, the volume of the circumstantial evidence is pretty impressive. They might not have anything direct that is linking Hinton directly to the crime, but they have just a mountain of circumstantial evidence that certainly appears to.

GRACE: Interesting, Ray Giudice, the similar transactions, which is something I always looked really hard for when trying cases. This guy started attacking women at age 16. As I recall, there are five women who said Hinton attacked or tried to attack them, one 14 years old. He bound, hogtied her, taped her mouth shut, had her down in the basement, and his pregnant wife -- yes, I said it, his pregnant wife -- heard the little girl screaming. Now, I find that very probative in this case.

GIUDICE: Nancy, I think the similar transaction evidence is the most overwhelming in this case. You`ve got cases right on point where this guy took young women, exercised power and control of them, transported them, acted out violently to them, pled guilty to one of the felonies, I think, in Illinois. And in the other case, you`re right, Hinton`s wife actually helped intervene. She came upon this kidnapping and helped stop it, and she testified in court and that must have been powerful. I think it`s the similar transaction evidence...

GRACE: I do, too.

GIUDICE: ... that wins this case.

GRACE: I do, too. Bethany Marshall, very quickly, do you think sex offenders can really be cured or rehabilitated? This guy was in and out, in and out. Now Shannon Melendi`s dead. Her parents have never even had her body to bury it.

MARSHALL: Look, I always say they can be contained but not cured. The recidivism rate for sex offenders is four times higher than for other criminals.

GRACE: Very quickly, Lisa Borden, guilty, not guilty?

BORDEN: Oh, that`s a tough one. But you know, based on the mountain of circumstantial evidence, if I was one of the jurors, based on the things that I`ve read, I`d say guilty.

GRACE: Ray?

GIUDICE: I think so, too. I think the similar transaction brings it home for the prosecution, for Mr. McDaniel (ph) and Mr. Petri (ph), on this case.

GRACE: And I know Robin McDonald, the reporter for "The Daily Report," is always impartial and will refuse to take sides. Hey, thank you for all that evidence, Robin.

MCDONALD: I missed your question. Can you repeat it?

GRACE: No, I was just -- I was just actually complimenting you.

MCDONALD: Oh.

GRACE: I`ll be right back with you.

MCDONALD: Thank you.

GRACE: Very quickly, to "Trial Tracking." Authorities now calling the search for Taylor Behl, 17-year-old Virginia Commonwealth University student, a criminal investigation. Last seen 10 days ago leaving her dorm room to give her roommate a chance to have a date with her boyfriend. There`s been no activity on her bank account or cell. Taylor`s white Ford Escort is also missing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANET PELASARA, MOTHER OF MISSING GIRL: She left her room, her dorm room at 10:00 o`clock-ish and told her roommate she`d be back in a couple hours and took her car keys and her student ID, and that`s it. That`s where the story`s ended.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: If you have any information on this girl, Taylor Behl, please contact the Richmond police, 804-514-8477.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Welcome back. I`m Nancy Grace. Now I`d like you to meet a Hurricane Katrina hero, in my mind. His name is Scott Nostaja. He`s from LA, but he`s managed to find himself managing a shelter in Orange, Texas. Scott, welcome. What was it you did for a living back in LA?

SCOTT NOSTAJA, SHELTER MANAGER IN ORANGE, TEXAS: I helped manage a consulting company that we consulted with universities and organizations all across the country.

GRACE: How did you land in Orange, Texas?

NOSTAJA: I -- after watching your show, watching CNN, the early days of the hurricane, I called the Red Cross and said, Can I get involved, and what do I need to do? They put me through a four-hour training class. Two days later, I flew to Houston, spent about two hours in Houston and was immediately in a van on the way down to Orange, Texas.

GRACE: Nostaja is now running a shelter in Orange, Texas. He worked to consolidate five different shelters at area churches that housed about 1,000 people. They`re now set up in classrooms, correct?

NOSTAJA: Yes. We took over -- we were fortunate. Orange, Texas, about three years ago, closed down a junior high school. We were able to take that over. It`s a great facility. We went in, 240 people in the community came together and scrubbed that thing down. We`ve taken over each of the classrooms. Families are now occupying those.

The numbers are down. We`re down to about 450 people. People are getting out and about and, you know, moving on with their lives. We`re connecting people into Atlanta and to Florida and to other parts of Louisiana and Mississippi. So we`re hopeful we can get those numbers down even further in the next week or so.

GRACE: Scott, what touched your heart and made you drop everything? I know you reunited a 10-year-old with her family. A grandmother picked up four of her grandkids from you.

NOSTAJA: Yes, those are the stories, you know? I landed there, you know, a few days after the hurricane, and people had arrived at this shelter, literally, in some cases, wearing nothing but garbage bags. And when you get these families and you learn quickly that -- you know, we had a woman, as you just mentioned that, we learned very quickly that her 10- year-old niece was alone in the Astrodome. And you know, you just get in a car and you go there, and you find her and you reunite these families. And it`s an incredible experience. We had another group of four kids that were alone in the shelter, a 12-year-old, an 11-year-old, a 7-year-old and a 3- year-old kid.

GRACE: Scott, I`ve got to cut you off. I just want to say thank you.

NOSTAJA: Thank you, friend.

(LAUGHTER)

GRACE: Thank you, friend.

Thank you to all of my guests, but mostly to you for being with us tonight, and to those heroes at Katrina. Stay tuned for Headline News. And until tomorrow night, good night, friend.

END