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Nancy Grace
Serial Killer on the Loose?
Aired January 06, 2006 - 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, time is running out for law enforcement to solve three major crimes. Can you help us? It was sweet 16 for Joanna Rogers. She should be planning her high school prom. But instead, Joanna vanished from the bedroom of her own home.
And then, nearby Joanna`s hometown of Lubbock, Texas, the unsolved case of a beautiful 29-year-old girl, Summer Baldwin. Plus, look at the map. Within just a few miles, a 26-year-old girl, Jennifer Lynn (ph) Wilkerson, vanished. What`s going on in Lubbock, Texas?
Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight. Tonight, live to Texas, three heart-breaking mysteries, one young lady murdered, two others, including a 16-year-old girl, missing, all from the tiny town, Lubbock, Texas. The desperate search for 26-year-old Jennifer Lynn Wilkerson believed to be in danger. Jennifer`s gone, but the car, the keys, the clothing, the wallet, the cell phone all left behind. Plus tonight, 29-year-old Summer Baldwin`s body was found stuffed in a suitcase at the Lubbock city landfill, September.
Is one man, Rosendo Rodriguez, connected? The name of Joanna Rogers, who vanished from her home more than a year-and-a-half ago, was discovered on Rodriguez`s computer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL SCARBOROUGH, LUBBOCK CO. SHERIFF`S DEPT.: The name of Joanna Rogers came up on the forensics examination of Rodriguez`s computer. There was also a file on Joanna`s computer that had that name.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Three girls all vanished from a tiny area around Lubbock, Texas. What`s the connection? Is there a connection? Straight out to investigative reporter, Pat Lalama. Pat, bring us up to date, friend.
PAT LALAMA, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Boy, it`s like the Texas terror, isn`t it? The only connection is, at this point, Rosendo Rodriguez, in two of the cases, as you mentioned, but not in the case of Jennifer, at this point. And that`s it. They find -- he`s arrested for her murder, for Summer`s murder. He`s at a bail bond reduction hearing. The name comes up from the prosecutors that the computer -- computer names matched in Joanna`s case, and boy, they thought, Wow, now we`ve got something to go on.
He`s charged with three counts of capital murder in Summer`s case, and we`ll see what happens in Joanna`s case. But as far as Jennifer, it`s still a big, big question mark.
GRACE: Well, not only that, Pat Lalama, I`ve been doing a little research on my own. Turns up there are three dead prostitutes in the same area, all within -- just a period of time apart, Amanda Sue Schwind (ph), Cynthia Palazzio (ph), Linda Trevino Carbahall (ph), all three young females missing, now murdered, in the same area of Lubbock, Texas. It`s incredible. All three young white female prostitutes. And then you add in these three young missing girls. Incredible. Take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCARBOROUGH: During the forensics that was done on Mr. Rodriguez`s computer, LPD uncovered a link that would connect him in some way with Joanna Rogers. Based on that information and some additional information that our investigators have uncovered, we have determined that he is a suspect in the Joanna Rogers case.
KATHY ROGERS, JOANNA ROGERS`S MOTHER: Don`t give up, honey. Just don`t give up. We`re going to be together soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: So Pat Lalama, you have Rogers, Wilkerson, Baldwin. Give me a thumbnail sketch of the three mysteries.
LALAMA: Well, three completely different mysteries. We`ll start with Joanna -- a 16-year-old girl, works at the Subway, everything to live for, comes home from her job around midnight, a little bit after, has a chat with her mom, says, Going to bed, looking forward to a dance recital tomorrow night. At 7:00 o`clock in the morning, her parents go to wake her up. She is not there. Interestingly, her keys are still there, her debit card, her -- she doesn`t take anything. It`s as if she disappears in the middle of the night. End of story there.
Then we go to Jennifer Wilkerson, also leaves her boyfriend`s house at 11:00 in the morning, one morning in July of 2004. She`s expected to stop at home and then go to her job. Well, she makes it home. She never makes it to the job. She never calls the employer. She never picks up her check. Her car is outside the home, locked. Inside the home are the car keys and the purse and the wallet, et cetera, et cetera. Another case of seemingly simply vanishing.
And then, of course, in the case of Summer, we have a real hideous case here, where it`s believed that Rosendo Rodriguez stuffed her in a suitcase, dumps her in a land mine -- excuse me -- in a sanitation landfill. And then that`s found by a sanitation worker. The cops` work on this is tremendous. They are able to take that suitcase and trace it back to a purchase at a Wal-Mart, and then through looking at surveillance tapes and debit cards, they match it to Rosendo Rodriguez. And then, as you said before, they found Rosendo Rodriguez`s name on Joanna`s computer.
GRACE: Hey, Pat Lalama, I don`t know if you knew this detail. Knowing you, you probably do. But not only did cops trace that suitcase -- everyone, Summer`s body was found in a suitcase in a landfill there in Lubbock, Texas. They trace the suitcase because of a bar code back to Wal- Mart. And then they identify somebody bought that suitcase at 3 AM, along with a pair of latex gloves.
LALAMA: Right. Right.
GRACE: Ding ding! Hello! What are you doing in a Wal-Mart at 3:00 AM buying latex gloves and a suitcase? Think about it.
Everybody, take a look at these. This is what we have left of these two girls. I`m talking about Jennifer in this one, in this one, Joanna Rogers.
Let`s go straight out to Joanna`s parents. They are joining us. First to Joe Bill Rogers. Thank you for being with us. What can you tell us about the investigation?
JOE BILL ROGERS, JOANNA`S FATHER: Well, there`s not a lot that I can tell that I`ve been told by the sheriff`s department, but I did receive a phone call from Rosendo Rodriguez`s attorney, Albert Rodriguez, which put me on the trail of what I was looking into or wanting to know.
Apparently, the best I`ve been able to find out now is the Lubbock Police Department has an extremely good computer forensics expert by the name of Minelli (ph). And whenever they confiscated his computer, I guess, Minelli had gone through Joanna`s computer, and he remembered her screen names. Well, when he saw that, that raised a red flag because he is a real good officer. And he contacted Shannon Fish (ph), and Shannon Fish and Greg Parrot (ph) with the Lubbock Sheriff`s Department took the ball and rolled.
And apparently, the two started making inquiries there and they contacted Mr. Rodriguez, Albert Rodriguez, and said, We need to know some things. And they started pushing it, you know, about seven weeks ago. So they developed it, and they went with it from that point and were doing, I guess, a crack-up job. I`m not...
GRACE: All right, Joe, hold on. I just want to tell the viewers -- you are seeing shots of Joanna as a girl. This is her at some type of a dancing class, just precious.
And also with us is Kathy Rogers, Joanna`s mother. These videos are so dear, Kathy. It just must break your heart to look back on them. We`re looking at videos of your girl right now. I guess she`s about 9, 10 years old. Could you tell us about the night that Joanna went missing.
KATHY ROGERS: Well, the night that Joanna went missing, I had talked to her just before she left her job, and she said she`d be home in about 10 minutes. And she got home, came into the bedroom, and we talked a little bit about what went on that day and what was going to go on in the morning. And she said, Good night, said, I love you, and went on to bed.
And about 3:30 in the morning, we heard a noise, and my husband got up and checked the doors because the cars had been broken into. And we -- he didn`t find anything and went back to bed. And then at 7:00 o`clock, when I went into her room to get her up, she was gone. The covers were thrown back. The clothes she wore that day were laying on the floor. And she just vanished. I have no idea what she was wearing, where she went, or anything.
GRACE: Kathy, what...
KATHY ROGERS: I haven`t heard from her since.
GRACE: Have you been able to identify any clothes or shoes or objects missing from her bedroom?
KATHY ROGERS: Everything that I thought she would take -- her favorite jacket, her favorite shoes -- were all still there at the house. She did her own shopping and she did her own laundry, so it was difficult for me to try to identify something that was missing...
GRACE: Now, I...
(CROSSTALK)
KATHY ROGERS: ... things that I thought she would take.
GRACE: I just heard your husband state that they learned about a possible suspect when the defense lawyer called the house?
KATHY ROGERS: No. He called Joe Bill in California. No, I did not know about that.
GRACE: What happened?
KATHY ROGERS: Well, my husband called the sheriff`s office and the FBI. But they tried to keep me -- tried to make my holiday a little better by not telling me. They were trying to keep it from me so that I wouldn`t get upset. But eventually, the FBI agent called me and explained what was going on.
GRACE: OK. Take a listen to what Joanna`s father had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BILL ROGERS: Love them while you`ve got them and just try to -- you know, you can only do so much. And just be happy every time they walk in the door and know where they`re going when they`re going out. And even at the best, you can`t always do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Joining us right now, the possible suspect`s lawyer is with us on the phone, his name, Albert Rodriguez. He is Rosendo Rodriguez`s attorney. Sir, did you call Joanna`s father there in California?
ALBERT RODRIGUEZ, ROSENDO RODRIGUEZ`S ATTORNEY: Yes, I did.
GRACE: Why?
RODRIGUEZ: I had read some police reports.
GRACE: That what? What did you read in the police reports?
RODRIGUEZ: From detective Chris Bunick (ph) at the Lubbock Police Department, and he did not explain anything other than that there was an association between Jo Rogers and the victim in my case, Summer Baldwin. This is the reason I called Mr. Rogers.
GRACE: But why would you call the victim`s father to get information about your client? I mean, isn`t that a little insensitive?
RODRIGUEZ: No, it isn`t. I needed to find out the connection between...
GRACE: But why didn`t you call the cops that had it in the police report?
RODRIGUEZ: Because they refused to speak to me. They would give me no information whatsoever.
GRACE: To Joe Bill Rogers. Do you buy that as a reason to call you, Joanna`s father, and lay it on you that this guy could be a suspect in your daughter`s disappearance?
JOE BILL ROGERS: Well, you`re not going to believe this, but actually, I want to thank him for doing it. I mean, he`s got to do what he`s got to do, and I`ve got to find my daughter. No, I`m happy, I`m pleased that he called me.
GRACE: Well, actually, I`m glad you cleared that up because I certainly would never would have expected it.
Let me go out to Sheriff David Gutierrez. This is the Lubbock -- a representative from the Lubbock Sheriff`s Department. Sheriff Gutierrez, what can you tell us about the investigation into the disappearance of Joanna Rogers?
SHERIFF DAVID GUTIERREZ, LUBBOCK COUNTY, TEXAS: Well, Nancy, I must tell you, I`m a little disturbed and concerned that the defense attorney is contacting the family.
GRACE: Tell it!
GUTIERREZ: I cannot believe -- I mean, I empathize with the family. I cannot believe the devastation, the emotional devastation the family is going through right now. I cannot...
GRACE: Well, why didn`t you guys...
GUTIERREZ: ... begin to understand...
GRACE: Why didn`t you guys call the family yourself and beat the defense attorney to it?
GUTIERREZ: Well, Nancy, we are -- you know, for the last year-and-a- half, we have been working hundreds and hundreds and utilizing every resource available from this office. And any information -- we had -- you know, I`m even afraid to say anything because the defense attorney on a capital murder suspect, you know, that we`re holding in jail for the Lubbock Police Department...
GRACE: Hey, Sheriff? Sheriff, we`re going to have to go to break, but please stay with us. And I want to thank you for being with us.
GUTIERREZ: Absolutely.
GRACE: What`s so disturbing to me, Sheriff, is so many women missing out of Lubbock, Texas. So far, I`ve tallied up six, most of them unsolved.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCARBOROUGH: We are still considering this, at this point, a missing persons because there is no evidence to indicate otherwise at this point.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With two missing women from Lubbock, Joanna Rogers, who disappeared on May 4, 2004, and Jennifer Wilkerson, missing since July of 2004, officials are not ruling out any possibilities.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) the police department in the local areas to see if any other individuals are missing. We have a lot of work to do at this point in time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Elizabeth (ph), let`s see that map. Amazingly, out of the small area of Lubbock, Texas, we now have six missing and/or dead women, ranging from their 16-year-old girl, Joanna Rogers, all the way up to women in their late 20s. What`s going on in Lubbock, Texas?
Straight back out to Sheriff David Gutierrez with the Lubbock Sheriff`s Department. Sheriff, this is amazing to me that all of these women, many of them very similar in their looks, their height, their weight, their bodies disposed of, some still missing. What`s going on, Sheriff?
GUTIERREZ: Well, you know, you`re combining several things. Number one, the two girls that were found dead several years ago were not related to this particular one.
GRACE: In `99?
GUTIERREZ: Pardon me?
GRACE: In `99, 2003 and 2003?
GUTIERREZ: Well, one of them was a city police case, and the other two were the sheriff`s office.
GRACE: Well, I know that, but we`re looking at the map. I`m very familiar with city and county sheriff department/police department boundaries. But if you look at this map, I don`t care which agency`s dealing with it, there are a lot of dead women!
GUTIERREZ: We are working with the police department, and any information or evidence that we could utilize in court, we have to maintain, unfortunately, very guarded.
GRACE: OK, that -- I appreciate that, and I agree with you. I`m a former prosecutor. I get it. I`m asking you, what`s happening to the women in and around Lubbock, Texas?
GUTIERREZ: Well, we have found that the two in 2003-2004, unfortunately, were -- had been arrested numerous times for narcotics and special (ph) offenses, so...
GRACE: Sir, I don`t care if they`re prostitutes or if they`re nuns. I don`t care if they`re singing in the cherub choir. I`m trying to find out about all these women. It`s astounding to me that so many are missing within such a small geographical area. I don`t care if they`re hookers.
GUTIERREZ: I am astounded myself, and we are utilizing every resource we can to try to find who is involved in these murders.
GRACE: Was that your radio going off?
GUTIERREZ: No, that`s another line coming in.
GRACE: Everybody, we`ve got the sheriff with us, and he is on the job, you know it, 24/7, Sheriff. I know how it is.
I want to go straight back out to Joe Bill Rogers. This is Joanna Rogers`s father. Joanna, 16 years old, should be planning her high school prom. Instead, this sheriff and others are on the trail of who took this girl. Amazingly, similar to the Danielle Van Dam case, the Elizabeth Smart case, Joanna Rogers, never been in a trouble a day in her life, comes home from work, from her little Subway sandwich shop job, goes to bed after talking to her mom. They never saw her again.
Joe Bill Rogers, what is your take on the police work at this juncture? What should be being done that`s not, and what is being done to comfort you?
JOE BILL ROGERS: Well, for the last, I don`t know, 17 months of things, everything was going pretty good. Then there was some administration changes that seems to have changed stuff, and then things have changed up there.
I`m a licensed investigator. I`ve got -- I`m sitting here looking at piles and piles of paper. And I belong to an association (INAUDIBLE) investigators of Texas, so I`m fairly fortunate to be able to do a bunch of this stuff myself. I`m going to continue on this because it`s my daughter and I want to find Joanna and Jennifer, and I want to get to the bottom of it. I`m going to, if nobody else does.
GRACE: Very quickly, to tonight`s "Case Alert." New major legislation on the table to protect our children. John Kerry introduced Masha`s law, named for a Russian orphan whose adoptive American father molested her for years, even posting pornographic images of the little girl on the Internet. Masha`s law increases penalties for anyone who downloads child pornography.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With two missing women from Lubbock, Joanna Rogers, who disappeared on May 4, 2004, and Jennifer Wilkerson, missing since July of 2004, officials are not ruling out any possibilities.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) police department any local areas to see if any other individuals are missing. We have a lot of work to do at this point in time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: You`re seeing right there a picture of Jennifer Lynn Wilkerson, also missing. But it`s not just Joanna Rogers and Jennifer Wilkerson. There`s also Summer Baldwin, whose body was found in a local dump. There`s also three dead prostitutes, Amanda Schwind, Cynthia Palazzio, Linda Carbahall, all of them missing or dead in and around the tiny area of Lubbock, Texas. Why?
I want to go straight out now to the parents of one of the young girls. Joining us, Jack and Vicki Wilkerson. This is Jennifer Wilkerson`s parents, Jennifer last seen July 13, 2004. Welcome to Jack and Vicki Wilkerson. First to Vicki. Can you tell us about the last time you saw or spoke with your daughter?
VICKI WILKERSON, JENNIFER WILKERSON`S MOTHER: First, thanks for having us. And I had spoke to Jennifer the Sunday night right before her disappearance on July the 13th. We talked for about an hour. She was bringing me up on all of her news and what her plans were for the next couple of weeks. And she was planning to come visit us in Hobbs (ph) the Thursday after that. And told her I loved her, hung up, and that`s it.
GRACE: Tell me about Jennifer.
WILKERSON: She`s a wonderful person. She`s very secure in herself, very responsible, lived life to the fullest, and she`s a good kid. She`s still my little girl, even though she did turn 28 this last December the 9th. She was working and putting herself through South Plains College. She was studying law. She had a lot of plans for her future. Wasn`t in a hurry, but had plans and -- just a good person.
GRACE: We`re taking a look at her right now, and she is just adorable. Now we`re also showing video of the search for your girl. What are your thoughts on the investigation, Ms. Wilkerson?
WILKERSON: Right at this point, I feel kind of alone because there hasn`t been as much communication as what we were used to in the past. And it`s -- it`s hard. You know, it`s nice to have someone know -- at least let you know what they can, what`s going on. And we`re not getting that right at this point.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): The medical examiner`s office started that autopsy on Saturday. Now they`re waiting for an anthropologist to help examine the bones. They expect to have a preliminary result before the end of the week. In the meantime, officials are looking at every piece of evidence found at the scene for clues about the victim`s identity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was one piece of clothing that is primarily used by males, but today you`d never know that. You know, male and female wear sometimes the same clothing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Take a look at this timeline. Amanda Gschwend found July 1. Cynthia Palacio, her remains found July 15, 2003. Linda Trevino Carbajal, her remains found July 2003. Joanna Rogers, disappears May 2004. Jennifer Wilkerson disappears July. Summer Baldwin`s remains found September 2005. All within the tiny area -- take a look at the map -- around Lubbock, Texas.
I want to go straight back out to Jennifer`s parents joining us today, Jack and Vicki Wilkerson.
To Jack Wilkerson, Jack, do you recall the last time you spoke with Jennifer?
JACK WILKERSON, JENNIFER WILKERSON`S FATHER: Yes. I spoke to her on the Friday night before she disappeared. We spoke for a half-an-hour or so.
GRACE: What did she say?
J. WILKERSON: She was telling me about school, and she had promised to get me backstage to meet Willy Nelson when he was in Lubbock, and just casual talk.
GRACE: You know, when you are looking at these photos of your girl, I guess it all seems surreal, like it`s not even real that she`s missing because there`s no resolution.
J. WILKERSON: It`s like putting your life in neutral for the last year and a half. You can`t really concentrate on anything. You don`t really know where you`re going, what`s going to happen. And it is. Surreal is a perfect description of it.
GRACE: How do you get through every day? You know, right before I came here to the studio, I was on the phone with my dad, who had just gotten off his Lifecycle. How do you go through every day missing her phone call, wondering where she is?
J. WILKERSON: We`ve got a real strong support system. Of course, my wife, our friends, family, have all been very supportive, people like Dana Ames with United Response, Greg Parrot with the sheriff`s department. We`ve had family members that we haven`t seen in years that have responded, people we work with that contributed to just emotional support. A lady with Project Jason has given us a tremendous amount of emotional support. And that and faith is really all you`ve got.
GRACE: To Jennifer`s mother, Vicki Wilkerson, Vicki, how do you get through the day?
VICKI WILKERSON, MOTHER OF JENNIFER WILKERSON: Because I have to, I guess. Just all the support. I wake up every morning, and Jennifer`s the first thing on my mind. And I`ve got other family, and they help us through. And we just -- you do what you have to do, but there`s an empty, very empty, spot in your life.
Sometimes I don`t know how I go from morning to night, but it`s because all of us love each other. And if Jennifer were here right now, it`d break her heart to know that this has caused us so much pain for the family. So I`ve got to be strong for her, as well.
GRACE: And this little girl, Jennifer Lynn Wilkerson, everybody, just had everything going for her, putting herself through college, had a job at a little tobacco shop, "Nothin` Butt Smokes," just a free spirit girl, just precious, absolutely precious.
May have been wearing jeans and a dark t-shirt. Her tan shoulder- strap purse missing. Keys to her car, her home, money, personal possessions, all left behind. Here is the tip line: 806-775-1601.
I want to go straight now to Philip Klein, private investigator with Klein Investigations. Philip, could you weave together for us what you know about the missing women of Lubbock, Texas?
PHILIP KLEIN, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR: Well, first, let`s step back to the night of the Joanna Rogers disappearance. Ms. Rogers went -- and the family has explained this to you already, that she came home in the evening. There was a bump in the night. The father got up, checked the side door of the house. Later that morning, he checked the back door of the house.
All of these women disappearing, I think, have one thing in common. And I think it`s going to be solved by computer forensics and actual on- the-ground work by the law enforcement agencies, which Sheriff Gutierrez and his team down there, Carr (ph) and McAdoo (ph). The team is doing a great job.
The frustration and the raw emotion you`re seeing, I think, out of the Rogers and the Wilkerson family, you know, it`s so emotional, not only for them, but for the investigators. But if you were to ask me if I think all three of these are tied together, you know, there`s no way that you can say no at this point.
GRACE: Absolutely not.
KLEIN: I think we have at least three of them tied together.
GRACE: And not only that, Philip, there are also -- and a lot of people don`t want to mix them into the sauce -- but you have the three young female prostitutes. And you can make a lifestyle differentiation between the victims, but, in my book, that really doesn`t account for much.
Amanda Gschwend, Cynthia Palacio, Linda Carbajal, all three dead, their bodies disposed of. And all of this has been happening between July `99 and 2004, all of these women.
KLEIN: Exactly.
GRACE: And it`s such a small geographical -- look, I come from a small town, too. How big is this area, Philip, that we`re talking about?
KLEIN: When we got on the scene and -- we were able to pinpoint -- when we heard about the three prostitutes when we got on the scene, we were on the ground within 36 hours. The Rogers case is unique, because the first report to the police department was a runaway report. Therefore, there was detectives assigned to it, but the investigation really wasn`t in gear.
When we got on the scene, we first split up into three groups. First, previous cases of missing women in the area. Second was interviewing family members and friends. And third, was actually getting into the house and taking a look at her room. And I can tell you that, you know, again, all of these are going to, in the end, match together.
I do want to say one thing, though. Since Mr. Rodriguez has been in custody, it`s kind of interesting to me that there hasn`t been any other missing children...
GRACE: Well, how long has he been in custody?
KLEIN: For about -- I believe it`s been almost two months now, three months.
GRACE: Hey, hey, hey, hey, let that pot simmer, OK? Let`s not count our chickens before they hatch.
But you`re dead on. That is true. The dates do check out, Philip. Everyone, with us, Philip Klein from Klein Investigations.
Very quickly to Dana Ames. Dana is the director of United Response. She has been working with the Rogers family, also helped in the search for Jennifer Wilkerson.
Number one, to Dana Ames, you`re a hero to a lot of us in the law enforcement community. And I want to thank you for what you do for these families.
Right down to the facts, Dana, what overlap do you see between Wilkerson and Rogers cases?
DANA AMES, DIRECTOR, UNITED RESPONSE: Some of the information that we get in sounds like it really would apply to one instead of the other. So, when we`ve been conducting our searches, we`ve been looking for both of the girls at the same time, because some of the information is very similar that we`re getting in.
GRACE: Quick break, everybody.
As you know, we want very much to help solve unsolved homicides, find missing people. Take a look at 32-year-old Marilyn McCown, disappeared from Richmond, Indiana, July 2001. If you have information on Marilyn McCown, please call the Carole Sund Carrington Foundation, toll-free, 888- 813-8389.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATHY ROGERS, JOANNA ROGERS` MOTHER: People aren`t forgetting. People are remembering. What I want is for whoever has taken her or whoever knows something to come forward. A lot of times we hear that people are saying things, but they`re not saying them to us. They`re not saying them to the sheriff`s office.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That is the mom of 16-year-old Joanna Rogers, missing near Lubbock, Texas, in addition to Jennifer Lynn Wilkerson, missing near Lubbock, Texas. Summer Baldwin`s body found in a local dump near Lubbock, Texas. In addition, three other women, Amanda Gschwend, Cynthia Palacio, Linda Carbajal, all dead near Lubbock, Texas.
Straight out to Richard Herman, veteran defense attorney. Richard Herman, have you ever prosecuted a serial killer before or had any tangential involvement in a case like that or defended?
RICHARD HERMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: In the defense of a case, Nancy. But I`ll tell you, you kept asking the question. What`s going on in Lubbock, Texas? And I think this law enforcement is deficient there. As you and your friend, Marc Klaas...
GRACE: Oh, yes, blame it on the cops as opposed to the killer?
HERMAN: Well, you know, Nancy...
GRACE: Good strategy as a defense lawyer.
HERMAN: The first 36 to 48 hours...
GRACE: A little old.
HERMAN: ... are critical, Nancy. You know that. You and Marc Klaas have educated your audience, the first 24 to 36 hours. These cases are two and three years old. It`s ridiculous. And now what`s happened is law enforcement is going to get panicky and they`re going to start making some mistakes. You watch.
GRACE: Hey, question to you: Were you a prosecutor before you became a defense attorney?
HERMAN: One hundred percent defense attorney, Nancy. Did you ever defend a case?
GRACE: And it shows.
HERMAN: Did you defend a case, Nancy?
(LAUGHTER)
GRACE: You know better than that, Herman. Don`t make me hold you in contempt.
Hey, very quickly, I also want to go to Mike Mukasey, defense attorney. Excuse me, Marc Mukasey. Marc, when you have a case where there are multiple victims, such as in this case, you have to build each one of those cases as if it were a single trial.
MARC MUKASEY, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That`s absolutely right, Nancy. You can`t rely on what is sometimes known as prejudicial spillover or the melted cheese theory. You convict one and you hope that the evidence washes over against the other ones.
That`s not going to happen. Law enforcement, as Rick Herman pointed out, needs to be extremely diligent, extremely careful here. And, look, it seems that they have begun, at least, to draw some connections between the Baldwin case and the Rogers case.
GRACE: You know, Marc Mukasey, Richard Herman, you two defense attorneys, really have a nerve. Instead of focusing on who took or killed these young ladies, your immediate response is to attack police. Interesting. But you know what? Save it for the jury trial.
I want to go straight out to now a new guest joining us, Detective Chris Breunig. He`s the lead detective out of Lubbock Police Department. And he`s working on yet another case I`ve mentioned, Summer Baldwin. She`s the young lady that was found -- her body disposed in a suitcase in a local dump in Lubbock, Texas.
Welcome, Detective. What can you tell us about the Summer Baldwin case?
DET. CHRIS BREUNIG, LEAD DETECTIVE, LUBBOCK POLICE DEPARTMENT: That was a case that was just blessed by wonderful God-driven effort of police manpower and that. Just moments before Summer Baldwin`s body would have been buried in the landfill, it was discovered by a worker at the sanitation company. So, once...
GRACE: You`re right. That was a close call. Remember what happened in the Lori Hacking case? Because the dump had been rearranged with new garbage, it took them weeks to find her remains?
BREUNIG: Yes.
GRACE: Now, what happened with Summer, Detective?
BREUNIG: Once we discovered her body and identified who she was, of course, a massive multiple agency investigative start, with the medical examiners doing the forensic part of the autopsy, and identification technicians working with them, analyzing the suitcase, which is basically all the evidence we had at the time was her naked body in the suitcase. And inside the suitcase, we located what you commonly see as a UPC barcode.
GRACE: And let me get this straight, Detective. You and your people tracked it to a local Wal-Mart, you looked through, find seven people have bought a similar suitcase, found one that bought it around 3:00 a.m., along with some latex gloves, right?
BREUNIG: That`s correct.
GRACE: That`s some good police work.
Hey, very quickly, to Caryn Stark, psychotherapist, Caryn, interesting fact -- and I guess we need a shrink for this -- why would you put someone like this in a suitcase? What does that reveal to you about the perpetrator?
CARYN STARK, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: It reveals that he has a lot of anger, Nancy. He says that -- I believe he says that it`s self-defense, but that`s a little extreme, if you`re having self-defense to finally supposedly there`s a blow, and then he takes this body, with a lot of rage and anger, no respect, and stuffs it in a suitcase and throws it in a dump.
GRACE: You know, you`re right about that, Caryn Stark.
To Richard Herman, Richard, this guy that is a suspect in one of these cases for sure, in the Summer Baldwin case, the guy that bought the suitcase at Wal-Mart 3:00 a.m. with some latex gloves, I`m sure you`re just cringing hearing that, on the inside, although you`re smiling on the outside.
Take a listen to this. If he had not yakked and said it was in self- defense, that she had pulled a knife on him, he may have had a chance. But it`s Trial 101, Richard Herman: Right to remain silent. Take the Fifth.
He could have tailored his defense, his statement, to the factual evidence. But now we realize this woman didn`t receive a single blow. She was beaten massively and also had a degree of asphyxiation. You don`t strangle someone in self-defense, OK?
HERMAN: Well, Nancy, again, we don`t know -- we know she has a sordid history of drug use. And he`s going to have to testify...
GRACE: Well, then what was he doing with her?
HERMAN: Well, who knows that, Nancy?
GRACE: Yes, hey, hey...
HERMAN: But they were together.
GRACE: ... let`s not have the pot call the kettle black just yet, OK?
(LAUGHTER)
HERMAN: He`s going to have to testify at his trial if there`s going to be a self-defense claim. And that very well may prevail for him, because this jury may not buy her past. She`s sordid. She may be a prostitute. She`s been incarcerated.
GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Summer Baldwin is not a prostitute. I don`t even know what you`re talking about. Are you trying, just as a defense tactic, to lump her in with the other prostitutes as if their lives somehow don`t matter as much as yours or mine?
HERMAN: I think there is some evidence that she was in a motel in that area and that she had been in motels in the past.
GRACE: Oh, have you ever checked into a motel?
(LAUGHTER)
I take that as a yes.
HERMAN: Of course.
GRACE: Yes. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. OK. So does that make you a hooker?
HERMAN: Come on, Nancy. Come on.
GRACE: Oh, so you`re different. All right. OK. Richard Herman, I see where the defense is going right now, and you`re a master at it. They`re going to try to attack the victim. They`re going to go with this self-defense, since he`s already committed himself in his statement.
Caryn Stark, psychotherapist, how many times have we seen the smear- the-victim defense and it actually works? Do I have to say Robert Blake?
STARK: Well, it does work in that case, Nancy, but I certainly hope it wouldn`t here, because it doesn`t -- you`re talking about somebody who was stuffed in a suitcase, who was beaten. I don`t care what she did for a living. This is a woman who was murdered.
(CROSSTALK)
STARK: And even with the other prostitutes that you`re mentioning, Nancy, these are people. These are human beings. And their past has nothing to do with the fact that they wind up getting murdered.
GRACE: To me, there are six beautiful young women who are either missing or dead. Summer Baldwin one of them. And although I`m giving Richard Herman and Marc Mukasey a hard time, those are, in fact, some of the defense theories you will see at trial. Both Richard and Marc, veteran defense attorneys.
Very quickly, everyone, to tonight`s "All-Points Bulletin." Law enforcement on the lookout for Ceasar Rosas, wanted in connection with the 2002 New York City shooting of Javiar Tukimony (ph) and the death of 10- year-old bystander Melanie Mendez (ph).
Rosas, 22, 5`6", 150 pounds, black hair, brown eyes. If you have info on Ceasar Rosas, please call 1-800-577-TIPS.
Local news next for some of you, but we`ll all be right back. And remember, live coverage of the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justice nominee Samuel Alito 3:00 to 5:00 Court TV.
Everyone, please stay with us tonight, as we stop to remember Lance Corporal Christopher Dyer, just 19, straight out of high school, an American hero.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: As we start the first week of 2006, tonight, missing but not forgotten. Some of the missing highlighted here on NANCY GRACE 2005.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My sister, she really was just an outgoing person. As far as her disappearance, if she had going away, she would have called me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I cannot even express how my family and our friends (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When we do hear rumors, even sometimes when they`re as horrendous as they can be, you know, we think, well, people are still out there looking, they`re still out there searching, they`re still out there listening.
BETH HOLLOWAY TWITTY, MOTHER OF NATALEE HOLLOWAY: I just know that we have to have answers. And I know the answers are right here. The answers are right here on the island. And, you know, we expect to get them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mother, I love you so much, and I know you already know that. I know you`ll come home soon. I`m going to keep fighting. I`m going to keep your story out there until we bring you home. Love you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just mostly just keep hope that she is alive. And that little bit of hope`s what keeps me going, that keeps me from breaking down every day. I mean, just it keeps me strong.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s my baby. I love her. If she could -- if she would (INAUDIBLE) in that car, she would have called. She would have called.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: A special thank you to Joanna Rogers` mother joining us, Kathy Rogers, and also to Jack and Vicki Wilkerson, who traveled all the way from Lubbock to Dallas, Texas, to tell you their girl`s story tonight.
Thank you to all of my guests tonight. Our biggest thank you to you, for being with us, inviting us into your homes. I`m Nancy Grace signing off for tonight. See you Monday night, 8:00 sharp. Until then, good night, friend.
END
