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Nancy Grace

Police Search for Two Escaped Convicts

Aired November 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: Breaking news tonight, two convicted killers on the loose, escaping from a maximum security facility, a prison in Iowa. Escaped killers again? Did these two killers scale a wall with an empty guard tower? Why was the guard tower empty? Budget cuts.
And tonight, additional charges come down on a Wisconsin man, Steve Avery -- remember him? -- after grisly discoveries behind his auto salvage business.

Also tonight, help us find Leslie Adams.

Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight. Breaking news out of Wisconsin, Steven Avery charged with murder in the death of 25-year-old photographer Teresa Halbach. Grisly discovery, human teeth and bones discovered behind Avery`s auto salvage business.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE AVERY, ACCUSED OF KILLING MISSING PHOTOGRAPHER: They planted evidence. How else could it be there? I didn`t do nothing. It don`t make no sense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Also tonight: Where is 40-year-old Leslie Adams, now missing over three weeks? Her family needs your help.

But first tonight, breaking news out of Iowa, all points bulletin for two convicted killers sentenced to life. The two escaped from a maximum security prison facility, Iowa. Martin Shane Moon, Robert Joseph Legendre, last seen Monday night. State troopers, airborne, missions searching, making the most intense manhunt in Iowa history.

Let`s go straight out to a reporter with "Fort Madison Daily Democrat" Gerry Baksys. Gerry, bring us up to date.

GERRY BAKSYS, "FORT MADISON DAILY DEMOCRAT": Well, apparently, the latest is the cops are still searching for them in the local area. I`ve been told by the police that between 25 and 30 local law enforcement officers are setting up into units and are acting on tips to search for them.

GRACE: How many officers?

BAKSYS: Between 25 and 30 is what I was told.

GRACE: Do you actually believe that they are still there in the area?

BAKSYS: It typically -- if somebody escapes from a prison, most people believe that they try to get as far away as possible. However, police are telling me that they`re expecting the killers, at least one of them, to be in the local area. They suspect that they`ve splitten up and that one may have fled but one is still probably in the area.

GRACE: Gerry Baksys, explain to me how these two got out of a maximum security facility. One is a murderer. One is an attempted murder- kidnapper, tried to kill a cabbie by shooting him and cracking his neck. Explain to me, how`d they get out?

BAKSYS: Well, it hasn`t really been explained, or the officials haven`t told the media yet exactly what these two people were doing. But it appears that, at some point, they were in the courtyard of the prison, still inside the walls, but apparently unattended as they used a homemade grappling hook to scale the southwest corner of the wall and escape.

GRACE: A homemade grappling hook? Now, where would they have gotten that?

BAKSYS: Details are sketchy, but it`s believed that they may have gotten the material from one of the prison industry shops inside the facility.

GRACE: You mean from the upholstery shop, right?

BAKSYS: Sure.

GRACE: So they had -- they had a grappling hook. They got over a wall. They scaled the wall. Where was the security guard in the tower?

BAKSYS: Well, I talked to prison officials, and there are three guard towers on the west wall, where they made their escape. However, only the central tower was manned. As you mentioned in the promo, budget cuts have over the years forced them to lay off guards, and that is probably why all three towers were not manned and why they were able to escape.

GRACE: I want to go straight out to Tom Morris, reporter with "America`s Most Wanted." What can you tell me about these two backgrounds?

TOM MORRIS, "AMERICA`S MOST WANTED": Nancy, Martin Shane Moon has been ruthless guy since he was a teenager. So has Legendre. In Moon`s case, he was a ne`er-do-well sort of rural robber, burglar, drug addict and alcoholic, hanging out with a group of guys on a regular basis, breaking into farmhouses, stealing guns, breaking into stores and even burglarizing churches.

The crime that landed him in prison was the murder of a guy that was supposedly his friend. They went out to a farmhouse, where Moon had told three of his friends that they could find some drugs. When they got there, Moon and a guy named Casey Broadsack (ph) and another guy named Kevin Dickinson (ph) went into the farmhouse. A fourth guy stayed outside.

And according to Broadsack, in his testimony at trial, while they were looking for the drugs, he heard some shots ring out, looked across the room, and there was Moon standing over their friend, Dickinson. At that point, he said, What are you doing? Moon apparently pointed a gun at his friend Broadsack and said, Now you shoot him. And he said...

GRACE: Well, now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. We only have the co-defendant`s word for that, all right? So who knows who shot who? But those were the circumstances surrounding Moon`s incarceration?

MORRIS: Correct. He shot his friend unprovoked while they were supposedly looking for a drug dealer`s stash in a farmhouse.

GRACE: And that`s not the end of it. Remember, they threw the victim down a well, where he layed and decomposed for nine years!

MORRIS: Correct.

GRACE: This is a guy that just got out of that penitentiary. Why? Because there wasn`t a guard up in the tower, OK? You know, when I come in CNN every night, there`s got to be 12 security guards just at the front door. I don`t know what they`re trying to protect. You`re telling me a maximum security prison did not have a guard in the guard tower?

BAKSYS: And once they got over the wall, they were only a block or two away from...

GRACE: Oh!

(CROSSTALK)

BAKSYS: ... interstate.

GRACE: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

BAKSYS: I mean, the interstate runs right by there, so...

GRACE: Whew!

BAKSYS: And that`s right on the river...

GRACE: OK.

BAKSYS: ... so you`re into Illinois if you cross the river.

GRACE: You`ve given me Moon`s resume. How about Legendre?

BAKSYS: Legendre was another one, ruthless as a teenager. His problems began with a little road trip he took with two girls and another guy from Mesa, Arizona, to Vegas. Along the way, they burglarized somebody`s apartment, got some items, pawned them in Vegas. After a day in Vegas, they ran out of money. He said, Hey, let`s rob a limo driver or a cab driver.

GRACE: Yes, that`s what I always do when I`m broke.

BAKSYS: He and another guy named Jason Thorson (ph) went -- got into a cab at the Luxor, said, Take me to the Stardust. And once they got to rolling along, he pulled out a wire, like a garrote -- you know, like the movies, the Mafia movies, where they put the garrote around the guy`s head in the front seat and yank him back and start strangling him? He starts strangling this poor cab driver, drags him into the back seat. The accomplice got in the front seat.

They drove the guy to a deserted lot. Moon -- I mean, Legendre drags him out of the car by the garrote, stands on his neck while he`s choking this poor man. And the man`s pleading for his life while he`s being choked. Then he takes a hammer and bludgeons the guy, actually burying the hammer in the man`s skull. He got back in the car and told his accomplice, I think I killed him. And then they went on about their business.

GRACE: So these are the two guys that have escaped. Straight back to the reporter with "The Fort Madison Daily Democrat." Can you explain to me one more time why there was not a guard in that guard tower?

BAKSYS: Again, it comes back down to budget cuts. For the last several years, the state has been cutting the prison`s budget, and consequently, the prison has had to cut expenses. And in any business, the biggest expense is personnel.

GRACE: Whew! Man, when they said cutbacks -- hey, take a listen to this. You`d think -- let`s roll that, Elizabeth (ph). First of all, you got Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy lost so much weight, he actually escaped through a heat vent. He later plunged out of the law library window for an escape. Just recently, George and Jennifer Hyatte, remember, the Bonnie and Clyde duo that shot their way out of a Tennessee courthouse, taking the life of a veteran law enforcement officer. Now, where`s -- where`s Jennifer? OK. There`s she is. There`s her glamour shot. Take a look at Thompson, also escaping from jail -- we just covered this -- off of death row. Now, of course, there`s a Causey, a recent escapee, and Brewer, another escapee.

You know, all of this has been in the news just recently. Very quickly, to Andy Kahan, director of the mayor`s crime victims` office in Houston. Andy, are there more escapees, or are we just hearing about it more?

ANDY KAHAN, DIR., CRIME VICTIMS` OFFICE FOR HOUSTON MAYOR: You know, it`s kind of like Yogi Berra said. You know, it`s deja vu all over again. We just got through with, like you said, a death row case in Texas walking out of a prison, and it just seems like there`s more and more of them. Just in the last month, I`ve looked at least at six escapes nationally. And just a few days ago, you had an inmate escape from a work crew in Tennessee who then sexually assaulted a woman at knifepoint.

We have got to prioritize where our public safety dollars are going. If law enforcement`s going to go through all the trouble of arresting felons, citizens are going to go down, spend their time on a jury convicting people, the least we could do is tell the public that when we put them behind bars, by God, that`s where they`re going to stay.

I can`t imagine, if they`re sitting there in the yard in Iowa, they`re looking up at the tower going, Hey, wait a second, there`s nobody there. They`re fooling us.

You reap what we sow. And now, unfortunately, God forbid if something else happens, what are you going to tell a victim`s family, Gee, budget cuts cost your family`s life? We should be more concerned about public safety than we are about mathematics, and that`s the problem that you have right now.

GRACE: We just had two get away in a dump truck leaving the jail. Now we`ve got these guys with, basically, a pulley and some upholstery getting over the wall.

Let`s take a look at that one more time. Would you show that, Elizabeth? Here`s the spot of the escape and the radius in which we think they may have been able to get within 24 hours. Our last escapees had gotten over 600 miles away. Started all at Fort Madison, right here. They scaled that fence. Nobody saw them go over.

Elizabeth, could you show a shot of these two again? We`re looking at Martin Shane Moon, age 34. Also Robert Joseph Legendre. These two armed and dangerous. Tip line 319-372-2525.

I want to go straight back to Gerry Baksys. Now, what has the response been locally after it is learned that there were no guards in a maximum facility prison, two killers escaped? What`s been the reaction?

BAKSYS: Well, the reaction so far has been mostly fear, not so much anger at the lack of guards so much as concern that the killers may still be in the area. Police have made numerous statements, saying they`re doing everything they can in their power to track these people down, but quite frankly, until they`re caught, people are still going to be afraid. The schools today were in a lockdown. At least one bank I know was only letting in one person at a time, for fear that the people might try to get in.

Until these people are caught, until there`s some knowledge of their whereabouts, people are going to be more afraid that they`re still out there, maybe among them, rather than whether or not there were guards in the tower. Surely, that`ll come later, though, after these two guys are caught again.

GRACE: This is what was said just after the break-out by the modern- day Bonnie and Clyde, George and Jennifer Hyatte.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK GWYN, DIR., TENNESSEE BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: Both of these individuals were desperate, had very little to lose, so it could have easily turned out to have been another shoot-out. Based on the violent act that they perpetrated in Kingston, Tennessee, we really felt like that the -- you know, we didn`t want anyone else hurt. We felt like there was a high probability someone else could be hurt. But we`re just thankful that it ended the way it did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: And following up on that sentiment, to criminal profiler Pat Brown, these two have nothing to lose. Nothing!

PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Absolutely not, Nancy. That`s one of the problems. Remember the movie "Natural Born Killers"? That`s what these guys remind me of, people that are going to be on the run. They like causing havoc. They like causing pain. They like causing death. They`re willing to do just about anything to get what they want. So they really do have to catch them as quickly as possible because they may just go on a huge spree and just take a lot of people down with them.

GRACE: You know, Pat, you`ve taken a look at a lot of cases like this. I tried a lot of cases like this. And you and I both know these guys will re-offend. I mean, this one guy shot his friend. Shot his friend! No provocation, no reason whatsoever. The other shot an innocent cabbie -- excuse me -- with a garrote, then tried to snap his neck after an attack. Incredible!

BROWN: Exactly. They just go from one crime to the other. These aren`t well-planned crimes. These are just adrenaline-driven types of crimes, and they just will go for anything they can. And they are -- you just really -- you can`t take a chance on these kind of guys. And (INAUDIBLE) in prison, you have to wonder, how did you -- no, they didn`t have any guards, but how do you let your guard down, as well, knowing that this is the kind of person you have in there. How can you sit back and say, OK, well, we`ll just -- that they`re -- they`re going to be OK. They`re OK, dudes. You know, it`s just -- it`s ludicrous. And I think the public should be completely furious that they weren`t taking care of this properly. This is ridiculous.

GRACE: Incredible.

BROWN: They should have been in an Alcatraz...

GRACE: No guard in the guard tower, and tonight, two convicted killers have escaped.

Quickly, to tonight`s "Case Alert." Eighteen-year-old David Ludwig, accused of killing both his 14-year-old girlfriend`s parents, extradited just hours ago to Pennsylvania and jailed, no bond. Extradition, when a fugitive is sent back to where the crime occurred. Ludwig caught in Indiana, 600 miles away from the scene of the double murder.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Breaking news tonight. On the loose now 24 hours, Martin Shane Moon, age 34 -- Elizabeth, can you show that shot again, please, dear? -- Robert Joseph Legendre, age 27, both convicted killers. We think they have split up. And how about that map, Elizabeth? Let`s take a look at where Fort Madison -- all right, there we go. Map -- there you go. Thanks. Fort Madison, Iowa, the radius we think they may have been able to get this far, 24 hours.

Straight back to Tom Morris, reporter with "America`s Most Wanted." Now, Gerry Baksys thinks they`re still local. I`m not so sure about that.

MORRIS: It`s hard to say. I mean, these guys know that rural area very well. They`re farm boys. They know the countryside. They know that when you break into rural farmhouses, you`re more than likely going to find a gun, that most people have a gun...

GRACE: Hey! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Where are you from? Why do you think everybody that lives in Iowa has a gun in their farmhouse?

MORRIS: I`m just saying, out in the countryside -- you tend to find...

GRACE: Come on! Guess what?

MORRIS: ... a lot more guns in the countryside.

GRACE: They have condos and apartment complexes, all kind of things!

MORRIS: And guns and tractors, Nancy. They did have a 1995 gold four-door Pontiac Bonneville that was stolen about an hour after they broke out of jail.

GRACE: Shopping centers, highrises, you name it! OK, go ahead.

MORRIS: Not in Windested (ph), Iowa, where he was from. So they know how to lay low out there and break into places. They`re burglars. And they also know how to steal cars. They know how to switch license plates. Legendre, after he had stolen the car of the driver that he tried to kill in Vegas, he switched plates again with a similar car. He had one Jetta he had stolen. He found another Jetta, switched the plates, and he was found driving that car when he was caught.

GRACE: Yes. Yes. Not an idiot. Well, there`s someone that disagrees with you, Tom Morris.

MORRIS: Who would that be?

GRACE: Someone that disagrees that we`ve got a killer and an attempted killer on our hands. Joining us right now is a very special guest. Joining us is the mother of Martin Moon. This is Connie Farlow, who has always believed that her son was innocent. Welcome, Ms. Farlow. Thank you for being with us.

CONNIE FARLOW, MARTIN MOON`S MOTHER: Thank you.

GRACE: I appreciate you coming on tonight. And if by chance your son gets this message, what is your message?

FARLOW: I would like to see him turn himself in, and possibly, through all of this, we can get the attention of some lawyers that would look into this case, and that this is not the proper way for him to gain freedom. He needs to get back there.

GRACE: Ms. Farlow, when did you learn that your son, Martin Shane Moon, had escaped?

FARLOW: I was called by my mom last night about 10:00 o`clock. My stepmother had seen it on the news.

GRACE: The prison did not call you?

FARLOW: No, I haven`t heard anything from the prison.

GRACE: Ms. Farlow, do you think there`s a chance that your son is headed to you?

FARLOW: I doubt very much he would try to contact me. I feel that he would think that would get him caught.

GRACE: What is your son, Martin Moon, like?

FARLOW: He`s a nice person. He was raised in a Christian home, and he`s a loving individual. I don`t believe he would hurt anyone.

GRACE: Well, what do you say to the jury that convicted him of murder?

FARLOW: I believe that he was railroaded, that they let two people that were in the murder corroborate each other`s stories. One was given a second-degree murder charge for his story. The other one was let out of prison and onto a work force...

GRACE: But why would they...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: ... frame your son? I mean, why him?

FARLOW: Because they were four young men at the time, all living together, and he was a convenient scapegoat, I believe. He was in prison at the time in Tennessee on drug charges.

GRACE: When was the last time you spoke to your son?

FARLOW: About three weeks ago.

GRACE: What did he say?

FARLOW: He seemed happy. And we sat and played cards, Mom and him and I, and nothing seemed unusual at all.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Welcome back everybody. Breaking news tonight. Two convicted killers -- one killer, one attempted killer -- on the loose tonight out of a maximum security facility out of Iowa.

And joining us on the phone, Martin Moon`s mother, Connie Farlow. Ms. Farlow, again, thank you for being with us. Do you expect to hear from your son? Will he try to contact you?

FARLOW: I doubt very much he`ll try to contact me.

GRACE: Have police spoken to you?

FARLOW: I talked to the sheriff in our own community, and he informed me about Marty being on the loose.

GRACE: What did they tell you?

FARLOW: He said he had talked with the people over in Fort Madison, and they didn`t know anything yet.

GRACE: Do they believe he is on foot or in a vehicle?

FARLOW: I heard on the news something about some car being stolen. Maybe they`re suspecting they`re in a car. I don`t really know.

GRACE: Everyone, Connie Farlow -- oh, here`s the plate, everyone, of the stolen vehicle, 776-NOW. It`s a `95 gold Pontiac Bonneville. Everyone, I cannot stress to you the nature of the crimes of these two, both of them having been convicted.

Ms. Farlow, I know that you believe your son, Martin Moon, was wrongfully convicted, that he was framed by his co-defendants. But isn`t it true that the murder victim was shot multiple times and thrown down a well, where he decomposed for nine years, and for nine years, your son never told the family, the widow, nobody?

FARLOW: That`s true. I knew nothing, that there had ever been a murder or anything, and I thought that strange, too, that there would have been talk, you know, among friends or something, to the degree that I would know something.

GRACE: And Ms. Farlow, I know it`s hard to consider, but don`t you think if he had nothing to do with this, he would have gone to police?

FARLOW: I think so, but I don`t know.

GRACE: But you still believe he`s totally innocent.

FARLOW: Yes, I do.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SOPHIA CHOI, CNN HEADLINE NEWS ANCHOR: Hello, I`m Sophia Choi. And here is your HEADLINE PRIME newsbreak.

A Florida teenager accused of shooting a classmate on a school bus is in custody tonight after turning herself in. The girl had eluded police for part of the day. The shooting happened on a bus in Miramar, that`s a Fort Lauderdale suburb. The two 17-year-old students had argued the day before. The victim`s injuries are not life-threatening.

Well, hunters may eventually get to stalk a protected species. The U.S. Interior Department is considering taking the grizzly bear off the endangered species list because the species has recovered. The move would allow Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho the responsibility of managing grizzly populations, leaving open the possibility of limited hunts.

Well, engineers blew away Charleston, South Carolina`s, Old Cooper River Bridge today. They had tried once before last month but that blast did not break up the bridge as planned. Looks like this one might have done the trick.

Well, that`s the news for now. I`m Sophia Choi. Now back to NANCY GRACE.

GRACE: Welcome back. Breaking news tonight. Two escapees out of a maximum security facility in Iowa, Martin Shane Moon, Robert Joseph Legendre. Very quickly, back to Moon`s mother, Connie Farlow.

Ms. Farlow, once again, if you could speak out to your son, what would you say? I know you came on the show tonight for a reason.

FARLOW: Marty, if you`re where you can be within listening distance or see this, would you please, please, go back, and maybe through all this some lawyers will kind of take an interest in your case and see what it is you`re going through. I know you`re discouraged about five years of waiting for a retrial. But, please, for your sake and ours, go back. We love you.

GRACE: Ms. Farlow, he had a jury of his peers of 12, correct, that convicted him, right?

FARLOW: Yes.

GRACE: And then he had a lawyer take his case up on appeal, correct?

FARLOW: Yes, he did.

GRACE: And the appellate court affirmed that jury`s conviction, right?

FARLOW: Yes, it did.

GRACE: So why is it that you are convinced your son is innocent of murder and letting the body decompose for nine years?

FARLOW: I really can`t say. I don`t -- I didn`t, myself, even know anything that there had been a murder committed for those nine years.

GRACE: OK, OK.

FARLOW: And all I know is if he were involved he would have thought there would been whispers or something going on to where it would have caught my attention even, you know, through friends and talk if he knew anything about it.

GRACE: Well, didn`t he admit that he was there at the location?

FARLOW: No, he did not.

GRACE: Ms. Farlow, thank you for being with us. Very quickly back to Gerry Baksys, reporter with The Fort Madison Daily Democrat.

Has this facility ever had an escape before?

BAKSYS: The maximum security portion of the facility last had an escape in 1979. What happened was five inmates hid themselves in a garbage truck and made it outside the walls. However, four of them were captured the same day and the last one was captured the following day.

GRACE: You know, also, this prison is very close to a highway. I just don`t see both of them staying locally.

To Tom Morris with "America`s Most Wanted," could the weather in the Midwest affect their search and -- the search and the escape?

MORRIS: Well, the weather is turning out there right now. It`s getting colder. You`ve got the conditions coming together for perhaps some tornadoes in the area. So I don`t know. They could hunker down anyway because that`s what guys do when they first get out. They have got to try to find somewhere to lay low because they know the highways are packed with cops and state troopers looking for them.

The thing about Moon is that this isn`t the first time that he tried to escape. After he was first caught and awaiting trial for this murder, he was in Clark County, Iowa, in the little eight-bed jail they had and had a girlfriend smuggle him in -- or actually mail him a pair of flip-flops that she cut the sole open, slipped hacksaw blades in, glued it back together and mailed it to him. And deputies at the Clark County Jail in Iowa caught him trying to saw his way out. And this was back when he was being tried.

So this is not -- you know, his mom is his mom and I understand how she feels, but when she characterized him as having grown up in a Christian home, this guy burglarized churches, Nancy.

GRACE: You did not just tell me he got a hacksaw in a flip flop?

MORRIS: Yes.

GRACE: He tried to saw his way out?

MORRIS: When he was in the county jail awaiting trial for this murder.

GRACE: Now, you know, somehow I skimmed over the burglary of the churches. What?

MORRIS: He had burglarized churches, restaurants, gas stations...

GRACE: No, I mean the church. I want to hear about the burglary of a church.

MORRIS: Two churches. In the trial it came out that two churches had been burglarized by this crew.

GRACE: Doesn`t anybody have to go work for a living? You want money you just rob a church for Pete`s sake? What did he take from the church? Don`t even tell me the crucifix.

MORRIS: I don`t know, but you know a lot of churches have expensive gold ornaments on the pulpits and so forth and the communion plate. You never know, things that can be pawned, things that are made of silver and so forth, gold.

GRACE: OK. Very quickly, Elizabeth, can you show that shot? There you go. Thank you. One more time please. Martin Shane Moon, age 34, Robert Joseph Legendre age 27, considered to be armed and dangerous. They managed to get their mitts on a length of rope and some type of a homemade grappling hook and made their way over the prison wall there in Iowa. We will keep you up to date.

There is another story I want to tell you about, the story about missing Teresa Halbach. Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVEN AVERY, CHARGED WITH KILLING TERESA HALBACH: I`m innocent. I wasn`t doing nothing to harm nobody. I can`t figure that out. They hate me that much to frame me for a life bid, that ain`t me.

KEN KRATZ, CALUMET CO. DISTRICT ATTY.: Because the DNA evidence was found on the key and Mr. Avery`s blood is found inside of Teresa Halbach`s vehicle, it is no longer a question at least in my mind as the special prosecutor in this case who is responsible for in this case the death of Teresa Halbach.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Earlier that was Steven Avery from one of our local affiliates. Could you show me the aerial view, Elizabeth, very quickly, of Avery`s auto salvage shop? Today a very grisly discovery going down, a discovery of human bones and human teeth, both having been apparently burned. Very quickly to Tom Kertscher, staff writer with Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Tom, bring us up to date.

TOM KERTSCHER, STAFF WRITER, MILWAUKEE JOURNAL-SENTINEL: There were two major developments today. One was in court. Steven Avery was formally charged with the killing of Teresa Halbach and he made a court appearance.

The second major development was in -- with regard to evidence in the case, a laboratory determined that there were fragments from nearly every bone of a woman`s body found on Steven Avery`s property and preliminarily at least a match from DNA on those remains of the body with DNA found in Teresa Halbach`s car.

GRACE: To Pat Brown, criminal profiler, what does the manner of death suggest to you about the killer?

BROWN: It suggests, Nancy, it`s another nice, Christian boy who hasn`t committed any crimes at all. You know, I mean, it`s ludicrous. You have a guy with a huge history behind him and now he`s going to say, oh, this is all made up.

The manner of death it looks like to me that there may have been possibly a rape involved. Certainly she was either strangled or stabbed probably because there is blood in the car. The question is how much? Was that from a knife attack or was that from some kind of fight going on? Then they went ahead and burned her body. I mean, he really knows how to get rid of evidence. He tried his best and he still didn`t do a very good job of it. So here is a guy we hope goes back to prison.

GRACE: Teresa Halbach, an amateur photographer out taking photos for The Autotrader ended up at Avery`s auto salvage lot. She was never seen again. I interviewed him the other night here on the show where he swore up and down he knew nothing about her disappearance.

To our forensic anthropologist, Dr. Kathy Reichs. Kathy, thank you for being with us. Doctor, how damaging is fire to a body in the forensic sense? How do you still get DNA out of bones that have been burned?

KATHY REICHS, FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGIST: Well, Nancy, I have had cases in which a body was thrown -- a woman thrown in a bonfire and it was very, very superficial burning. I`ve also had a case of a baby that was put into a wood stove and there was virtually nothing left, it was just charred, tiny little fragments. So it depends entirely on the length of exposure and the amount of heat to which the body is exposed. But if you put a body in a very, very hot fire for a fairly long period of time, it can be reduced to just charred fragments.

GRACE: So how, if you could explain to the views, do scientists get the DNA out of charred bones?

REICHS: Well, you`ve got to get lucky. Again, it depends on the condition of those bones because fire, heat can severely degrade DNA. But if you get lucky, a really good example would be if you`ve got an embedded tooth, say, an impacted molar that`s stuck down in the bone so you have got pulp in the chamber and that tooth is protected by the bone, you can extract it but you`re going to have to be able to get enough of that, you`re going to have to clean it, you`re going to have purify it, you`re going to have to extract it, you`re going to have to amplify it, then you`re going to have to sequence it.

So, fortunately, in this case, it sounds like they`ve gotten DNA. What I find curious is the comment that they`ve compared the DNA from the charred remains to the DNA found in the car. I would think they`re then going to go ahead and do a comparison to make sure that not only are those two the same, but that it`s actually the DNA of the suspected victim.

GRACE: You`re absolutely correct. Dr. Reichs, they got DNA apparently from a cherry (ph) photo can she had in her car. There was blood in her car, her blood, and allegedly Avery`s blood. And speaking of Avery, take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AVERY: They planted evidence, how else could it be there? I didn`t do anything. It don`t make no sense.

(INAUDIBLE) torches, you know, when I cut off the exhaust, and then the flashbacks, they always get me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: That is Steven Avery from a WBAY on-air TV exclusive, it was Saturday, about the murder of Teresa Halbach. I want to go to a dear friend of Teresa`s. And when you take a look at Teresa, it just -- you see vitality and life just bubbling out of her in every single picture. To Ryan Hillegas, a friend of Teresa`s.

Thank you for being with us. When you learned that the suspect`s blood allegedly was all over that car, if she went down, she down with a fight. Is that like her?

RYAN HILLEGAS, FRIEND OF TERESA HALBACH: That`s exactly like her. You know, she`s one of the more stronger-willed people that I know, you know, independent and tough. I can`t see her going down on anything without a fight.

GRACE: Was she ever afraid on her job?

HILLEGAS: Not that I know of. You know, she was real independent with it and like I said, real strong-willed. You know, she pretty much kept her job to herself and she did it well.

GRACE: And how is her family tonight?

HILLEGAS: You know, as good as can be expected. They`re going through a lot but they have a lot of help, family and friends giving them support.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: . did not kill Teresa Halbach?

AVERY: Not at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You didn`t assault her in any way?

AVERY: No. I wouldn`t do nothing like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Yes. I don`t know how her blood ended up on articles in my bedroom. That`s what he`s going to say next. That is Mr. Avery, Steven Avery. That was an exclusive, on-air interview this weekend.

Very quickly, Michelle Suskauer, does the name Jeff Dahmer ring a bell to you? You would think, you`d think after this guy killed multiple people and then ate them for dinner, Wisconsin would rethink their decision not to have the death penalty.

MICHELLE SUSKAUER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That was an interesting comparison. And he saved trophies from his victims, didn`t he, in his refrigerator and his freezer? Pretty awful. You know.

GRACE: They were kind of like leftovers actually.

SUSKAUER: Yes -- oh, thank you for the visual there.

GRACE: Hey. Not me. And they still -- now, this guy.

SUSKAUER: Well, but you know there are some interesting issues here. You know, it looks bad. The key in his room looks bad. But there`s a lot of interesting folks, his brothers have some very significant criminal histories having to do with sexual assaults, violent sexual assaults. They still haven`t been ruled out. There`s some other DNA that hasn`t been identified yet. There are some things here that hopefully the law enforcement is looking into, because there can be some -- more than one person involved here.

GRACE: Let`s take a look, Elizabeth, at the death penalty states, you will see noticeably Wisconsin does not have the death penalty. Very quickly to Bryan Herschman, also a veteran trial lawyer just like Michelle Suskauer.

Bryan, clearly, there is enough evidence to charge Avery, right?

BRYAN HERSCHMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, there`s a distinction between enough evidence to charge and enough evidence to convict. Probable cause, which is all you need to charge, is a very small hurdle over which you have to jump. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is another matter and it`s problematic that there is blood in the car, blood on the keys, and this sort of thing. I don`t know, however, if that`s enough to satisfy a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

GRACE: We are staying on the Avery case as soon as it is solidified. What evidence we have and don`t have regarding those charred remains we will bring it to you immediately.

I want to switch gears. We need your help tonight. There is a woman missing out of Georgia. Maybe we can help her family, Leslie Adams. Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was always the first person to call me and wake me up and say, happy birthday. And she never called me.

ROBERTA ADAMS, SISTER OF LESLIE ADAMS: I don`t care if I have to comb the whole Atlanta. I`m going to find my sister. I`m going to find my sister.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Straight out to Ken Sigura (ph), a reporter with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Ken, thank you for being with us. What`s the latest in the case? Is the search still on? And what about the reward?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The search is still on for her -- to find her. The latest is that they`ve put out a $10,000 reward. It was $5,000 and now it is up to $10,000 for any information that leads to her return or information about anyone that might have had something to do with her abduction.

GRACE: Roberta Adams (ph) is with us tonight, this is Leslie`s sister.

Roberta, what can you tell us about your sister? There`s no way from what you`ve told me she would have just up and left without calling.

R. ADAMS: Yes. You`re right. My sister, she really is just an outgoing person. As far as her disappearance, if she was going away she would have called me and she would have told me or she would have called someone in the family and let them know. She is the type of person when she`s on her way somewhere or going somewhere, she always calls and she always calls when she gets there, so.

GRACE: Ms. Roberta, have there been any new leads regarding your sister`s disappearance?

R. ADAMS: No, ma`am, none. It`s just, there is an ongoing investigation, just trying to find.

GRACE: Well, what are they telling you? What do they mean by "ongoing investigation"? What are they doing?

R. ADAMS: Well, pretty much they`re going through phone logs and trying to get timelines together, trying to find out who the last people she was with, where she was at last, who she talked to last, just things like that.

GRACE: Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIERRA ADAMS, LESLIE`S DAUGHTER: I talked to her every day three times a day. She didn`t call me, so I called my aunt to see if she heard from her and she said, no, so like right then I just knew I had to come. Basically everybody wants to know if she`s alive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Roberta, if you could speak out to your sister right now what would you tell her?

R. ADAMS: I would say, Leslie, we are trying our best to find you and we are going to find you. We are not going to let this ride. We are going to find you. We are looking for you day in and day out. We`re praying for you. And if you see this right now, please try to get away. Try to get a hold of one of us.

GRACE: And very quickly, to Michelle Suskauer, is it your belief that rewards work, the reward up to $10,000 tonight?

SUSKAUER: You know, you would think that someone would be talking out of the goodness of their heart if they know something but there obviously - - they have rewards to try to motivate people, so hopefully.

GRACE: So bottom line, work-don`t work?

SUSKAUER: I think they work.

GRACE: I think they work, too.

Very quickly to tonight`s "All Points Bulletin." FBI, law enforcement across the country on the lookout for this man, Calvin Maurice Cooley, wanted in connection with a 2002 Michigan murder of 34-year-old Dale Brown (ph). Cooley, 41, 5`7", 170 pounds, black hair, brown eyes. If you have information on Calvin Maurice Cooley, call the FBI at 313-965-2323.

Local news next for some of you. But we`ll all be right back. And remember, live coverage of 11-year-old Carlie Brucia death penalty murder trial, 3:00 to 5:00 Eastern, COURT TV.

Stay with us as we remember Major Gregory Fester, 41, an American hero.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: We at NANCY GRACE want very much to help solve unsolved homicides, find missing people. Take a look at 55-year-old Zehra Attari, a pediatrician last seen leaving her Oakland office a week ago. The reward up to $20,000. If you have information on Zehra Attari please call 408- 277-4786. Please help us.

Welcome back everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. Straight out to Roberta Adams, Leslie Adams` sister. We are looking for Leslie tonight. Elizabeth, please show a shot of Leslie.

The reward is up to $10,000, Roberta. Where did the money come from?

R. LESLIE: Just from family, friends, and people in the community.

GRACE: You know, she is such a beautiful girl and from all my research she was just as beautiful on the inside as the outside.

R. LESLIE: Yes. She`s.

GRACE: Don`t.

R. LESLIE: I`m sorry.

GRACE: Don`t you think she would have contacted you by now?

R. LESLIE: I know she would have if she could.

GRACE: Any sign of a struggle within her home?

R. LESLIE: From what I understand, they have -- you know, the police said that they do have reason to believe there was foul play but they`re not saying what. So we can just go by, you know, all we have is what we -- you know, what they tell us.

GRACE: And to defense attorney Bryan Herschman. Bryan, it is often the case that a perpetrator when a woman goes missing or is killed is someone she knows or is familiar with.

HERSCHMAN: Well, that`s true and I think that has particular application to this case, because her boyfriend, as I understand it, she had a temporary restraining order entered against him just two days before her disappearance. One would surmise, and in that affidavit, mind you, she wrote that she was afraid for her life, one would assume, therefore, that if he had shown up there would not have been an un-forcible entry, if that`s a word. You might have seen some evidence that she tried to keep him out. If, in fact, the door was voluntarily opened, that might be an indication that it was somebody other than the boyfriend.

GRACE: Veteran trial attorney Bryan Herschman and Michelle Suskauer joining us tonight. Thank you to Ken Sigura and Roberta Adams.

But I want to thank all of my guests. Our biggest thank you tonight is to you for being with us, inviting all of us into your home.

Tomorrow, will the gag order be lifted in the murder case of Pam Vitale? Coming up, headlines from all around the world. I`m Nancy Grace, signing off for tonight. And a special good-bye from some in-studio guests. The founder of the Macon Cherry Blossom Festival, Carolyn Crayton and her granddaughter Anna saying goodnight.

Hope to see you all right here tomorrow night 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.

END